How do you structure your teams?

[test]

Im curious, how do you guys make your various teams?

1. Do you have teams with designers, programmers and artists in the same team or do you have programmers in their own team, designers in their own etc.?

2. How big do you make your teams?

3. How many teams do you usually have later in teh game?

[antoniowatson]

I'm sure my approach is not the best, but I set them up around what I want them to develop, with everyone doing everything. Something like... Gaming; Support; Systems; Marketing etc. This new update has got me rethinking this. I may do something like: Design; Programmers; Marketing; Legal; Support ... or some version thereof.

[Gopher]

Right now because of the way hiring people is all screwy I usually do this.

I choose artist, I choose high salary, and I find people with art skills, designer, and programmer and I build my design teams with these low salary artists with programming skills.

Then I have a marketing team, and two support teams. The support teams are also programmers so I have them help on the alpha stage and the bug finding.

[OVKHuman]

I make different teams based on the software they are working on. Its just easier for me to organize. Teams can be as big as they need to be but I typically put about double the recommended in the late game. As I make teams based on the software they make, I usually end up with however many software I can develop including different platforms.

[test]

Originally posted by OVKHuman:

I make different teams based on the software they are working on. Its just easier for me to organize. Teams can be as big as they need to be but I typically put about double the recommended in the late game. As I make teams based on the software they make, I usually end up with however many software I can develop including different platforms.

So you move people around teams to have the numbers you need for the software you make?
That feels like a lot of micro managing ...

Do you respect the recommended people strictly or ... (talking about early/mid game)

[OVKHuman]

Originally posted by test:

Originally posted by OVKHuman:

I make different teams based on the software they are working on. Its just easier for me to organize. Teams can be as big as they need to be but I typically put about double the recommended in the late game. As I make teams based on the software they make, I usually end up with however many software I can develop including different platforms.

So you move people around teams to have the numbers you need for the software you make?
That feels like a lot of micro managing ...

Do you respect the recommended people strictly or ... (talking about early/mid game)

I generally don't have to move people around teams except for the early game. And in the early game you only have like 2-3 teams anyways

I generally just take the recommended, double it and chuck it in HR. With education thats plenty to make a good software. The slight margin in the recommended doesnt matter because of this

[Gopher]

I usually have two teams for each software as well, one morning and one evening team so that I can meet deadlines easier.

[Chaonix]

I used to have a development team, an art team and an design team.....but it works well if they are even a little bit competent in all....as one team. I usually have an applications team (2d editors and such) an enterprise team (OS) a research team, a marketing team, a support team....and now with alpha 11....a legal department.

[Kloakenpaul]

I usually assign teams to the software they are working on (OS, 2D editor, audio,etc.) and leave them to develop newer versions of the same software type.
Marketing does only marketing and I hire them once I have enough money... before that it is the task of the individual teams. Support does only support, but they can help out development from time to time.
Often in later game I realize that I am lacking certain requirements, so I do add small teams for only 2D arts, audio arts, or development and then add them to the development as necessary.
I have not tested the newest version often enough to change my strategy on this.

Has anybody tested the best requirements for a support team? I am always taking guesses on that one and hire various programmers....

[Aestiri]

I currently have been experimenting with this.

Typical structure is product specific. I.e. might be 4 programmers + 4 designers + 1 artist for x software. Then ill call the team ProductName Team.

But i've just recently began experimenting with having product specific design and product specific dev teams and have found it increases efficiency and speed for me.

So atm I have my OS product teams as follows:

OS Design Team: X number of designers handles design work for OS product
OS Development Team: X number of programmers handles dev work for OS product

Easier to have compatibility as team sizes are much smaller.

Then I just use my general Marketing team and both a Support and Overnight Support team. I am looking at using this team structure for new products in future.

[test]

Originally posted by Aestiri:

I currently have been experimenting with this.

Typical structure is product specific. I.e. might be 4 programmers + 4 designers + 1 artist for x software. Then ill call the team ProductName Team.

But i've just recently began experimenting with having product specific design and product specific dev teams and have found it increases efficiency and speed for me.

So atm I have my OS product teams as follows:

OS Design Team: X number of designers handles design work for OS product
OS Development Team: X number of programmers handles dev work for OS product

Easier to have compatibility as team sizes are much smaller.

Then I just use my general Marketing team and both a Support and Overnight Support team. I am looking at using this team structure for new products in future.

Interesting, I might have to experiment with this as well.

I just had big-ish teams which did all sort of softwares. By big I mean 20-26 people. A team would have a few designers, artists and a lot of developers.

[Dalithgar]

I make my teams consist of 7 people per team. I normally have a couple teams with 2 design, 3 coders, 1 marketer and 1 artist. That is the composition of my first 2 teams, then I have a full team of 7 coders to work on code heavy projects. I have a team of 7 artists of every type for art heavy projects. and then the next team I make reverts back to 2 design, 3 coders, 1 marketer and 1 artist. The most Teams I have had were 5 and could work on 2 large projects at the same time while keeping up marketing for projects that are already released and taking care of bugs on those projects. My company on average makes 3-4 mil per month.