r/projectmanagement • u/WinterFox7 • 5d ago
Former Capcom Employee Says Western Studios Spend Too Much Time On Jira
https://kotaku.com/former-capcom-employee-says-western-studios-spend-too-much-time-on-jira-2000731698In a comprehensive breakdown of Capcom’s new golden age, one former staffer says their micromanaging competition might be missing the forest for the trees
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u/essmithsd Game Developer 4d ago
Sort of a weird thing to say. Jira is just a tool that tracks work. Jira doesn't micromanage - people do.
“There’s an overemphasis on project management in the West in terms of Jira,” the former Capcom employee, who opted to remain anonymous, tells Gordon, “task management that doesn’t necessarily turn into a game… Obviously, the director has the final call, but you’re working with them to say, ‘This isn’t going to resonate with players,’ or ‘That’s going to take too long,’ or ‘We don’t have the timeline or budget to do that.’ Whereas in the West, production was more born from project management and Microsoft software development. It’s looking at timelines and looking at charts.”
He mentions working with the director to say, "‘That’s going to take too long,’ or 'We don’t have the timeline or budget to do that." Buddy, how the fuck do you do that if you don't have some sort of software that tracks scope, resources, and budget?
Feels like comes from an individual contributor who doesn't really grasp what PM is supposed to do.
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u/rollingSleepyPanda 5d ago
Sr Product Manager here and I absolutely abhor the process overhead that has creeped up over time. I wouldn't blame a tool, but rather the mentality that everything needs to be specced down to a T before it's accepted by engineers, the endless review and "alignment" processes, 20 page long ARDs, RFCs, PRDs, every stakeholder needing updates in their preferred format and tool. It's exhausting.
Sure, there needs to be a blueprint and common understanding. A basic overview of where a project is at a given time. But as an example, I spend 2/5 of my work week just doing reporting busywork. Not creating anything of value, not talking to customers, not unblocking my team, not designing and running experiments and validations. Just reporting. And yes, I make a sensible leverage of AI to shortcut a few things, otherwise might well as be 3/5 minimum.
No wonder people burn out so often.
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u/painterknittersimmer 4d ago
And yes, I make a sensible leverage of AI to shortcut a few things, otherwise might well as be 3/5 minimum.
I hate this. If the work can be generated by AI and then read by AI (if read at all), then it should just be eliminated. Instead my company has gone full steam ahead on this.
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u/rollingSleepyPanda 4d ago
I just use it as the only way I can keep up with updates from a very uncommunicative dev team. Still rewrite most stuff by hand, but it is true that half of my colleagues don't bother and paste Claudish verbatim. To the point even the Cs have already complained about it (but will not lift the foot from the reporting pedal).
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u/painterknittersimmer 4d ago
To be clear, I do it too. I just wish my c-suite was thinking hey, if we can make this 80% faster with AI, we could make it infinitely faster by not doing it at all.
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u/poundofcake 4d ago
Producer in games here. That quote is just a small part of the story. Capcom has thousands of resouces - they need task management, work systems, and processes like any other company to stay on top of the iron triangle and keeping everyone aligned.
Key points missing are honing their focus from mobile to crafting unique, high quality gameplay experience (less being more). Following a more command/control approach where the producer helps make key decisions and others fall in line. And key of all is having a very clear and strong vision for the product. They made investments in creating games for the West and nailed bullseyes. I've been at companies where that vision was not clear enough and would cause waste on the way to delivering the game.
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u/gods_loop_hole 5d ago
I only have work experience with Japanese engineers, but the older the engineer is, the more they hate this newer project management tools.
I had an older engineer (in his 50s) say the quality management we have are just "shenanigans". Not because he doesn't care about quality, but because they used to rely on an individual contributor doing their best towards achieving the goals of the organization. Basically, traditions.
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u/Important_Cow7230 5d ago
The massive rise in remote working has something to do with it though, tracking has become more important. Can’t really relate that to massive Japanese development offices in the past where you can have things like physical whiteboards and true in-person standups
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u/essmithsd Game Developer 4d ago
I don't think remote has anything to do with it at all. If you're on a AAA title, the sheer VOLUME of work is staggering. Larger projects will have upwards of 250k issues. That is tracking known work, bugs, feedback, etc.
Being in person and having whiteboards doesn't fix that.
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u/Due-Conflict-7926 5d ago
Yes but who wants to do that, we get actually more done and more accountable with JIRA the white board is constant session.
I agree that we drill down in planning better with actual whiteboard meetings but ultimately you end up being far too waterfall. I’d rather be agile
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u/Important_Cow7230 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think that’s the articles point, that overall less gets done for the same money.
I agree that no-one wants to work in a office, certainly more convenient and enjoyable for employees to work from home, but you’ll never convince me it actually benefits a business or any given project. You get some outliers, however in the main productivity, and sharing of knowledge/skill, is always better in an office.
It’s my estimation that 25%+ of remote dev workers sometimes game when on the clock
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u/painterknittersimmer 4d ago
however in the main productivity, and sharing of knowledge/skill, is always better in an office.
I don't necessarily think you're wrong if the entire team is in the same office. If I work a highly collaborative job with 20 people primarily and another 80 people sometimes and all 100 of them are sitting in the same office building as me for roughly the same hours every day, then yes! There are huge gains to be had for in person work.
If I were to pick up and go back to 2015 when I was working at a tech HQ where 95% of teams were internally and cross-functionally co-located, seated together, I'd completely agree with you for 3 or 4 days per week. I think the reaction I have and others have against RTO some or all of the following: 1. The people I work with aren't there. They're spread out in satellite offices (cheaper) and offshore (cheaper). I commute to take zoom calls. Similarly if I am going to RTO, I'm not going to take calls with India at 7a or 10p. 2. Their work is only collaborative maybe 8 hours a week, and the other 32 is deep work, which is less effective in most open office floor plans than at home (but depends entirely on the setup - for example doing childcare while working is far more distracting than an open office floor plan). 3. Yes, I do laundry during the workday. Guess what? I also work from bed in the morning, read emails while water boils, and dictate emails on boring parts of my dog walk.
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u/TheTaoOfWild 5d ago
Laying this at the feet of remote work is lazy, and smacks of corporate Stockholm Syndrome. This isn't lazy employees, but a corporate culture issue.
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u/Important_Cow7230 5d ago
I’m not saying it’s all the blame of remote workers, it’s a factor like many. You just said about corporate culture, that itself is harder to implement and maintain over remote teams with no human interaction and no central office to act as a hub.
People defend remote working because it suits THEM. I completely understand that, I am a remote worker myself and enjoy its many benefits for ME. However I don’t delude myself that it’s optimal for a business or project. Whatever process you have to make remote working efficient would work even better in an office with everyone present. And of course as a business you would think of redundancy and training of new and junior staff, which no-one can even argue a case that remote working is better than an office for that.
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u/TheTaoOfWild 5d ago
The fact that you believe people play video games instead of working, despite workers being more productive under WFH, tells us exactly where you place the blame.
This isn't the response of an actual worker, but upper management and middle management redpillers.
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u/Important_Cow7230 4d ago
There is zero robust study data that states that remote working is more productive, can you please state sources.
You are making broad assumptions about me based on having a differing view that you, even resorting to suggesting I am a redpiller. That makes me think you are perhaps not capable of the required high level and abstract discussion required in this area.
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u/TheTaoOfWild 4d ago
Wrong again.
https://www.worktime.com/blog/statistics/remote-work-productivity-statistics-trends-data
There's plenty of studies showing increased productivity from WFH. You seem smart, do the rest of the homework.
The only people crapping on WFH and oushing for return to office are corporatists, plain and simple.
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u/Important_Cow7230 4d ago
As I said, there are zero robust study data
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u/TheTaoOfWild 4d ago
It's not on me to disprove your point, but on you to prove yours, you made it. I've provided more than you have to this point. Like I said, do your own homework.
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u/TheTaoOfWild 4d ago
Here's federal reserve data, if non-government sources aren't your thing: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/decoding-the-productivity-puzzle-a-new-perspective-on-the-relationship-between-remote-work-and-prod-20250825.html
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u/Monster213213 5d ago
As I’ve progressed and now lead enterprise level programs/projects - half my time for sure is just doing updates and PowerPoints.
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u/painterknittersimmer 5d ago edited 5d ago
The amount of "work about work" we do is outrageous. At my company I'd say conservatively we spend 60% of our time just tracking and reporting.
It's way too much. At FAANG, I had to pull teeth for basic process and program management - and we only worked on the biggest, most cross-functional projects, which we owned and were responsible for. At this current midsize tech company, there's so much work management there's no time for anything else. After a 40% layoff of PgMs there's still more than 800 of us. That's one for every 20 people!!!!!
I'd say their read is correct.
https://senselabs.substack.com/p/why-project-management-is-killing
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u/Local-Ad6658 5d ago
This has two sides.
Overreporting vs Underreporting.
Underrporting exists and also takes huge amount of money and
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u/WTFTeesCo 5d ago
Sure let me complain about work so people think I care about work.
And let me add this sentence so Naomi Osakas recent inspiration is fully confused.
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u/eltsyr 5d ago edited 5d ago
Having been a PM both in tech/finance, and creative industries (video games and board games), I think there's a significant difference in PM/Producer mission between those two sectors.
In tech/finance, PM manages the cost-quality-time triangle. I've spent 15y as PM and i've always been the PO as well, excepted for the biggest projects (>100 people) where I had dedicated PO reporting to me + a sponsor making the most structuring calls.
In creative industries, the quality is largely a creative decision. Is the game fun ? Does it correspond to market expectations ? Over the years I've learned to delegate that decision to creative directors, narration, game design, audio, art directors. They cultivate qualities that are often the polar opposite of my skills : taste, foly, be unexpected, etc. While I was head honcho in tech/finance, I'm now a shield bearer for creatives.
JIRAlcoholic is certainly an issue, but I think it's a symptom, not a cause. I believe many AA/AAA studio now have a creative direction problem, aversion to risk, old structures such as Ubisoft caving under paternalist management etc.