Optimizing for Change
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Talk I gave to an NYU engineering class about career growth, and preparing for a lifetime of change.
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Optimizing for Change
- 1. Optimizing for Change James Gwertzman, CEO November 7. 2016
- 2. 12/20/2018 2
- 3. 12/20/2018 3
- 4. 12/20/2018 4
- 5. Topics • Brief introduction to PlayFab • Dealing with constant change personally • Dealing with constant change organizationally • Recent learnings at PlayFab 12/20/2018 5
- 6. 12/20/2018 6
- 7. 12/20/2018 7
- 8. PlayFab in action 12/20/2018 8 Live Ops services Add-on marketplace Player authentication Player data (cloud-save) Leaderboards In-game commerce Multiplaye r CloudScri pt Content mgmt Debugging support Server hosting Backend services Platform as standardized container Single aggregated audience across all Hyper Hippo games and supported platforms Analytics & reporting Customer support A/B testing Live Ops console
- 9. Over 250 live games are powered by PlayFab, across iOS, Android, PC, Web, and PlayStation 12/20/2018 9
- 10. 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 In Development Live Titles 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Millions Game Developers Monthly Active Players 12/20/2018 10
- 11. Preparing for change personally 12/20/2018 11
- 12. 12/20/2018 12
- 13. 12/20/2018 13
- 15. Harvard (Cambridge) Microsoft (Seattle) Microsoft Asia (Tokyo) Escape Factory (Seattle) Sprout Games (Seattle) PopCap Games (Seattle) PopCap Asia (Shanghai) Horace Mann (NYC) Code.org (Seattle) PlayFab (Seattle) Putting yourself in the path of luck 12/20/2018 15
- 16. Harvard (Cambridge) Microsoft (Seattle) Microsoft Asia (Tokyo) Escape Factory (Seattle) Sprout Games (Seattle) PopCap Games (Seattle) PopCap Asia (Shanghai) Horace Mann (NYC) Code.org (Seattle) PlayFab (Seattle) Putting yourself in the path of luck 12/20/2018 16
- 17. 12/20/2018 17
- 18. Harvard (Cambridge) Microsoft (Seattle) Microsoft Asia (Tokyo) Escape Factory (Seattle) Sprout Games (Seattle) PopCap Games (Seattle) PopCap Asia (Shanghai) Horace Mann (NYC) Code.org (Seattle) PlayFab (Seattle) Putting yourself in the path of luck 12/20/2018 18
- 19. 12/20/2018 19
- 20. Harvard (Cambridge) Microsoft (Seattle) Microsoft Asia (Tokyo) Escape Factory (Seattle) Sprout Games (Seattle) PopCap Games (Seattle) PopCap Asia (Shanghai) Horace Mann (NYC) Code.org (Seattle) PlayFab (Seattle) Putting yourself in the path of luck 12/20/2018 20
- 21. 12/20/2018 21
- 22. 12/20/2018 22
- 23. 12/20/2018 23
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- 29. Shared priorities for effective decision making Disney 4 Keys 1. Safety 2. Courtesy 3. Show 4. Efficiency 12/20/2018 29 PlayFab 4 Keys 1. Trustworthy 2. Aligned with customer 3. Polished 4. Sustainable
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- 34. Outcomes PlansActions Basic elements of any business 12/20/2018 34 Source: The Art of Action
- 35. Outcomes PlansActions The problem: 3 critical gaps 12/20/2018 35 Source: The Art of Action Knowledge gap: Difference between what we want to know and what we actually know. Effects gap: Difference between what we expect our actions to achieve, and what they actually achieve. Alignment gap: Difference between what we want people to do and what they actually do
- 36. Outcomes PlansActions Typical attempts to solve the gaps 12/20/2018 36 Source: The Art of Action Knowledge gap: More information Effects gap: More controls Alignment gap: More instructions
- 37. Outcomes PlansActions Better solution: “directed opportunism” 12/20/2018 37 Source: The Art of Action Knowledge gap: Limit direction to defining and communicating intent Effects gap: Give individuals freedom to adjust their actions in line with the intent Alignment gap: Allow each level to define how they will achieve the intent, and “backbrief”
- 38. 12/20/2018 38 Meeting heartbeat • Daily huddle • Weekly exec mtg • Quarterly planning mtg • Annual retreat
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- 40. Some recent learnings at PlayFab 12/20/2018 40
- 41. Leveraging this golden age of SaaS
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Hinweis der Redaktion
- Thanks for giving me this opportunity to speak; it’s an honor to be here. In preparing for this talk, Professor Lefer suggested “commencement speech” So that got me thinking about what advice I want to pass along to you.
- How many of you have heard of, or read, this book? (describe) Whether or not you agree we will become creatures of energy, change is accelerating
- Famous slide; accelerating technology revolutions I would add: machine learning; big data; AI; self-driving cars; internet of things Change IS accelerating. It’s a reality anyone in business needs to deal with, and it’s a reality you need to consider in planning your careers.
- How many of you recognize this quote? From one of my favorite movies, Better off Dead. This comes up as the best advice for how to ski the K-12. And actually I think it’s probably the best advice for coping with a rapidly changing world. When the world is changing fast, you can’t really plan You need to just get out there and maximize learning
- I’ve broken this talk down roughly into 4 parts. Brief intro, change personaly, organizationally, and then some recent thoughts on change.
- So what is playfab? We provide backend server technology for games. Tech that lives out in the cloud.
- To understand why this is important, consider simpsons tapped out (tell story)
- Example of what we do for games… Really fun – I love big systems and big challengs, and this is HARD stuff we’re doing
- We’ve been fairly successful – already more than 250 games, and our growth is accelerating
- You can see for example this sort of traffic Frankly this soft of rapid growth is a type of change your need to deal with even without external factors Anytime you grow 5x it puts stress on an organization This sort of growth only possible because of internet
- So okay, let’s start with you personally. What should you do to prepare for a career of hyper change?
- It starts with becoming a learning machine. That’s step one. Every successful exec I know reads a lot Need some way to keep up with the change. Books even in this day and age are still great tools.
- This sort of pyramid is very common in the world of data mining, but I think it’s relevant to you as well In a world of rapid change, there’s immense amount of data out there. Almost too much. Wisdom is much harder to come by. Books are still a good tool for that.
- Personally I’m also huge fan of the Harvard Business Review. Don’t be put off by the name. These are articles on hacking the organization. And I love HBR for the illusion that everything can be perfected.. Some of my favorite articles. But however you do it, commit yourself to constantly learning.
- The second thing you need to do is put yourself in the path of luck. What do I mean by that? Luck matters much more than people think. But a big part of luck is taking advantage of opportunities when they pop up. The dirty secret of careers is how random they feel in the moment… Never this clean. afterwards – so don’t stress about them too much Story: WildTangent, Code.org, PlayFab
- I’ll illustrate with 3 stories. First is sprout games.
- Result was these 4 games; super fun, went on to sell well. Still making royalites Led us to start sprout games, rest is history Sprout was successful, got bought by PopCap, popcap was super successful, got bought by EA for nearly $1b in 2011 Total life changing path for me. Started with going to a party.
- Next story: code.org Started with a coffee
- Went on to impact 20M students
- Final story – my current company playfab. I already told you why I started it. But not how.
- How has to do with a talk I gave at a conference. (tell story) So my point is you need to get out there and be open to these opportunities That’s why I’m such a fan of building networs, mentors, giving talks like this one, etc. Be in the path of luck.
- Third advice: importance of doggy zen; to get the bone you have to not want the bone Process more important than the goal Only way to ensure happiness is to enjoy the process For example…. Going to PopCap because of the people We wanted greatness, but you can’t get there directly.
- Fourth – know thyself. Happiness – using all your attributes First – know your attributes My experience --- decision to leave Microsoft and start a game studio Be honest w/ yourself ---- Extends to hiring --- for any role, there’s someone out there who’s a natural fit Hire for strengths, not avoid weaknesses Eg., Jessica Tams --- hired as programmer, natural producer.
- Okay, let’s switch gears now and talk about companies.
- Probably the most important shift in organizations, especially high tech, is switch from waterfall to agile Who’s familiar? (explain difference) I started at microsoft – waterfall At popcap, we were totally agile but didn’t call it that Now at playfab we update our service 2-3 times a week. Constant change.
- If you’re going to have that sort of change, though, values become much more important because alignment becomes more important. No time for constant planning. Transparency – because you won’t hear bad news otherwise Alignment – underappreciated. Need to have everyone on the same page. Forgiveness not permission – otherwise people won’t try things on their own
- Recommended by my coach Learned my lesson in china Executive team that disagreed on ultimate direction Knew something was wrong – listen to my gut
- Learning – took whole team to HK Disney
- Shared priorities…
- “Read this book”, he said.. So I did. And sure enough, it changed how I think about execution at PlayFab, enough that I’m here today sharing these lessons with you. Lots of this is common sense… but that’s okay.
- It all starts with this guy, Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist. Has anyone ever tried to read his most famous book, On War? It’s slow going. I tried once, and only got a few pages in. Yet despite being published in 1832, it’s still one of the most influential books ever written on warfare, with huge influence even today. One of the key concepts he introduces is the idea that the “fog of war” introduces “friction” that makes it much more difficult for any order to get carried out effectively.
- But what he really meant was how chaotic real warfare is, with unexpected developments unfolding all the time, especially in the face of incomplete, dubious, and often completely erroneous information and high levels of fear, doubt, and excitement. He talks about “friction” in warfare – imperfect information, imperfect transmission of information, external factors
- So why do we care about friction? Because it makes it harder to get things done. It was a later Prussian General, Vol Moltke, who gets credit for the concept of commander’s intent – if you take friction to its logical conclusion, you get the famous quote “no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”
- Consider these 3 basic elements of any business… you have plans, you have actions, and you have the outcomes --- which in turn, generate new plans. If there was no friction, things would be perfect. Perfect execution.
- Consider these 3 basic elements of any business… you have plans, you have actions, and you have the outcomes --- which in turn, generate new plans. If there was no friction, things would be perfect. Perfect execution.
- Consider these 3 basic elements of any business… you have plans, you have actions, and you have the outcomes --- which in turn, generate new plans. If there was no friction, things would be perfect. Perfect execution.
- Consider these 3 basic elements of any business… you have plans, you have actions, and you have the outcomes --- which in turn, generate new plans. If there was no friction, things would be perfect. Perfect execution.
- Another important tool to deal with rapid change Joined EO in China; exposed to the ”Rockefeller Habits” Best takeaway – the daily huddle.
- Finally, I’ll tell you about what one of the best leraning orgs I know – Pixar Also an exmple of using networks and tapping learning (tell story)
- Which brings me to the next point… we live in a golden age of SaaS. They’re like lego blocks. You can truly stand on the shoulders of giants. Stitching together your solutions. It’s a great time to be building a technology company. Not just SaaS – open source too. We use nearly 100 open source libraries.
- Golden age of Saas --- team of 10 can run a 24x7 service thanks to modern tools. Automated build deployment processes that are repeatable Really good Logging and metrics (counters) w/ alerting on both – know when something is wrong Feed into a paging system (e.g., victorops) System for someone to be on call to answer…. Also helps to have good communications (e.g., Slack) so team can coordinate Everyone on engineering team should know how to rollback a build, fix a bug, deploy a build Go through deployment exercise frequently – deploying shouldn’t be scary
- For example, this is just a small glimpse into some of the graphs and charts we use to monitor our service. We have over 30K counters and monitors that we use to keep track of all aspects of the service. And we have hundreds of alarms and alerts monitoring these pieces.
- Become a big believer Importance of not scaling up before you have the right fit Our own impact of headcount