Is the project manager role outdated?

(this post can also be found at http://www.hansoft.com/expertblog/is-the-project-manager-role-outdated/)

The project manager, as I was taught in engineering school, makes sure that the requirements are in place by collaborating with customers or internal stakeholders. He then converts the requirements into a plan that the team can execute upon, delivering a product long after the projected end date. This was a monumental task, continuously updating the schedule and re-planning the teams work due to delays and dependencies kept him occupied. It also made him instrumental to the success of the project, remove him and there would be chaos.

The game producer role often looks very similar to the project manager’s. They are typically the link between the creative and the teams, converting designs into tasks and driving the teams forward by tracking and tasking team members. Remove the producer and there will be chaos.

The fact that removing the producer will cause mayhem could be seen as a strong argument for the importance of producers. It could lead to the faulty conclusion that you need to add more people to strengthen a vital function in the team. In reality the best producers are the ones that have made themselves redundant; they have successfully set up a system that works without them. Much like a sports coach, he can sit quietly at the side line, watching his team crush the opposition.

There are a lot of game studios out there that boasts about their ability to work without a producer role in their team. Years of bad practice within project management has tainted an important function.  Every time I hear this I smile to myself, someone is doing the producing, but they are just not calling them producer. No serious sports team would consider playing without a coach.

So what is good producing?

A modern producer does not put himself in the middle of things, he observes and coaches. He looks at things that are about to become problems and cleans them out the way by proactively facilitating process fixes. He helps the teams set up frameworks that make them more efficient and less in need of outside assistance. He helps the creative team organize their work and collaborate with the teams to ensure that they are delivering towards the vision. Essentially he is continuously working on building a team that can run without him being around. A modern producer thinks the best day is the day when he comes into work and has nothing to do. Here are a few statements I think all producers should strive for:

When a producer excels in all above things, he will eventually become redundant, and here lies the problem. Essentially good producing means that you downplay your own skills to help the team grow theirs. Typically the producers are people that have a strong development background, which is result focused and personal gratification comes from delivering. In producing the gratification is more similar to the role of the teacher; it’s from the growth of your teams.