A Producer is the person in charge of day-to-day operations concerning a specific product or project. The overall goal of a producer is to keep driving the team forward.
They serve as the 'go-to' person for the team, client services for product owners, and, most importantly, the problem solver for anything project related. The producer answers the 'How' for basic questions.
For example: How do we get this to work? How can we keep things running smoothly? How do we overcome this obstacle/roadblock? For those of you familiar with Project Management, a producer is best compared to
as a project manager in a Strong Matrix organization.
- Optimizing the development workflow to allow sufficient time for testing and verification without hindering the milestone deadlines
- Identifying, isolating, and removing roadblocks before they can impact the development team or the project deadlines
- Creating, coordinating, and maintaining progress reports across all departments in order to stay on top of the development lifecycle and forecast potential issues
- Reviewing bi-weekly builds with team leads to assess overall vision and maintain the integrity and stability of the application
- Designing, structuring, and scheduling various game tools for internal development and external player experience such as the map editor, randomized NPC property creator, and the end-user interface
- Researching, evaluating, and recommending various payment processors for revenue generation
The Project Manager is a little trickier because the role can change depending on the industry. For the most part, the project manager is a strategist and a coordinator. The Project Manager
is responsible for creating the plan of attack, deciding the best method(s) to succeed, and tracking the individual components of the product. I have always looked at it as PM not only stands for Project Manager,
but also Puzzle Master. The Project manager makes everything fit into place in the most efficient and effective way possible. The PM answers the informational 'W' questions: Who, What, When, and Where. Who is working on
this task? What is the next step? When do you need this by? Where does this fit into the schedule?
Managed three individual projects: Corporate Events, Hardware Rollout, and Certification Program
Created project plans including budget, resources, timelines, and meeting schedules
Designed training manuals, handbooks, and original program specifications
Evaluated individual team members and assigned tasks based on strengths
Developed an in-depth escalation system to optimize communications
Scheduled weekly meetings with clients for purposes of quality assurance and accuracy
Maintained multiple project timelines to mitigate additional features and project changes
Minimized risk through the use of dynamic and adaptation methodologies
Design, to me, is about how someone can contribute an idea to make the product better or how the person can create a feature, or add content, that the product just couldn't do without. In contrast to the sections above, Design is more focused on intuition, ingenuity, and raw talent.
In making reference to our earlier comparisons, Design is the 'Why?' questions. Why does the product look like this? Why does the product feel so natural and intuitive to me?
Below, I have listed all of my published projects that contain any personal design contributions and what they were.