Company of Young Professionals Success Series – Project Management & Execution
Date: October 20, 2015
Name: Company of Young Professionals Success Series – Project Management & Execution
Presenters: Matt Bilbey and Aaron McHardy
Many young leaders are failing to meet project schedules due to poor execution. Moreover, young leaders must develop engagement to their project vision. Company of Young Professionals invites Matt Bilbey, the Senior Vice President and Group GM of EA, and Aaron McHardy, the FIFA Line Producer of EA Sports, to discuss their approaches to project management and execution. Young leaders will learn their proven ways to manage team project process, maintain quality assurance, and contribute to large scale projects. Furthermore, both presenters will help young leaders to identify the missing links in project management.
Matt Bilbey is the current Senior Vice President and Group General Manager of EA Studios. With over 20 years of experience in EA, Matt Bilbey establishes strong business leadership skills and leads many top market videogame franchises. Matt Bilbey inspires many of his teammates to their next level of careers. His passion in EA gives him the substantial reputation that many young leaders are willing to follow. Aaron McHardy is the current FIFA Line Producer in EA Sports. He works with EA over 20 years and helps EA Sports FIFA franchises to achieve top results. Moreover, his leadership insights encourage many young leaders in the gaming industry.
Matt Bilbey describes his leadership style is “People First”. In Bibey’s journey, there were many challenges in FIFA franchise. The product quality was significantly low and the simulation play was not attractive. Overall, the FIFA business is in turmoil. As game quality decreases, EA was experiencing low global market share. When Bilbey was facing the critical decision of continuing the FIFA franchise, Bilbey decided to restructure the project proposal. Bilbey implemented the concept of “Vision”, “Passion”, and “People”.
“Result of bring passion to people, it accelerates”
The project changed the focus under the leadership of Bibey. The team tapped into the passion of global fan base. The statistic was showing there were 2 billion football fans, 30 million EA Football gamers and over 251 million football video gamers. By looking at the consumer interests, the team was able to identify the real addressable target audience.
Bilbey had the vision of becoming the biggest game in the world. Bilbey introduced high quality and innovation strategies and produced 1 billion annual business growth. The project opened up new football’s social network and simulated people around the world to be a part of the game. There were over 25 nationalities in the project team and Bilbey believed in the team to seek more opportunities.
As of now, Bilbey indicates many football clubs are using EA FIFA games for training purposes. It allows players to prepare games. It also creates opportunities and image for people around the world by taking the real life experience into game. Moreover, it brings the game live and stays predictable.
Aaron McHardy introduces the EA Sports game development framework.
- Pre-production
- Production
- Final
- Live Service
Each stage has its own time frame. The pre-production will run from October to January. The production stage will start from February to April. The final stage will be in May to September, and the live service will begin from September and beyond. McHardy explains each stage is like a series of gates. It helps EA to set milestones. Each stage will give the team the opportunity to review the leadership and evaluation. They will analyze and measure the situation and change the course to ensure the production is aligned with the vision.
The purpose of each stage is to help the team to stay connect and engage with the audience. McHardy mentions the key evolves around the project management is engagement. Engagement in EA Sports includes the console, FIFA Ultimate Team, components, mobile and social. The analysis and measurement will help them keep track of daily users and on time feedbacks. The matric EA uses is Net Promotion Score. The score will help EA to obtain feedback and it also creates direct conversation with users. It will help them focus on the right energy.
McHardy indicates the result of the process will increase product quality, increase engagement, and increase market share. In addition, it increases the demand.
McHardy believes EA is focusing three main components for future.
- Player first
- Digital transformation
- One team
Engagement is the project metric. Bilbey believes engagement will ensure there is 365 day live service, the ability to embed the metric into the fabric of the sport. Furthermore, it helps to connect globally and provide experience for players. Bilbey believes great people work with other great people. Bilbey suggests young leaders to work with great people, take control of their own career and encourage others to do the same.
“Be passion about vision, people will see it and want to be a part of it”
Questions and Answers
Many EA games are stumbling in the first gate. Bilbey and McHardy believe identify the issue early is important. They believe they will not discontinue the project. Gates are there to motivate the team. It also make opportunities to re-direct the plan to reach the objective. The gate will also help the team to re-allocate resources to improve the quality.
Projects can influence the franchise licence. Bilbey and McHardy believe projects improve the role because it centralize the engagement. It also connects the world deeper and help everyone to identify the market in a broad view.
“Dream to reality”