Three Means Enemy Action

Item #1:  Neil Young, in the latest Game Developer magazine, talks about the value of getting all 1000 or whatever of your creative people together so they can cross-pollinate and do great stuff.

Item #2:  Same magazine, they discuss the value of the Collective and Backbone merging to pool talent.

Item #3:  Blizzard North and Blizzard South.  Again, merging.

I, personally, don't think this is a very good idea.  My argument against it is pretty anecdotal, though.  You can read in *The Tipping Point* about the magical number one hundred and fifty and Gore Associates and how one of their keys to success is to only have one hundred and fifty people per plant.  So that's anecdote number one.  Anecdote number two is that Treyarch was never able to sustain growth past one hundred and fifty.  We'd go up to around two hundred...there would be trouble...people would get laid off.  Although I believe we've broken one hundred fifty again and we're still going strong at the moment.  So maybe that anecdote is weak.  Giving me one and a half anecdotes.  Okay, I'll shut up now. 

But if I'm right, then we'll see layoffs and downsizing at EA, Blizzard, and The Collective Backbone in the next few years.  Or maybe they'll split up again.

Comments

[Patrick]

I too can say from first-hand knowledge that 150 is the magic number. I don't know why... but it just is. Maybe it's because 150 people can be managed with 3 layers of employees: 3 top dogs managing 7 people each, and each of those 7 managing only 7 other people. Once you have more than 3 layers of management all hell breaks loose.

[trevik]

Blizzard South was already well over 150.

Only a fraction of the 45+ employees of Blizzard North are making the move.

[Chill]

If you want to read more about the phenomenon about the 150 rule, a good place to start is http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html. He wrote a whole piece about it. It's pretty good.

[Obi Busta Nobi]

It's really all about management and what style works for which type and size of group. I would argue that Treyarch/Activision just hasn't matured enough to really know how to handle a group of 150 plus. At least not yet. Although, from the sound of it in Jamie's blog, they're now on their way. It takes some growing pains, growing pains that companies like EA are ahead of the game from my view. It would be interesting to hear when Treyarch is able to pull off a 150 plus head count and what management did in order to sustain that head count. It's complicated stuff! EA certainly has a sound managerial system and a successful one at that, but in some places it's still getting tweaked. EA has the advantage of being WAY ahead of their competition and learning from mistakes that companies like Activison and THQ are making right now. That makes the process that EA has valuable. Why do you think they have former EA'ers running places like Z-Axis (an Activision company)? Management and process.

Hopefully for the companies that you mention there won't be layfoffs. Hopefully, they're learining to keep talented people and figuring a process where after 150, it doesn't mean pink slips. "splitting up," and making smaller groups is a solution.

[M to the Vizzah]

Haha, Obi, that's pretty funny. Guess you don't hang around EA LA too much.

m.

[Obi Busta Nobi]

lol um, that's the proverbial "tweak." ;o)

[Apar]

just wanted to ask chill the link posted does not work is there some place else I can read the article. Thanks

Although I dont have a much informed view on thip topic it was interesting to know that very few companies survive past 150 employees is it because of the nature of our industry or some other reason?

[Despayre]

Personal anecdote..my former company really started to fall apart once we got around 150 people, but that was mostly due to ineffective management and (in my opinion) growing way too fast. I never really understood what happened, but now it starts to make a bit more sense.

I think that maybe the reason 150 is the magic number is due to it being the point when an ineffective management team (or team member) will really start to show their weaknesses. They were most likely there to begin with, but once you get around or above that number it really starts to become more visible. Employee grumbling is a powerful thing, and it only gets worse once you start throwing more people at the problem.

Or maybe it's just a one time fluke pertaining just to my former company...but I dont think so.

[Borut Pfeifer]

150's the magic number for more detailed psychological reasons (which I believe the author of the Tipping Point goes into) - it has to do with how many different people one can effectively keep track of. However I believe this is also affected by our ability to "chunk" memory (so we might have 150 work aquaintances, 150 personal aquaintances).

Also, I don't believe the Collective, Backbone, et al are actually merging offices, they're just merging companies to share resources so they don't have to get swallowed up by EA, Activision, Midway, etc.

[Jeffool]

Just a word to Apar, the link works fine, you just have to remove the period at the end, as Chill was posting a link in a sentence. Try this: http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html

[Hamumu]

The very site I read before this one today was diabloii.net, where a quote from a Blizzard artist referred to what happened as "the people from Blizzard North were all let go". It sounds like it wasn't the friendliest merger. Maybe they're trying to keep down towards that magic number?

[M to the Vizzah]

Everyone was laid off and had the option of reapplying for a job with Blizzard South. Not-cool situation.

m.

[Obi Busta Nobi]

Sounds like an Activision deal. Not-cool situation. ;)

o.

[Nathan Martz]

Interestingly, the dynamic appears to work across all organizations, including churches. My father is a pastor and served at a church that started around 100 and eventually grew to about 1300. He said that the two biggest hurdles for growing the church, and the two most significant points at which the church culture changed (and required changes in the organizational support structure) were at 200 people and at 1000 people.

Also, interesting: an Army company is around 150-200 people, and the next step up, a battalion, is around 1000 people.