A Few Factors That May Negatively Affect Your Game Development Team’s Motivation
In game development, it’s super important to make sure everyone on your team is motivated to work as efficiently as possible. Here are some factors that will affect that motivation, and what you can do to try to remedy them if you find a lack of motivation to be an issue on your team. Firstly, you’ll need to ensure that your teammates truly have a sense of purpose. A developer that doesn’t have an intrinsic reason to work on a project isn’t going to care about that project if things get rough. If you can educate your team on how much of an impact their work is making and how they’re positively affecting the company, you can create a sense of community from the shared objective. Positive motivators in a team environment are extra effective, so seeing everyone else so excited to do what they do will spread to anyone doubting their purpose. Make your teammates genuinely care about the project.
Next, your team should have very clear goals. This sounds simple, but most people think they’re “above” setting goals and try to just work. The problem here is that without a list of goals, there’s no metric to show progress. If you can’t see any meaningful progress, your will to work will fade quickly. Make these goals both concise and precise, and review them on a regular basis to point out the progress that has been made, both from you and every other team member. Also any genuine praise received, no matter how small, will invoke a sense of pride and motivate your teammates to keep up the good work in the future.
We can also dive deeper into the team environment and provide more engagement opportunities. Every member of the team should feel as if they have a voice in what’s going on. The exact implementation of this can vary, but as long as everyone has frequent, regular opportunities to voice their opinions, the engagement will show its effects. If the team can prove that everyone’s input has been listened to, be it through active work or future work, everyone who put in any input will feel appreciated and will work more effectively in the future.
Most importantly though, the team has to trust each other. This is definitely a difficult point in the list, as if your team has a problem with trust it can be hard to regain it. Without trust, there won’t be open lines of communication, and without this open communication, none of the other motivational tips can possibly work. A person who feels uncomfortable working around others on the team will definitely not work to their potential. On the contrary, a team that is as close and as trusting as a family will work much more efficiently and will all mutually want to ensure the success of the team as a whole through their work. Unfortunately, if you have a problem with this, it’s very unlikely that you can fix it with words alone. Many times, only a roster change will fix this problem, and if you can’t fix the problem within a timely matter that lack of trust can spread to others in the group.
Important Takeaways: A team is only better than working solo if everyone on the team is sufficiently motivated, so here are some factors that affect a team’s motivation and what you can do to fix them if they’re causing problems. A team without purpose will find it hard to work when things get tough, so make sure that the team knows that their work is making an impact. Also, your team should have very clear goals so that progress is easily visible and will provide motivation; a team without goals will find it hard to see their progress and will not be motivated as they feel powerless in the grand scheme of things. Next, ensure that everyone on the team is engaging in regular conversation. A person who feels as though they have a voice and can see that their opinions are being taken into consideration will feel appreciated and work more efficiently in the future. Finally, everyone on the team has to trust each other or else your team will fall apart over time.
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About The Author
Daniel Doan is the Co-Founder & CGO of Black Shell Media and the developer of SanctuaryRPG and Overture, among dozens of unfinished game prototypes. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
