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THE ROCKET GAMES
CULTURE Who we are
and what we want to be
Culture is a set of shared behaviors,
symbols, systems, practices and norms.
What is CULTURE?
beliefs, values working language,
Once a culture has formed, it is hard to change.
Whether you plan for it or not.
And culture spreads. It is generational, and is passed on to new employees.
Culture HAPPENS.
IF YOU DON’T MANAGE YOUR CULTURE, YOUR
CULTURE MANAGES YOU.
The best organizations understand that culture can be the most sustainable
source of competitive advantage. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.
CULTURE eats strategy for breakfast.
PETER DRUCKER
To make our
CUSTOMERS happy we have to make sure our
EMPLOYEES are happy first.
ZAPPOS
OUR GOAL IS TO NURTURE A CULTURE THAT CAN SERVE AS A GUIDE ON OUR LONG-
TERM MISSION.
A bit of who we’d like to be.
A bit of who we are.
This document is
US.
A people without the knowledge of their past
history, origins and culture is like a tree without
ROOTS. MARCUS GARVEY
WE’RE PLANTING THE SEED FOR THOSE
ROOTS TODAY.
OUR MISSION IS TO BUILD AN
ENDURING GAMES BUSINESS
mission, and reinforces our shared values. Culture orients us towards our long-term
What role does CULTURE play?
What do we value? VALUE?
We value the 4 Ps. 4 Ps.
PEOPLE.
PROCESS. PRODUCTS.
PROFIT.
THE 4 Ps MAKE (OUR) WORLD GO ROUND.
PEOPLE.
Only hire the best. Continue to invest in them.
It all starts with great people.
Empower our people, and give them autonomy to operate.
1.
PROCESS.
Eliminate wasteful practices.
Develop the right processes to maximize productivity.
Continually improve by questioning the “why?”
2.
PRODUCTS.
Build games our customers will love.
Build the right games for the right markets.
3.
PROFIT.
Develop and operate each game we make profitably.
Balance creative appetite with business needs.
Re-invest profits for the long-term success of the business.
4.
THE 4 Ps SERVE AS THE SHARED LENS
THROUGH WHICH WE VIEW THE WORLD.
PEOPLE.
PROCESS. PRODUCTS.
PROFIT.
1 PEOPLE We want to work with great
What makes someone a great person?
What makes someone great for Rocket Games?
But what are
GREAT PEOPLE?
Great people are
diverse and complex.
3 But there are
traits in particular that we look for.
IMPACTFUL. An impactful person gets stuff done.
An impactful person focuses on results.
An impactful person always finds a way.
Personality trait #1:
Despite famously acknowledging that he “invented nothing new,” Henry Ford’s undeniable impact was far-ranging. By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. At the same time, Ford was a pioneer of “welfare capitalism,” doubling worker wages and introducing the 40-hour week, making car ownership accessible to factory workers. He even had time to found the Kingsford Company, making charcoal from factory waste wood scrap, which to this day enjoys 80% market share in the US!
A humble person speaks of the “we,” not the “I.”
A humble person admits mistakes and learns from them.
A humble person shares the credit.
HUMBLE. Personality trait #2:
If I have seen further than others,
it is by standing on the shoulders of
GIANTS. ISAAC NEWTON
A curious person pursues activities that improve body & mind.
A curious person takes smart risks.
A curious person is always asking “what if?”
CURIOUS. Personality trait #3:
There are
KNOWN KNOWNS. These are things we know that we know. There are
DONALD RUMSFELD
KNOWN UNKNOWNS. That is to say, there are things we know we don’t know. But there are also
UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS. There are things that we don’t know we don’t know.
Curious people relish in figuring out the unknown unknowns.
FIGURING OUT
Curious people thrive outside their comfort zone. COMFORT ZONE.
A ship in a harbor is safe.
SHIPS ARE BUILT FOR. But that is not what
UNKNOWN
We like interesting people. INTERESTING
We want to work with people who have a lot of interests
OUTSIDE OF WORK. People do better work when they
have lives of their own.
We don’t tolerate
BRILLIANT JERKS.
The wrong people are
TOXIC TO CULTURE. A toxic culture will cause your best people to leave.
And when your best people leave, that
KILLS THE COMPANY.
Never COMPROMISE on people.
Hiring the wrong person is 10X more expensive than not hiring the right person.
And talking about 10X… 10X…
In procedural work, the best are 2X
NETFLIX CULTURE DECK
better than the average. In creative/inventive work, the best are
10X
Great people need to be empowered. And empowerment means trust.
EMPOWERED.
TRUST.
TRUST goes both ways.
For great people to reach their full potential, you need to trust them 100%.
And they need to trust that you will allow them to do their jobs. And remove obstacles in their way.
WHAT ARE THESE OBSTACLES?
Recognize some of THESE?
Unnecessary meetings, too many
Arbitrary manager approvals, MVPs designed
Pointless policies, forms to fill in, TPS reports.
decision-makers, email justifications.
for execs instead of customers.
WE PREFER TO DO WORK RATHER THAN
TALK (OR WRITE) ABOUT IT.
If you could just go ahead
and do that
BILL LUMBERGH
from now on, that’d be great,
mmmkay?
Do the RIGHT THING.
That’s our only policy.
Do what’s best for the customer.
Do what’s best for the company.
Do what’s best for your team.
Make GOOD MISTAKES.
Don’t try to avoid failure.
Instead, embrace it.
Fail fast, fail often, and learn.
Great people need to be informed. INFORMED.
The more you KNOW.
We believe employees make the best decisions when they have all the available information.
We believe employees feel more empowered when they understand why we do what we do.
A lack of
TRANSPARENCY
DALAI LAMA
results in
DISTRUST and a deep sense of
INSECURITY.
That is why we make pretty much every bit of information about the company available to
everyone at the company. INFORMATION AVAILABLE
PEOPLE.
PROCESS. PRODUCTS.
PROFIT.
2 PROCESS We value the right
OK! Great people, trusted, empowered and informed, where now? WHERE NOW?
OK!
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they
SOUGHT. MATSUO BASHO
Seek to understand the
WHY. “Why” is such a powerful little word.
QUESTIONING As children, we are constantly
the world around us.
But as we grow up, we stop questioning. STOP QUESTIONING.
And we start to accept that the answer is “just because.” “JUST BECAUSE.”
We start to accept the status quo. STATUS QUO.
We believe it is never “JUST BECAUSE.”
We believe you should always question the status quo.
We believe you should always question “why?”
Only by challenging the status quo can we get better. CHALLENGING
(Seriously. The definition of status quo is “the existing state of affairs.”)
SERIOUSLY.
I go to the past for research. I need to know what came before so I can
BREAK THE RULES. VERA WANG
“BEST PRACTICES” aren’t always that.
Each product is unique. Each market is unique.
Understanding why something worked somewhere else is much more important than imitating it.
Each team is unique.
He who stops being better stops being
GOOD. OLIVER CROMWELL
Only through continuous improvement at the individual level can the entire organization
stay nimble enough to navigate change.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
And as we all know…
The only constant is
CHANGE. HERACLITUS
In a changing market, it is critical to know which direction to head in. WHICH DIRECTION
There is nothing so
USELESS
PETER DRUCKER
as doing efficiently that which should not
BE DONE AT ALL.
This is why we try to work lean. LEAN.
What does
LEAN really mean?
Lean software development is an adaptation of lean manufacturing principles, based on the
It is designed to eliminate waste
Toyota Production System.
through continuous improvement.
Lean development adheres to 7 key principles. 7 KEY PRINCIPLES.
Anything that does not add customer value is waste.
Unnecessary functionality is waste. Managerial overhead is waste.
Defects and lower quality are waste.
ELIMINATE WASTE. Lean principle 1 of 7:
We hold regular retrospectives to identify and eliminate waste from our processes, in order to continually improve the products we put in the hands of our customers.
Lean principle 1 of 7:
ELIMINATE WASTE.
Minimum viable product Unnecessary functionality = waste*
*Sure, it is sweet, sweet waste. But waste nonetheless.
AMPLIFY LEARNING.
Development is a journey in discovery to see what works, while production is
Development is like creating a recipe while production is like making the dish.
an exercise in reducing variability.
Lean principle 2 of 7:
We believe that practice makes perfect and that the best products are built when their creators iterate and learn from what customers love.
Lean principle 2 of 7:
AMPLIFY LEARNING.
We are what we repeatedly do.
EXCELLENCE,
ARISTOTLE
then, is not an act, but a
HABIT.
3-Michelin star restaurant El Bulli was only open 6 months of the year. The other 6 months were spent by chef Ferran Adria devising, practicing and perfecting the following season’s recipes.
DECIDE AS LATE AS POSSIBLE. Lean principle 3 of 7:
The best decisions are based on fact, not speculation.
The longer you wait to commit, the more information you have.
Conversely, the earlier you commit, the less flexible you can be.
DECIDE AS LATE AS POSSIBLE. Lean principle 3 of 7:
We build the capacity for change into our systems and processes, and try to keep as many options open as possible.
The Empire probably committed a little
TOO SOON to their flawed design. Not a lot of
OPTIONS left here.
DELIVER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Lean principle 4 of 7:
Speed is critical for learning – the shorter the feedback loops, the more can be learned and the better our decision-making.
Speed also assures that customers get what they need now, not what they needed yesterday.
DELIVER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Lean principle 4 of 7:
Our approach is informed by data (but not driven by it), and we strive to get better and better products in the hands of customers quickly, regularly, and at high quality.
Blockbuster, failing to realize it was in the video DISTRIBUTION business and not the video STORE
business, could not compete when Netflix was able to deliver products to customers
FASTER, CHEAPER and more
CONVENIENTLY.
EMPOWER THE TEAM. Lean principle 5 of 7:
World-class execution lies in getting the details right.
And only those closest to the product have all the details.
We hire the best people and let them get on with their jobs.
EMPOWER THE TEAM. Lean principle 5 of 7:
We use “pull” techniques to coordinate work from within the team, rather than employing managers to “push” orders from above.
The symbol of lean manufacturing, the andon cord
EMPOWERS (or button)
all employees, especially those closest to the product, to take ownership over
QUALITY.
BUILD INTEGRITY IN. Lean principle 6 of 7:
When a customer squeals with joy and shouts, “Yes! That’s exactly what I wanted, how did they know?” – that’s perceived integrity.
When your software scales and evolves gracefully with customers and time – that’s conceptual integrity.
BUILD INTEGRITY IN. Lean principle 6 of 7:
We try to maintain integrity, both perceived and conceptual, by focusing on customer needs, keeping things simple and eliminating waste wherever we find it.
HOW SPOTIFY BUILDS PRODUCTS
NOT LIKE THIS
LIKE THIS
HOW SPOTIFY BUILDS PRODUCTS Not like this
Like this!
SEE THE WHOLE. Lean principle 7 of 7:
The whole is always more than the sum of its parts.
But it is only natural to highlight your own team, or push your own agenda ahead of others.
SEE THE WHOLE. Lean principle 7 of 7:
We try to optimize for the whole, think for the long-term, and prioritize CUSTOMER > COMPANY > TEAM > SELF.
Some of the ingredients might be nice on their own
but we’d rather eat
CAKE.
PEOPLE.
PROCESS. PRODUCTS.
PROFIT.
3 PRODUCTS
We want our customers to love our
We are all GAMERS. We hate sucky games.
We hate games that sell you too hard.
We hate games that were designed by committee.
Choose a job you love, and you will
NEVER WORK CONFUCIUS
a day in your life.
We try to treat our customers with respect. RESPECT.
Only one other industry call its
CUSTOMERS
UNKNOWN
USERS – drug dealers.
We are CUSTOMER CENTRIC. The term “users” is so abstract.
We prefer the term “players.”
Or, simply, “customers.”
We like the term “customer” because it implies a formal relationship, and an expectation that
we deliver value. VALUE.
FORMAL RELATIONSHIP,
The best
GAMES, made by GAMERS.
We obsess over customers, not competitors.
We listen to customer feedback.
We act on customer feedback.
We are our own customers. And we are our own harshest critics.
OWN CUSTOMERS.
Keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an
AUDIENCE,
PIXAR’S RULES OF STORYTELLING
not what’s fun to do as a
WRITER. They can be very different.
We try to anticipate what the customer wants.
ANTICIPATE
You need to get to the
FUTURE
MARC BENIOFF
and be ready to greet them when they
ARRIVE.
ahead of your customers,
This is a Golden Age for gaming. GOLDEN AGE
WHERE OUR CUSTOMERS PLAY
GAMES IS CHANGING RAPIDLY.
HOW OUR CUSTOMERS PLAY GAMES IS
CHANGING RAPIDLY.
And we want to be where the
CUSTOMER is. We embrace new platforms.
We embrace new form factors.
We constantly try new things.
We are platform- agnostic. PLATFORM-
WE DON’T PLACE BOUNDARIES ON
OURSELVES.
And how do we know if our customers love us?
KNOW
They tell us. TELL US.
I was really losing all hope in finding
any honest, fair, not greedy devs on here & you proved me wrong!
I would buy things from them,
because they aren't stingy with treating
me well. I think I may have found
my new favorite pastime.
Game is awesome,
great graphics.
No glitches, its fast-paced fun and addicting
and doesn't rip you off.
Awesome sauce! Fun & refreshingly
different.
I would recommend this game along with all other Rocket Games.
Customer Support is
fabulous.
PEOPLE.
PROCESS. PRODUCTS.
PROFIT.
4 PROFIT
This is not a dirty word.
Our mission is to build an enduring games business, that will outlast any of us. BUSINESS,
So how will we ENDURE? We need to balance great game-making
with the business of game-making.
But all too often “profit” used in conjunction with creative works (like games) is treated like
a dirty word. DIRTY WORD.
“PROFIT”
IT’S A BALANCING ACT.
We treat our games like INVESTMENTS, on which we expect to make a RETURN.
They take capital to make.
They take time to make.
They might succeed or fail.
And just like investing, we believe the best way to approach game-making as a business is to
diversify our portfolio. PORTFOLIO. DIVERSIFY
NEVER PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET.
Every portfolio benefits from
BONDS,
SUZE ORMAN
they provide a cushion when the stock market
STOCKS hits a rough patch. But avoiding
completely could mean your investment won’t grow any faster than inflation.
We want to build a
BALANCED PORTFOLIO.
A mix of long and short, risky and safe.
The more experience we develop, the bigger the investments we are prepared to make.
PRACTICE makes
PERFECT. The more games we make,
the better we get at making games.
To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about 10 years.
MALCOLM GLADWELL
And what’s 10 years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in
10,000 HOURS OF HARD PRACTICE.
10,000 hours is the magic number.
So to recap…
OUR MISSION IS TO BUILD AN
ENDURING GAMES BUSINESS
To do that we believe you need great people and the right processes to make world-class
products that generate a profit.
PROCESSES
PRODUCTS PROFIT.
PEOPLE
THE 4 Ps MAKE (OUR) WORLD GO ROUND.
And our shared values can foster a culture that serves as a guide on our mission.
PEOPLE.
PROCESS. PRODUCTS.
PROFIT.
PLEASE CONTACT US! [email protected] @rocketgames
WE WERE DEEPLY INSPIRED BY: The Netflix Culture Deck (Patty McCord & Reed Hastings) The Hubspot Culture Code Deck (Dharmesh Shah) How Spotify Builds Products (Henrik Kniberg) Buffer’s radical transparency The Toyota Way The Valve Employee Handbook “Certain to Win” (Chet Richards) “Lean Software Development” (Mary and Tom Poppendieck) “The Lean Startup” (Eric Ries)
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