I was asked recently how I got into project management so I thought I’d talk about it here.
Disclaimer: My path is not a glorious or straightforward one, and I’m not sure how folks could replicate it. My hope is that there are some bits an pieces here that are useful to other folks who are considering doing project management themselves.
How I got started
In the early 2000s I joined a group of GMs called Good Omens. They were a bay area group of friends and fellow GMs who were dedicated to helping each other run the best convention games we could. We playtested scenarios together, workshopped pre-gen characters, helped each other building props, tried out new game system, and cheered each other on.
This was also the time when I was listening to Have Games, Will Travel by Paul Tevis and learned about the indie games being run at Endgame in Oakland (RIP Endgame). I started attending them and got to know one of Endgame owners Chris Hanrahan, who was also the business manager for Evil Hat.
After that a number of things contributed to my involvement with Evil Hat (and thus into Project Management).
- Endgame allowed us to use their space to host free game days (Good Omens Con) where we collected food for the Alameda County Community Food Bank. We ran seven one-day conventions there alongside the other mini-cons and in doing so I got to know Chris (I think this was 2004-2010).
- In 2008-ish (sorry, my memory is foggy) I joined the Dresden Files RPG alpha playtest group and run a ton of games of Dresden Files RPG with my home group. I posted a on Live Journal about our Las Vegas setting and it turned out that Lenny Balsera, one of the main authors on the book lived in Vegas at the time and was interested in creating a Las Vegas setting. We started working together and I got my first freelance gig working for Evil Hat. Our work was eventually published years later in the Paranet Papers supplement. Woot!
- In 2010 I was working with Katie Stapko to build a few websites (including the first Big Bad Con site) and Chris Hanrahan asked if we could build one for Evil Hat. That site was completed in 2011 and lasted until 2022… not a bad run! In the process I started to get to know Fred Hicks (our president) as we talked about goals for the site.
Project Management for Fate Core and beyond…
Those small connections with Chris, Fred, and Evil Hat eventually turned into a bigger one at the end of 2012. The Fate Core Kickstarter—which ran for an unprecedented 60 days—had surpassed so many of it’s stretch goals that Fred realized he didn’t have the bandwidth to manage them all.
He was happy with the way I had managed the EHP website project and asked if I could help project manage some of the Fate Core stretch goals. My response was to immediately jump on lynda.com, take all the free and low-cost project management courses I could, and say “Yes, I’ll give that a shot!”
Over the next year or so, what started as some of the Fate Core stretch goals grew into all of the Fate Core Stretch Goals, and some other related projects. Within a couple of years, it was clear that it make sense for a single person to be at the helm, and I took over project management for our entire line.
Since then, especially when our pipeline was at it’s largest (managing 25+ projects at a time) I eventually brought in other project managers to work with me, Sophie Lagacé and Stephen Bajza, who managed individual projects and kept me appraised of their progress.
maybe continue this post sometime… I think it’s unfinished.
