My To-Do List: Organizing a Producer's Work

In this 2015 GDC talk, Oculus' Bernard Yee provides a suggested to-do list for people who manage a team and project's to-do list, why they are important and how to be effective on a daily basis.
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[@danielledejonge8363]

39:11 "resist the urge to meddle"; this one right here, can be so hard. I feel like one of the reasons I like what I do: planning, organising, coördinating, also makes me feel way unproductive when things are actually going well and other people's to-do lists are effectively filled, but mine seems empty. Great advice in this talk, thanks!

[@numgun]

I love the focus on mindset in this talk. It is so important to make sure the mindset is right, since everything else depends on it. Bad mindset = project is doomed to fail before it even began.

[@Pirat0r]

The audio during the talk is awfully quiet... The GDC splash rings loud and clear, but afterwards I have a hard time listening even with my headset at full volume.

[@MichaelChin1994]

I normally have my television on a volume of 12 / 100 For this talk, I had to raise it to 100 / 100 and I wanted it louder...

[@ericadams7834]

As a games producer and product manager, my biggest challenge was less the developers and more with the stakeholders (namely Marketing). Marketing has caused me the most process pain and sabotage by far. With stakeholders, a producer must not forget to manage Marketing with a laser focus or that org's executives will blow you up.

[@lindersi]

that was impressive as hell! great guy, would love to hear some more!

[@jakubrpawlowski]

Awesome talk! Thank you!

[@TonOfHam]

Illusions of granularity. I love it.

[@BudLeiser]

@GDC Have you considered turning on the audio for this talk? It's ok to re-upload with the audio. Just an FYI.

[@nathanhromanik6775]

Agreed. It is hard for a producer to show off of a Portfolio. Look at my Production Binder.

[@mintee8638]

I like to organize by finding out potential sources of useful information, but not necessarily searching through that specific area. So, I save that in either one of multiple KZbin playlists, depending if I want to search it for a good idea, or if almost the whole thing is good, or I don’t know how good it is yet but want to categorize it according to a topic, such as writing or health so that when I’m ready to do something on that topic, I have quick access to a potential source. I do something similar for a book search using an excel spreadsheet. For internet tabs, I do something rougher and have them open as a start. If they’re good, I have a document for a topic that I can put them there, almost like for the KZbin playlist, though if I want to access them soon I also have a sticky notes program I can put to look into that thing relatively soon. For note taking, I also have levels. I find note taking helps bridge the gap between info and taking action on that info and profiting there. I have tiers of notes. Tier 1 is just any interesting ideas. Tier 3 are formulas that I can easily implement. Tier 2 is an explanation for each formula. Tier 3 and tier 2 can be analogous to a tax document and its instructions.

[@WarjoyHeir]

Super quiet audio sadly, cause the talk seems valueable

[@AdredenGaming]

Audio so quite my head set can't go loud enough. Please amplify and or compressor

[@ZoidbergForPresident]

11:10 Crunch culture sucks. Crunch is a failure. Period.

[@theoneand0nly874]

Starts at 12:02

[@MidnighterClub]

If you can't even go two weeks without the plan failing, then maybe you should look at how you plan.

[@nima.d7147]

Haha!

[@papermartin879]

my man really followed a mention of destiny with "whether we like it or not" and didn't continue with the cabal on mars speech

[@yeknom5g]

Yay t

[@t3mp3stlatitan64]

sound quality sucks. content might be helpful, if I weren't partially deaf. who knows what hes saying?

[@youngjm1]

everyone: "sound quality sucks" have u tried to turn up ur volume???

[@FelipeBudinich]

They probably reuploaded the audio (it can be done without removing the video).