By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

When you decide to work with your friends, it can be hugely exciting. However, it’s also important to establish some clear boundaries if and where you can in order to prevent potential conflicts arising during your project.

Who’s doing what?

Establish clear roles i.e. who’s responsible for what and who is taking charge of what. Make it clear who is the lead on different aspects of the project and respect the lead and their decisions.

Work mode vs. social mode

Also establish when you are in ‘work mode’ and when you’re in ‘social mode’ so that you are clear when things are purely professional and when you can let your hair down.

Working Well Together

Try to understand why each person is involved in the project and what want out of it. Each of your reasons for being there may be slightly different. Don’t assume that the reason you’re there is the same as your friends. The more you understand what your friends are hoping to get out this, the more likely you’ll be able to help each other get the things that are most important to you, and thus work well together.

Conflicts and awkwardness

There may be times when you disagree with your friends or when they disagree with you. You may get irritated with them or them with you. This is certainly not uncommon but can be very challenging especially if you haven’t had any conflicts with your friends before.

How you handle each situation really depends on what has happened and why it’s happening and so it’s hard to offer advice on what to do generally but here are a few things to watch out for which I’ve often seen trigger various troubles within teams:

- Differences in motivation (if some people are more motivated than others to work, it can definitely cause bad feelings amongst the team. Try to figure out why there are differences or what has changed if suddenly one person is no longer pulling their weight)

- Different styles of working (different people like to work in different ways. It can be hard to adjust to each other but just focus on whether the work is getting done or not. When you or they choose to work, how long for, what time, where etc. shouldn’t matter too much as long as things are getting done, when you need them)

- Jealousy or resentment (Did one person want to do a task but another ended up getting it? Is one person doing more than another? Is someone getting more credit / renumeration / time off, than another? These types of things can cause issues to arise. Be aware of these sorts of things so that you can hopefully prevent bad feelings arising or at least not be taken by surprise when an issue surfaces)

- Creative tension (it’s healthy for talented people to have different ideas and to discuss and debate them. These disagreements don’t need to be a massive blow up. Respect each others opinions and maybe the best solution is a combination of the various ideas. Or, just try to enjoy the fact that everyone is contributing ideas and are wanting to make the best game/film/product possible)