How to decide when to decide in game development

To decide or not to decide. That is the question! You’ll never have 100% information. Even with hindsight all you can see is the results of the choice that was made. So how do you know when to just choose something and move on versus deliberate and/or wait for someone else to make the decision? Today we’ll be asking lots of questions that will get you thinking and help you figure out a plan of attack.

We start by talking about the weird role that game production plays in game studios. Then we’ll get into a bunch of questions to help you figure out whether you should make a decision right now. We’ll look at the framing & categorisation, decision making history, timing, and what you actually know. From there we’ll talk about why it’s ok to block your team from doing work sometimes. We’ll discuss the key steps of actually making a decision, how to deal with team decision paralysis, and how to avoid making decisions.

Have a question for an expert game producer? Ask me your question here: https://jennsand.com/askjenn/ Text version: https://jennsand.com/advice/make-decisions/ Video version: https://youtu.be/5Yvt96sMV50

Jenn’s Generally Good Game Production Advice: How to decide when to decide in game development 00:00 Introduction 00:45 Question 00:56 Game Production Is Weird 02:18 Framing & Decision Categorisation 04:05 Decision Making History 04:52 Decision Timing 05:27 What Do You Know? 07:16 It’s OK to Block your Team!! 07:52 Making a decision 09:09 Dealing with team decision paralysis 09:38 Avoid Making Decisions 12:31 Conclusions

Jenn’s Generally Good Game Production Advice is an advice column for our modern ages and for game developers everywhere. Topics covered will help you ship your game on time, on budget, with a happy team no matter whether you are a producer or someone else on the game team.