Level up your leadership: https://forms.gle/nqRTUvgFrtdYuCbr6
Are you optimizing four out of five teams on your project, only to find your final ship date hasn't moved a single day?
In game development, when multiple teams or disciplines are working toward a release, exactly one of them will decide when you ship: the long pole. If you can't identify which team is that long pole, you may be wasting critical leadership attention on teams that don't need it while leaving the bottleneck unsupported.
In this episode of Building Better Games, Ben Carcich breaks down how to identify the effort that truly dictates your timeline, measure real pace instead of stacking expert guesses, and focus your leadership energy where it actually changes your ship date.
What you'll learn in this episode:
- What the "long pole" concept is and why it determines your actual ship date
- Why relying on expert guesses and stacking assumptions ruins project plans
- How to use historical team data and pace to project realistic release timelines
- How long poles show up across multi-team projects, discipline pipelines, and sprint dependencies
- Why pushing teams that aren't the long pole can waste time when the ship date matters
- How to prevent hiring in the wrong places when trying to solve velocity problems
- How to focus support on the bottleneck team without resorting to micromanagement or crunch
- Why vision, culture, and prioritization matter far more than perfecting a plan
If you're a leader in game dev who is tired of guessing ship dates, drowning in complex Gantt charts, or pushing teams faster without seeing the final release date move, this episode is for you.
Connect with us:
🔗Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/
🔗BBG's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/building-better-games/
🔗Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildingbettergames/#
🔗Website: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg
🔗YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buildingbettergames
If you want help leading teams and studios to better games players love, you can reach me at: info@valarinconsulting.com
#GameDevLeadership #GameProduction #AgileGameDev #ProjectManagement #BuildingBetterGames
