There are a multitude of great tools and systems out there for getting your game into a consistently stable and ready-to-deploy state, and there are many that I work with studios to implement.

If we take the typical “pipeline” analogy further, however, both bureaucracy and mismanagement are akin to applying external pressure on the pipe, like how an unskilled installer might crush a drain under the weight of the soil above it.

The core to creating an effective pipeline begins by understanding the environment around it. Few leaders are naturally mindful, and most tend to have their own expectations and desires — they look at a goal as the end point, and drive to get their by any means necessary. This, however, creates pressure on the pipeline, and increases cost and waste.

At certain levels of financing (whether because of a very successful product, or because of external investment), companies weather this and succeed, albeit sub-optimally. Simply, they can afford to survive.

You might find, however, that the traditional advice that works so well for these highly-funded companies is less useful for your bootstrapped company.

A few simple observations that have been apparent again and again through this journey:

1. The strongest managers don’t manage — instead, they work for their team, ensuring that the impediments to their progress are cleared.

2. The Creative Director (CD) knows when to become the Chief Destruction Officer (CDO) — they stop creating and start pruning.

3. The bureaucracy becomes practically invisible and automated (for example, git commit messages become hooks for updating tickets and pushing content down the pipeline)

4. Every team, whether they’ve written it or not, has a pipeline, and it should be gently redirected, not redesigned. If you don’t understand, try changing your own faults and see how easy it is to admit you’re wrong.

5. The bottlenecks in your pipeline are your studs — the people that everyone else should be working for. This doesn’t mean make them managers, but rather to make sure everyone is working to keep their work running smoothly.

6. The CEO/President/Commander-in-Chief uses goals like a North Star — they don’t intend to burn up out in the middle of space, but to head in that general direction.

7. The CEO and CD are not hats being worn by the same person at the same time. A lot of studios succeed really well without a CEO, just having a CD that knows when to launch.

8. The workers are self-motivated, because they view what they do as play, not a job.

9. The Team sees what they did as happening without and regardless of the leader’s direction.

10. The strongest players are often fired and blamed for problems created by management. It’ll almost always be a better decision to coach instead of firing an employee for under-performance.

These are not core character traits — every single one of them can be developed. They start, however, with learning to say and genuinely mean 3 little words: “I don’t know”. Not knowing is the foundation of all knowledge — it changes your brain from being a person who seeks only to confirm their own biases into someone curious and capable of understanding. Embracing a culture of not knowing will fundamentally change your Team for the better, and it starts with you, regardless of your role.