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Right Here, Right Now and The Pursuit of Your North Star.
The Past in the Mirror, Present Transient, Future North Star Destiny.
People Need to Work on Important Things Daily Towards the Ultimate Destination.
Don’t Fall Prey to ‘The New Shiny’.
Life is Like a Chair – Four Legs Solid, Three Legs Unstable, Two Legs or One You Fall.
Pursue Opportunities and Take Risks – One Chair Leg At a Time.
Rock Sifter and Tumbler of Life – Sorting and Polishing People as They Evolve.
Don’t Find Yourself Jumping from the Bell Tower, Down to Your Death:
Rock Sifter and Tumbler Are Part of Growing as a Person – They Are Good Things:
Do Not Protect Incompetence (including your own management/executives):
Your Life and Future Are In Your Hands – Don’t Let the Tumbler or Sifter Define You.
Schedules, Quality, Competence, and Metrics.
Scheduling - Using Actuals vs Estimates and Min-Max Time Units (Half-Day to Five-Day).
Watch for ‘Human Convenient Round Numbers.
Watch for Unsupported PFA’ed Numbers (Plucked from Air / Arse).
Watch For Bull-Based Planning – Texan Long Horn Development.
People Tend to Be Indecisive – Especially to Avoid Being Cast in a Negative Light.
Confirmation Bias Corrupts Quality Assessment.
Quality – Scoring 1-4 Removes Indecisive ‘Middle’ Choice (be either side of ‘good’).
Single Owner Per Task or Delivery.
Dependency and Risk Assessment, Mitigation.
Learn How to Use Design Deconstruction.
Introduce 2-3 Things New At Most…In Any Experience – Software or Game.
Make Sure There is a Risk-Reward Loop and Reward Gratuitous Play.
Give Something Valued, and Take it Away – To Motivate ‘Vengeance Zealotry’.
Being Crispy Heart – Judging Three People Runing Seven Other People’s Lives.
Fusion was the Island of Broken Toys.
Unappreciated, Social Outcasts Related to Being a Broken Toy – Wanted Fusion.
Broken Toys Outpaced, Outshined ‘Normal Employees’.
Suggestions on How to Work with Broken Toys.
Richard shares a tangent on how criminals ‘interview for their next job’ while in prison – because that is where the criminal ‘job network’ was.
EAC Fusion Was Wildly Successful – And So Could Do Whatever It Pleased.
Other EA Divisions Saw Fusion as a Threat – That Could Expose Their Failings.
EAC Fusion Were Nation-Loyal Pirates Within Corporate EA.
Reverse Takeover from Within EAC.
“Jedi Council” – Am I a Jedi Knight or a Sith Lord.
“Jedi” Council, Central Tech, and SWAT.
‘Recruiter Test’ of Loyalty Before Raise, Bonus, or Promotion – Reject Cold Calls.
Kaizen – Continuous Improvement.
Mentorship Program and Engineering Training and Bigger Picture “Ted Talks”.
Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) and Hiring & Firing Are Your Friends.
Constructive Guidance and Resistance to Criticism Sandwiches.
Make 10 People 10% Better – Double Your Value – Compounds and Spreads.
Work Towards a Plan, Not Towards a Goal or North Star Alone.
Venn Diagrams – Job, Game Team, and Central Team Responsibilities.
Having an Idea is Not Special – Delivering an Idea IS SPECIAL AND MAGICAL.
‘Average’ Sees the Need for Something – ‘Genius’ Sees the Solution for Things.
Genius is understanding what you were not taught (self-learning comprehension).
Three to Five Pillars for What Matters Most (WMM) and Stack Ranked Features, Tools, and Work.
If Everything is a Priority (is Important), Then Nothing Is a Priority (or Important).
Be Third to Cross the Minefield.
And so much more…
No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy – But Innovators Persevere.
Armchair Warrior Strategies and Tactics Are Ineffective in an Unforgiving World.
Get in the Trenches and Get Dirty – Work with People and Roles at All Levels.
Ivory Tower Isolation Does Not Protect Against Bad Plans.
Managing Change Curves.
Win Hearts over Minds- Unite Under North Star, March into Hell for Heavenly Cause.
People Gladly Sacrifice to ‘Do the Right Thing’ or ‘Stand by Their Tribe’.
Projects Come… Projects Go… What Was Learned and How Can Things Improve.
Postmortems – People, Product, Process, Tech, North Star.
Don’t Be Married to Your Ideas or Old Ways.
Watch for Divide & Conquer Chaos Vs Marching Together in One Direction.
Separate Signal from Noise – Secret of Great Critical Thinkers.
Five Tenants for Project Postmortem Review – People, Product, Process, Technology. North Star.
Technical Debt – Catch Up During Change & Down Times; Avoid Accumulation.
Information is Data Interpreted for a Purpose; Data Alone is Useless.
Information is Foundation of Plans of Action, or Staying the Course of a Plan.
Wisdom is Knowledge from Interpreted Experience.
Villages Need Heroes, Heroes Do NOT Need Villages.
Protect Yourself to Protect Others.
Watch For Manufactured Crises – To Justify a False White Knight.
Could ‘Dumpster Dive’ Into Source & Data Version Control – For Project Insight.
Firefighters vs Fire Marshals – One Possible Mitigation to Manufactured Crises.
Importance of a ‘Fixer’.
Heroes Come in All Forms.
Changing the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and Creating EA Sports Active Hardware Peripheral.
With Great Success – Comes More Opportunities…for More Success, Or to Fail.
EA Sports Active Hardware Innovation –Motion & Heart Rate Sensing Wearable.
Proprietary Chips to Communicate Between Game Pads and Consoles.
Shenzhen, Hong Dormitories and Cafeterias – People Just Had to Do Their Jobs.
Subordinate Culture Everywhere – Especially to ‘Business & Work Givers’:
Meals of Bugs and Nasties.
Cloak & Dagger Theatrics – and Fluid Coordination.
Secret Meeting, Opposite Room 512 – with EA Worldwide Execs and Others.
All About Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) – of JamDat Mobile.
Discovered Buried Library Not Owned by JamDat – Big Savings Anticipated.
EA Bought JamDat Mobile.
Traveled Abroad to Assess Potential Contract Developers – And Mitigate Gaps.
Canada Border Customs & Immigration Stopped Me – Sent Me to ‘the Back Room’.
Destroyed Canadian Work Permit – Banned from Entering Canada EVER AGAIN.
All of My Travel Was Monitored, Tracked, and Reported to FBI.
‘NO RECORDS FOR YOU’ – Declares FBI.
Who Was I - Drug Lord, Human Trafficker, or What!? – All Because of my Residency Permit.
Why might I be tracked by Interpol and the FBI…!?
There was Pirates Bay International, MDIdeas, and ITAT – The Mob.
PBI and The Apple Computer Heist.
PBI and The Stolen Memory Cards.
Random Tales of Traveling Abroad…
The Man Worried Smuggling Cheez-It Snack Food – Smuggled into Canada.
Insane Import Taxes, Tariffs on Individual & Retail Shipped Items and Purchases.
Beans and Taco Sauce Were Scarce and Overpriced in Canada.
An Original Xbox Prototype Development Kit – Was Perceived as a Bomb.
Hard Disc of Secrets – International Spy – or Intellectual Property Thief.
Americans Cannot Be Questioned by Canadian Immigration – Declared A Producer.
Challenged for Abandoning Canadian Permanent Residence.
Protecting Individual and Team Innovations and Work.
Bad Actors Sought to Learn My Vulnerabilities Covertly, Feigning Mentorship.
Recognize and Celebrate Team and Individual Successes.
Recognized, Celebrated Successes Protects Individual and Team Work From Theft.
The Complexity of Due Diligence and Team & Project Assessment.
What is Due Diligence and Why Due Diligence Matters.
Due Diligence Insight Is Derived from My Failures.
Avoid ‘Checklist Management’.
Episode Will Be ‘SUPER TECHY’ and ‘CHECKLIST HEAVY’.
The Value of Reporting on Technical and Development Plan Reviews.
ENGAGEMENT Should Increase Fidelity and Narrowing of Scope Over Time.
Perpetual Looping Five Stages of Developer Engagement and Course Correction.
Review Objectives.
The Output – Let’s Discuss This Before We Get Deep Into the ‘Checklist’ Weeds.
RACI (Responsible, Approving, Consulted, Involved) Ownership Model.
Technical & Development Plan + Milestone Reviews Need A LOT of Pre-Work.
Due Diligence and Project-Milestone Assessment and Reporting – A Lot to Digest.
There Is A LOT Involved with Technical and Experiential Product Development.
Define Team Structure and Organization Interaction Interfaces – Swim Lanes.
Define Tech & Experiential Design Authors, Dev Plan Reviewers-different than RACI.
Leads And Directors Typically Found on Projects.
Conducting Deep Dive Technical and Development Plan Reviews.
Briefs Should Be Short, Succinct, and Avoid Wasting Time in Documentation.
Who Should Attend a Technical or Development Plan Review.
The Role of The Reviewer.
Leverage your Experts.
What Are the Results from A Technical or Development Plan Review – Pass/Fail.
Post TDR-DPR Review Follow-Up Order of Events.
RACI (Responsible, Approving, Consulted, Involved) Ownership Model.
And – That Is How the TDR-DPR Meeting is Conducted.
Key Major Milestone Names and Explanation.
PRE-ALPHA MILESTONE.
TECH ALPHA MILESTONE.
Exceptions To Tech. Alpha – Document, Schedule, and Resource Overhang Work.
Content Engineering in Production (vs Proofs during Pre-Production).
ALPHA MILESTONE.
Tuning & Content Lock.
PRE-BETA MILESTONE.
BETA MILESTONE.
FINAL MILESTONE.
DONE MILESTONE – Finishing House Keeping Work Post Beta and Final.
Pre-Production Review.
Pre-Production Organization Briefs.
Pre-Production Planning & Review Process – By Team.
Workdays Should Match Everyone’s Workdays – Tried 4-Day Work Week – Stupid.
Pre-Production Technology Design Briefs.
Pre-Production Experience Design Briefs.
Pre-Production Development Plan Briefs.
Pre-Production Discussion Briefs.
What to Look for in Tech and Experience Design Briefs.
Production Review.
Mandatory Production Tech Design Briefs.
Production Development Plan Briefs.
Production Development Plan Schedule Briefs.
Final’ing and Finishing – Hopefully Without a Needing Help – From a Product Fixer.
The Value of Raw Technical and Development Plan Reviews.
Examples of tech areas to review…
Service and Telemetry & Analytics Plan Review.
Perpetual Looping Five Stages of Telemetry and Analytics.
Analytics Engineering Review Deep Dive.
Analyst Review Deep Dive.
Service Engineering Review Deep Dive.
All About Data Design and Optimization Secrets.
Follow The Data to Know Everything.
Unwinding The Ball of Code Yarn – Using Data.
Optimization – What It Is and Why It Is Important.
Data Optimization is the King and Code Optimization is the Queen Optimization.
Data Design is HUGE.
Data Design – Use Smallest Data Possible.
Data Design – Arrange Data in Close Proximity to Related Data.
Data Design – Align Data on Native Processor Fetch Size and Cache Lines.
Data Design – Direct Memory Access (DMA) Data Copies.
All About Code Optimization Secrets.
Code Optimization is Queen – Good Data Design Depends on Good Code Design.
Code Optimization is HUGE (Code & Data Go Hand-in-Hand - as King & Queen).
Consider How Many Fingers Are in Your Code – Our Code Can Be Better.
Code Optimization – Profile Your Code.
Code Optimization – Things To Look For…
Defined Targets and Goals – Local & Cloud Storage, Memory, Performance.
Profiling From a Baseline – Identify Where to Optimize For Greatest Impact.
Continuous Monitoring and Response.
Performance Harnesses and Test Bots.
Optimizing Code Has Its Place – Focus on High-Use and High-Time-Use Algorithms.
Optimizing For Latency, Lag, and Lost Data Packets + Dead-Reckoning Prediction.
Polling Listeners vs Message Event Handlers – Reactors.
All About Culling Data, Using Scene Graphs, Search Algorithms, and Open Source.
Optimizing Authored Data – Cull Never/Rarely Seen Content.
Optimizing Authored Data – Group Data for Better Cullin.
Optimizing Authored Data – Scene Graphing.
Optimizing Authored Data – Search Algorithms – A*/Whatever – Search Both Ends.
Open Source and Blackhole Binaries – Libraries, Tools, and Runtime Modules.
Hear tales from Richard’s Adventure at EA Switzerland.
Leader Point, Emerging Leaders, and EA Switzerland – Leadership Training Course.
Leadership is More About Thinking Than Doing, and Acting on Sufficient Knowledge.
You Don’t Know Why Someone is Behaving Poorly – e.g. Dog Died, Spouse Left.
Leadership with Ducati, Evian, Hasbro + Farewell EA Switzerland.
All About Brands in Business.
Tale of Ducati Motorcycles.
Tale of Evian Bottled Water.
Tale of Hasbro and the Littlest Pet Shop.
Dinner in The Wine Cellar – No Recording Devices - A Safe Place to Say Anything.
Swiss Farewell Cruise –Circles Around a Lake.
Extravagance and Excess.
Hear how EA Fusion was dying and how Richard had to deal with a terrible ‘bad manager’.
Fled Trouble at EA Canada Fusion for Opportunity in Xbox Studios.
Secured Director of Product Development Job in Xbox Studios for Dave McCarthy.
Joined Xbox Studios to Oversee Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) + Kids & Lifestyle Games.
Products: Nike+ Kinect, NatGeo, Sesame Street, Sentient AI, Analytics, Xbox Fitness.
Leaving Electronic Arts (EA) Fusion – As It Was Pillaged by EA Canada’.
I Was Hired Into Microsoft Xbox as Director of Product Development.
‘Old School’ Microsoft Staff Hated ‘EA’ Hires Because They Brought EA Culture Too.
Bottom-Line: ‘Old School Microsoft Staff’ Viewed EA Hires As Enemies of the State.
Microsoft Fought EA – and EA Won.
“Do You Know Who I Am!?”
Richard Has Been Described as Video Game Industry Luminary, Founder, and Innovator.
Many interviews have been published about Richard; he even appeared on TV.
Richard’s Career Was Long and Storied.
P.S. For the record and annals of history – Escape from Hell used no code or anything from a game called Wasteland of the era…
Adventures of Rick Liberty & Hell Difficulty Saga
Texas, United States
Adventures of Rick Liberty, The Hell Difficulty Saga, AI Demystified, Tech Zone, The Liberty Zone, Lessons & Insights from The Video Game Industry Book Series are Copyright © 2024 RICHARD SEABORNE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Contact RickLiberty@Sea-Rocks.com
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