Dealing with unproductive groups

[ehcs]

For me, nothing can kill the mood like and unenthusiastic team. I find it very disheartening when no one else wants to work on a project as much I would. How do you deal with team members who don't budge? Do you have to be patient with them or find other people to work with? I tried to just ignore it for now but their laziness and apathy is starting to spread.

[dramspringfeald]

There are plenty of ways to breath life into a Project that has a team working on it.

If the team is in person...

Try using music with a higher tempo to boost boost productivity speed. what ever the Majority Genre vote is, Make sure it's instrumental because lyrics could bleed into the minds of the programmers.. unless that is what you are shooting for.

Group Activities such as D&D, Paintball, Nerf or anything that gets the body moving.

If "slump' occurs maybe a coffee break and stretch to get everyone going again. Every 90 minuets or so it'll be time for a break. Keeps people from drifting and allows them to let their brains rest.

If everyone is "cranky" maybe call it a day and continue on your own. Learn to read your Dev team and they will be more then pliable and able to work longer on a project.

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If Dev Team is Online look at getting a second life, MMO or skype for the team to "hang out" in. Participate in activities and raids together. this builds a stronger working effort.

Also look at getting a free online music channel that you can program or agree to all listen too. Syncing your minds to music helps keep everyone operating in tune.

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Either way no matter which dev style you are using remember to READ and Listen to them. think of them as no different then fellow workers or Students from class and STICK to a scheduled.

Set up Obtainable non-avoidable deadlines and check points. and watch this video

So You Want To Be a Producer

[SundownKid]

The optimal way of dealing with them is simple, set a reasonable deadline, if they miss it for any reason, fire them and find someone else. If you can't find anyone else, put the project on hold until you can make enough money to pay them for the work. You can't expect unpaid project members to be anything but lackadaisical about your project, since no one is as devoted to it as you are. This is a very common problem since people just don't have that creative drive and vision, at least for someone else's project, and will typically do the least possible work to finish. Ironically, it is usually just faster to put the project on hold until you can find someone to pay to finish it quickly.

If your dev team is in person, though, you should try to get them engaged by giving them clear tasks to work on and showing the results in a regular manner.

[EroBotan]

if this lazy-ness happen to the whole team then I suggest to abandon the sinking ship and create your own new project

[nyaatrap]

Pay money for professionals. There's no meaning to work with unproductive amateurs. Only reason work with amateurs is they have more passion than professionals. If they have None, they're useless.

[ehcs]

@dramspringfeald
Thanks so much for your two cents! I'll definitely watch the video as soon as I get home where the internet is substantially faster. The team actually just consists of two people but the other one just vanishes a lot. It would go on for days or weeks where I can't contact the person as if they were in hiding.

@SundownKid
I'd love to pay for professionals, I really would. I think I might have to too. All the amateurs who offer to work with me end up being all talk an no action so it's starting to really irk me. Thanks for the suggestion!

@EroBotan
I think I might do just that. I'm already rewriting the whole story of the project so that they can't complain that I used any of their suggested ideas. It might just be better to make this a solo project.

@nyaatrap
Your words can't be truer. Thanks so much for saying that. I completely agree but be it amateur or professional, no passion is useless.



Thanks for the tips and words of wisdom everyone! I'm going to give it one more day but if the problem still persists I'm just going to have to make my project a solo effort.

[Chu-3]

don't make your project too long. since even people with passion, sometime after several times the passion will cool down, and they will begin to abandon it. at least it is what happened with my experience. it would be much better if they already have experience in making games, since people like that will be harder to lost the passion, as they already predicted how hard it will be. and also, it would be much much better if you know they offline.

[TrickWithAKnife]

I sometimes get the feeling that "I'd love to be a part of this project as a [insert job title here]!" actual means "This is an interesting idea. Perhaps I'll comment on it every few months. But probably not."

If you want to keep people interested, you need to pay them.

If you manage to find people who stick through to the end without requiring payment, treat them very well, and be very grateful for their time. Even if they do require payment, they should still be treated very well.

[SundownKid]

With this kind of work, it's REALLY difficult to finish with unpaid team members, since all the work will have to be thrown away if an artist decides to jump ship, even if it's 50% done. A programmer can have a similar problem, and even a writer if the text is unevenly written. Having people that stick with you until the end is essential, and the best way is to pay them.

Another problem is that unpaid or extremely low-paid team members often decide to leave when they DO find someone who can give them money. Unless they are REALLY, and I mean INCREDIBLY devoted to your project, they will leave it at the wayside if someone offers them cold, hard cash.

People will often be completely unmotivated unless you give them constant, daily reminders... and even then, they will "not have time" most of the time, because really, who wants to be doing busy work you don't really care about simply for the satisfaction of a stranger?

Of course, it is possible to finish a project with an unpaid team, but the project has to be really short and doable in a month's time, with only a few characters. After that, people will start losing motivation like water in a sinking ship. I've been working on my project on and off for a year, and even I'm grappling with motivation for my own project that I used to be incredibly excited about, so imagine how someone else doing it on their free time would feel? At least I will never stop writing it, because I actually legitimately have an emotional connection to the work.

[Deji]

I find that it's easier to finish a project with unpaid team-members if the project is short and each of them is invested in its creation by having something that feels like it's "theirs"; people in general don't feel like working on something on their free time that doesn't feel "personal": "Why should I work on your project when I can work (or not work) on mine instead?".
There *has* to be a sense of ownership. If there is no such thing, eventually the team member(s) will lose momentum and focus on something more interesting and/or a personal project or they'll just prioritize their free time to spend it doing whatever other thing they find more interesting/fun/rewarding.

Money is also a great incentive: If I have bills to pay and/or there's something I want to buy or save money for, I'll prioritize paid work over unpaid work, there's no way around it and no amount of talking with convince me of the contrary; it's a matter of priorities. Mine are as follows, and I guess it may be a similar thing for other people:

1. Paying bills, buying food, buying things I need.
2. Spending time with family and friends
3. Personal project I'm very invested in and actually making progress on.
3a. Resting time.
4. Work for a for fun project with an online friend that I feel ownership of.
5. Work for a for fun project with an online friend that I don't feel ownership of.
5a. Other personal projects of any kind.
6. "Me" time.
7. Devoting time to a project with a stranger.

The "I spend X amount of hours a week to this projects, why can't you if you *do* have free time D:?" motivation doesn't work, so don't try it, please ^^;;;
What may be a priority 3 for you, for me or other person may be a priority 7 and each person has the right to spend their free time n any way they feel like it, that's why it's "free time".

[MioSegami]

I feel the pain, but everyone has their own life and they can spend their free time they want it to be. To be honest it's why people pay professional because they get the work done, and finished when asked. Like nyaatrap said "Pay money for professionals. There's no meaning to work with unproductive amateurs. Only reason work with amateurs is they have more passion than professionals. If they have None, they're useless." It's quite true even for an amateur like me. lol. I certainly have burning passion for mine, but none may not feel the same way as I feel about my project. So it makes only me as the only main productive one. So get some workers/ helpers that are super interested in your project and is willing stay through out the whole project. And who can blame if they back out, they aren't getting paid when they probably prefer to get paid. Meaning they're wasting their free time on doing a project without getting paid. So it's important to find someone who is super interested in your project. If not than most likely you'll have to pay. That is why I do not have a big organization. I can't pay commissions, the only member I have is my sister, who also does VNs.

[netravelr]

The best way to do is to do your part as a team member.

This. I know I'm a lot more excited about working on a project when someone else is making progress on it as well; being excited about seeing progress being made on the game. If you do feel someone's not doing their part after that however, then I think a conversation is worth having. Hope this helps!

[Rosstin2]

Sundown and Deji speak the truth.

A fruitful collaboration is the result of either a close personal or professional relationship, money, or intense passion.

I try to make things happen by being an active, aggressive, supportive producer, who always does his part. Reputation is the currency of gamedev. I try to keep a track record of always finishing what I start, and it pays off when I can call on the aid of some incredible artists who I've built a trusting relationship with over the years.

You have to give everything of yourself to create good team members.