RESTRUCTURING A GROWING ORGANIZATION

Sami “Haxu” Hakala – Development Director

TL:DR

• Rock n’ Roll mixed with field tactics

• Personalized take on Nordic organizational effectiveness

• Creating a structure for a creative and a healthy workplace

“In a rock band as
well as in an indie
developer,
communicating
clear goals.. Gets
things done.”

Working with talented colleagues is great inspiration for all types of tasks, but getting to plan things out with a seasoned rocker that employs military tactics is a whole new level of interesting.

Sami “Haxu” Hakala has been with Housemarque for almost a decade, but even before that he was making waves in the media as the vocalist of a rock band called Species. Globetrotting and getting an insider look into the scene when MTV still had music videos and guitars were meant to be shredded, Haxu brings a natural understanding of nuanced operations that the entertainment circles demand.

In addition, years of game industry experience with always having a band project active has given a knack for designing cover art, music videos, production and all the intricate systems that apply to games as well. One core tenet that is always present in the music scene as well as in games is the fact that teams and teamwork matters. Even a small indie band needs to book venues and possibly coordinate plans with a publisher. Growing operations to a larger production with multiple teams working on a single focus is similarly a communication and planning challenge. All operations are as strong as their weakest link and more often than not, everything can hang on the simple task of communicating things effectively. 

”My current band, National Nightmare, has grown from the idea of having a classic rock band to a strong cult act playing occasional arena gigs and big clubs. Everyone in the band, production and live teams have ownership of their domain and are accountable for delivering against the plan that's put together with all domain owners to find out dependencies and to create shared understanding and ownership.”

In the time of extended working from home practices and a changing work environment, Haxu tackles the Slack centric organization head on and deploys tactics where feedback and communication are essential to making sure understanding is a two way street. A far cry from the shoot from the hip attitude that an indie band or an indie developer for that matter, might employ. Clearly things can be done efficiently in a rock band as well as in an indie developer, communicating clear goals and following up on execution simply gets things done.

”Self guided teams work if the whole organization is playing within the same framework . A framework built on agile principles facilitates planning and communication and allows teams to iterate not just the product but also the way the work is done,” He cleared up when prodded on the intricacies of his vision for the organization.

During his tenure at Housemarque, Haxu has also been privy to being a part of many different projects that could utilize his set of unique talents. In Nex Machina he collaborated with the composer Ari Pulkkinen to create a vocal version of the main theme “Let Me Save You”. Having fun with the concept, of course this single needed a music video to accompany the excellent song.

As it happens, Nex Machina was also being filmed for a documentary movie, so the crew and visionaries for an excellent throw back video were already on-board. With some planning and a good understanding of the talents involved, an ad-hoc rag tag team of devs and media nerds rented a seedy bar with a stage and got to work. Involving a visual style borrowed from the glam rock 80’s scene, the video fits perfectly in the synthwave genre that it represents.

All this was a fun project that worked well for the brand and community side, but in the end didn’t really take time away from the daily duties at all. Being able to say yes to creative side projects can be revitalizing and spark creativity in a way that sometimes can get lost in the day to day tasks. The key here was of course that Haxu and his talents were quite commonly known to the House Team, so testing out smaller media concepts like this was a no-brainer.

These days Haxu carries the moniker of “Development Director” and takes pride in being precise to the point, so in the end there can be some excess time available for tuning a guitar in the sound studio. Another one of his favorite hobbies is military tactics  training and the strict regimen that is upheld in even the hobbyist circles.

”I am blessed to be able to work with the world class teams in games, music and tactical training. Making AAA games, playing in an arena rock band and planning and executing a HVT search and capture mission share common principles in leading, team ownership, communication and more,” Haxu mentioned while talking about his hobbies.

There are lots of lessons that can be learned from the tactical lexicon, not always limited to the most used “Art of War”. Especially examples from the modern nordic escapades, like the Swedes peacekeeping in Bosnia, can be inspiring examples of working against the grain to achieve miraculous goals. Of course there are lots of training styles and business organizational books that apply such tactics to be employed at a workplace, but it’s still quite different when you have a deep understanding of the way video games are made and then can apply your own experience from other fields in a way that is fitted to meet the needs of the organization.

”Mission-command culture and principles are a force multiplier for any organization. It’s compatible with agile project management principles and enhances the team's understanding and capability to react to the unfolding reality in complex environments.

The goal is to make great quality games and increase the quality of life for all participants...not just ship a project”

“The goal is to
make great quality games…
Not just ship a project”

As Housemarque transitioned from smaller titles into games like Returnal, the team has grown quite a bit. Cultivating an organization for growth takes deep understanding of the task at hand and the talent involved, and therefore it’s important to have a leadership that can really dig their heels in. There is never a clear high level plan on what exactly to do in all troubleshooting cases, but having a set of rules and principles to follow can make or break the schedule. This means that growth also needs to be incremental in a way that makes sense to the project and existing talent of the teams involved. After all, the goal is to make great quality games that push the envelope and not just ship a project.

Nordic countries have a tendency to express their cultures through the organizational models that are applied at workplaces. Since these are evolving concepts and no game is the same, it’s clear that these also shift and change according to the needs at hand. Still, some core values persist, like the need for open communication and expert driven decision making. A games company in Finland can also aim to be at the cutting edge of making teams work better, and in the end it’s great to have people like Haxu who are fully focused on making things run smoothly.

The culture here at Housemarque is also very open to supporting our work family with all types or personal pursuits. Whether it be bettering your professional interests and needing training, or even showcasing your talent and hobbies that may not be integral to your profession. There are so many wonderful things that can come from being able to be yourself amongst your peers, and our in-house Rockstar is a great example of that.

No matter where your passion lies, we at Housemarque are all about enabling talent to shine and finding ways to make our games even more unique. Sometimes this may require a stand up comedian slash Tech Director to get on stage and get a standing ovation and sometimes it may be integrating a tactical hobby mindset to improve the communications loops between our specialist teams.

Written by

Mikael Haveri