‘It is possible to fail in many ways… while to succeed is possible only in one way.’
Aristotle, 384 – 322 BC, Nichomachean Ethics.
Aristotle was probably talking about hard work, determination or some other unquantifiable variable here. On their own, they are just words, nouns or verbs that don’t really offer us any meaning or examples of success. It’s all perfectly fine to talk about those and get all ‘motivational speaker’ on you. What would be even better than that would be to talk about the actual examples of success and indeed, the cases where people have fallen flat on their faces; the real case studies into Success and Failure.
The Ups
In the business world, and especially the Videogame Industry, there are plenty of successful examples to draw upon. Here is an example from a games company that, if you’ve played videogames in the past forty years, you’ve probably heard about.
With such an attractive foundation for the videogame environment, your typical developer may even feel more motivated to produce outstanding quality when they aren’t tied by the evil chains of more rigorous and ‘set-in-stone’ management structures. Specifically, the organisational structure of the company they work for; the very easy going and trus
ting of their employees, or more structural heavy and ‘Borg’ like counterparts that whip their employees into productivity, presentation, profit and other ‘P’ sounding words.
Atari was founded in 1972 by an ‘Age of Aquarian’ thinker and developer, Nolan Bushnell and his partner in crime, Ted Dabney. At first it was a collection of like minded, free thinking individual software developers and engineers that all had one thing in common; a passion for their professions and drive to be idealists.
They were at the head of the Videogame Revolution in the early 80s. The company pioneered arcade gaming with the Magnavox Odyssey which housed the renowned title Pong. They also released videogame consoles ranging from the Atari 2600 to the Atari 5200. During that period, Atari was announced as the fastest growing company in the United States.
The reason Atari was so successful is due to the very early, probably unrealised, usage of Organic Organisational Structure. The company was formed during the very begin
nings of the videogame industry, so no previous videogame company business model would have been available. The people had collected together because they were very passionate about their chosen professions and wanted to be present at Atari.
The company as a whole was sold to Warner Communications in 1976, and adopted a very traditional business model. This venture move, plus the firing of Nolan Bushnell, is the moment where many believed Atari died in both quality of products and reputation. It was due to their easy, very organic organizational structure, that we believe Atari succe
eded, and the very traditional business model made the company of ‘Age of Aquarian’ thinkers’ misstep and eventually fail. After all, they did release E.T: The VideoGame (1982) only after his Lordship, Sir St. , The Renown Nolan Bushnell left the company (1978).
This highlights that in order to have a successful business and software development studio the right organisational structure must be used. In this case, that structure was an organic one, which was lost due to Warner Comm acquisition of Atari and eventually led to a massive decline in quality. This point is highlighted even more with the early success of Atari, its critically acclaimed high standards of quality and its casual, organic structure.
The Downs
Even though Atari is cited for lowering its quality in production, this point is only really valid after Warner Comm acquired the developers. There are other stories of similar declines in quality due to studio and management change over, but this isn’t the only reason a project can fail.
Even when the company is left well enough alone, there can still be slight hiccups in development… like the studio going bust and having to close. This happened in the next example, and shows a very critical failure when not following the Agile Management Model.
Everyone loves the foul mouthed gun freak that is Duke Nukem. The character could run for Prime Minister and win it from sheer brawl and snappy one-liners. Ever since first blasting little stripper piglets I wanted a bigger, better and badder Mr. Duke ‘Cigar Smokin’ Nukem.
I was totally let down…
One of Agile Management’s strengths is that it lays out a method in which software developers can produce software in stages, like steps from a set of stairs. Each step is more complete, more polished than the last one. But even from the very first step there is a product feel to the software, something solid and tangible to show for the work progress. A continuation and adaptation to a strong foundation, building up the product instead of spreading it through the lifecycle of the entire project.
Life Cycles, Schedules and all that fancy Project Management stuff isn’t done in a rooted, A to B style. Instead of being done over the entire project, they’re all done in the baby like steps of the production pipeline. It seems simple enough and you’d imagine such a model would be a dream for any videogame development studio, who could work in a looser schedule than more rigorous business models…
So why 3D Realms couldn’t utilize this and at least give us a near completed Duke Nukem Forever is beyond comprehension. To make matters worse, it isn’t as if they were working on Duke Nukem Forever for only a few months. They were working on the title for twelve years!
They say the problem was in the funding for the game; that it was cut off quickly. Had the studio taken the game in small stages, producing content and setting tasks in a milestone method, instead of attempting to reinvigorate the engine, up the graphics and optimise before production was even half way done, they may have been able to increase their funding.
Apparently he was right; there is plenty of Duke to go around (that was an ‘in’ joke for everyone who didn’t get it). The funders and publishers to Duke Nukem Forever, Take-Two, still retain the rights to the title. Its still not announced if they’ll be another developer in the pipeline, but in order to avoid failing on the level that 3D Realms did, lets hope any future developers can produce in baby steps and not bite off more than they can chew.
The Middle Ground
From the success and quality of early Atari, to the long winded and disappointing development cycle of 3D Realms, success and failure has many forms. Each individual project is just that; individual and unique. They all need to be approached with care and an understanding of how the larger machine of the company operates.
Its one thing to come at every project with the same style, but in the cut throat world of software development and creative industries in general, one slip and you’re on the sidelines. Taking a rigorous business model with rules and strict, set methods of operations and applying it to a company that’s used to a more organic, agile method is practically project suicide. The same can be said of taking the structure of a company like Atari and applying it to that typical image of an office atmosphere. Upsetting the rules of formal heavy businessmen with that of looser companies would leave them leaping around trying to figure out what’s going on.
Project Management is all about being able to manage the various project that come your way, whether that is done using Agile Management or the Waterfall Method is completely dependant on the company and the situation.
