Author: Rhonda Peters (saidar@ta-veren.org)
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999

The following is the collected tips and strategies from our meetings and email discussions on how to attack some of the problems that we're having as a group and as individuals in making the most of the time we devote to the game.

I'm asking each of you to read it. I'm also asking each of you to keep it and reread it periodically. Make a note of a few tips or strategies and start trying them now. In a few weeks try a few more. The point of this exercise will be completely meaningless if you don't read this note or you just toss it in the bin after a quick skim or you make no attempt to actually try and put any of these ideas into use. I know some of our new wizards are feeling a little overwhelmed. Trying to adopt some of the strategies below might help things seem a little more manageable.

This is not a static thing, if anyone comes up with other ideas just let me know and we'll add those.

Wiz Team Procedures and Issues

These are issues and tips that affect us as a group or that we need to all work on or agree to to achieve change.

1. DARKness

The wizards are DARK too often. This gives players the impression that we aren't doing anything, since all they have to judge by is tangible things like mail replies, new game features installed, etc. and our presence on the game. Some suggestions for improving our visibility are:

• Add an @aconnect and/or hourly reminder that will notify wizards that they're DARK since sometimes it's a case of just forgetting.
• Establish DARK and !DARK days in your personal schedule.
• The team can consider posting a schedule of who's going to be !DARK and available when.
• If you don't _need_ to be DARK, undark. You can keep an @idle and idle @do on if you're working on something or not glued to the screen to minimize pages and quell impatience if you aren't instantly replying.
2. Wiz Meetings

The wiz meeting system works well, and players who are aware of it seem to like the idea of knowing when to submit things and when to expect replies.

• Make an announcement of the wiz meeting system that explains when issues are reviewed and when replies to issues are sent out.
• Try and prepare for meetings by reading the material and jotting down quick notes and impressions in advance. M. and Lisa both find it helps to print out the agenda and associated materials and take them to work. This helps meetings go faster and more productively.
• Try and stay focussed during meetings. Some chat is fine, but we have to stay on track or it takes forever.
• Saidar is just the chair of meetings, not the queen. If you have something you want discussed, feel free to bring it up. If it's something detailed or with reference materials, try and send the info to Saidar by Saturday, or Sunday during the day at the latest.
• Let someone know if you can't make it to a meeting or think you'll be late. Try and type out your votes and notes and mail it to the list so we know if you have strong opinions about anything.
3. Junior Wizards

Our traditional method of finding new wizards had been to identify someone, study them for a long time until we all know them a bit and feel comfortable with them, dither for a while and then a year or two later get them in. ;-> We were suffering a bit of a manpower crisis, so we opted to try the idea of 'junior wizards'. So far it's working out well, and I'd like to thank all of our new people! The new method we used is summarized here for future reference.

• We draw up a list of people we feel have wizard potential that we're all comfortable working with. We look at people who do a few things well rather than trying to find people who do almost everything adequately.
• We establish a 6 month probation or trial period. We make it clear that it's entirely possible that not every junior wizard will become a full wizard at the end of that period.
• During the trial period we work closely with them, get to know them, study how they work with the group, consider how much and how well they do work, identify their weakness and analyze whether they're things that can be worked on (learning more commands) or things that are more problematic (pissing players off).
• At the end of the trial period everyone meets and talks to determine how things are going and whether to consider make the juniors permanent wizards or not.
• One thing I'm not sure about is positions. There are wiz positions that we could assign now. The other alternative is to have the juniors do them unoffially, which involves more shunting of stuff to the right person but lets us watch them closer.
4. Eyes and Ears for Wizards

It's important for each of us to know what's going on in the IC world of the game. It's needed for doing updates, helping players and building on player plots. We have an active, big game that's only getting bigger and more active, so it's difficult for us to know everything that's going on. I propose the idea of 'wiz eyes and ears'.

• One way to do this would be to ask all or certain of the staff to send us summaries of the RP activity as it happens.
• Another way would be to assign it as a position to a couple of staffers, or one each for each of the main areas. The EE could do a weekly summary and send it to the staff list, and also to the newsletter people if Tattle Tales gets going again.
5. Being Better Liaisons

We're all liaisons to at least one area. Some of us do a better job than others. If we have more wizards we may be able to rearrange the liaising, but either way it's good to have tips in place for doing the job.

• Make a character in the area and try and play it at least once a week or so.
• Make sure you're part of and participating on the area chat channel and email list.
• Talk to the area leader regularly and build a relationship with his/her assistants, too.
• Encourage the leader to hold regular area meetings and attend these.
• Keep up to date on the area BB.

Personnel

These are issues related to getting people into admin roles, helping those who are contribute more to the game, and making use of the people we have available to help us.

1. Getting Personnel

Our player population grows steadily, so we need a steady influx of personnel to attend to their needs.

• If you think someone would do well as a Greeter or Staffer, let Saidar know and she'll send them a note on how to apply. Or suggest to them directly, the applications are at http://ta-veren.org/admin/.
• Liaisons should regularly poll their area leaders for people the leaders have identified as having admin potential.
• Do we feel it necessary to send a note to announce advertising that positions are open?
• Recommend to people interested in area leader positions that they begin by getting involved in an area, offering to help an area leader, etc. It'll give them good practice in what's involved so they have experience when positions do open up and they apply.
2. Training and Helping Personnel

• ALL wizards should have taken or read the staff indoc and be approved to do approvals so they understand the process and know the information.
• More wizards need to be available to give the staff indocs and training so we can hit people on at different times of day. I'll program the indocs into a SpeechMaker object to make that easier to do.
• Answer questions or make announcements on Staff channel, Staff email list or Staff BB rather than page or individually when they could be issues or questions that affect more than one person.
• Be active on Staff channel, build relationships with Staff. It helps them learn more about us and what we do and all of us feel more comfortable with each other to work together. You don't have to intimately know all of the Staff, but try and get to know at least a few of them pretty well.
• We have a schedule for Staff and Leader meetings, we need to get more on the ball with following it.
• Work with staff to familiarize them with the basic commands, game information, etc. Callandor has offered to train people on the basics for commands, building and code.
• Wiz heads should meet with their staff members weekly or biweekly to discuss issues in that work area, assign projects, brainstorm, etc.
• Poll staff to find out what they would find helpful for training resources.
3. Make Use of Personnel - Delegate!

• Identify things you're working on that you could delegate. Identify group projects that could be delegated or have portions delegated. Delegate once you've identified.
• Refer and delegate the small stuff, too. Refer guests/players to a Staffer who could help to free up your time to work on other things or if you have to go idle/log off.
• There's been a suggestion to give seniors and leaders access to +pcreate. Getting in junior wizards may remove that necessity.
• Another suggestion is to allow seniors and leaders to second on restricted character approvals.
• Involve staff more in creating and running admin plots. This includes both assigning them to work on the big plots we plan and asking them to develop small plots tailored to individual characters.
• Poll staff to find out what their ideas are for how they could contribute more to the game. Also ask them what do they think they should be doing.
• Delegation Tips

• KEEP TRACK of what you've delegated to people. Check back with them regularly to see if they're working on it or you need to reassign.

• Provide your volunteers with the info they need to do the task, point them to useful reference material, etc.
• Notify Saidar about work others have created so they can receive EXP for their contributions.
4. The Dev Team

During the development, the dev team was a group of volunteers working on the game. They were given regular assignments, with deadlines. (Do 10 ambiance for Tar Valon by Oct. 10, for example.) Each project had a wiz or area leader supervisor, and each volunteer also had a wiz supervisor. Volunteers received Experience Points for their work, and it also helped us identify people who had admin potential.

Managing a project takes a little organization. Mostly it's collecting and coallating submissions from the volunteers. It also often takes a bit of work on the manager's part - doing final edits and installation.

Managing volunteers seems to take a bit more organization, and is not to everyone's taste or abilities. It involves assigning projects and deadlines, poking people who are overdue, and reassigning things that aren't getting done.

There is still room for volunteer involvement of this kind on the game. But first we need to get organized on what's left to do and what new things there might be. There are still a few projects going from dev, so if you get people asking you what they can do to help, send them to:

http://ta-veren.org/dev/projects.html

Personal Work Tips

These are tips and strategies for us to try as individuals to try and increase the amount we get done in the time we spend on Tales and Tales stuff.

1. Track Projects

• Make a project chart - list task, current status, what needs to be done, can it be delegated, does it depend on something someone else needs to do.
• Note down location of reference material (file names and locations, mail titles and folders, etc.) so if you have to leave project for a bit it's easier to pick it up later.
• Set deadlines for yourself. Mark them on your progress chart, desk calendar, something you will look at regularly.
2. To Dos

• Keep a running personal to-do that includes both your current maintenance tasks and a few dev projects.
• Keep it where you'll see it often! Is there a file you always have up, a physical list near the computer, etc.
3. Prioritizing

• If you at all find you're dithering over what you should be working on now, what's most important, etc. FORGET priorities. It's better to get something done on a minor task than nothing done at all, and it all needs to be done in the end.
• Ditto if you find you just don't "feel" like working on X thing that you'd picked to do today. Forget X for today and go find something you do feel like doing. (If you put off X for an extended period see the Brain Block section.)
4. Focus Your Work Periods

• Print out email, project notes, etc. to make notes while on the bus, eating lunch, during commercials, whatever.
• If you can't focus on writing email/+mail/whatever sometimes while online due to pages, etc. log off and work on it in a text editor, then log back on and upload it.
• Work on TFA, it has all the same globals, clued people to make suggestions and no player distractions.
• If you have to be on Tales for what you're working on but need to minimize distractions, pagelock in addition to going dark, turn off channels, etc. (Remember to turn it all back on again after. :->)
5. Brain Blocks

• Identify what you're having trouble working on. Sometimes time isn't the issue, there are tasks you just don't want to do. If you find one, delegate it.
• Are there types of tasks you just always put off - extensive writing, talking to players, etc. Mention these to the group and we'll see if we can swap things.
• Don't get worked over how much there is to do or what you haven't been doing. Guilt just makes you feel bad and you'll probably get even less done, feel worse, etc. Narrow your focus to one or two things, just try and get something done. The only way it's all going to get done is a block at a time.
6. General Work Tips

• Try scheduling. Can vary from planning things out down to the hour to day by day to just "I'll do X one day this week."
• Set small, attainable deadlines - I'll finish doing this by Wed, I'll finish this segment of Y huge project by X, etc.
• Schedule one work day/few hours per week where you work on longer term projects or things that require concentration. Stick to it, make it a part of your routine, don't blow it off for RP or chat or whatever.
• If you find it difficult to work on something alone, you prefer a little company or want opinions, grab a staffer or another wizard or whatever and have someone to hang out with.
• Try taking Tales tasks to work/school/etc. to work on when you have a free moment, this has worked well for Spirit and Light. (Obviously you should only do this if it's feasible, not if it will get you in trouble at work/school/etc.)
• Work as you go. For example, as you go through mail, reply to it or do related tasks as you read through it, don't leave it all until "later". Doing this takes less time than you might think, helps maintain a quick response rate, and avoids turning a bunch of little tasks into a monumental pile that takes more time and effort.

Individual Issues and Notes

Issues or tips related to individual members of the wiz team.

• Callandor

Must be informed of anything to do with nobles.
• Fire

Can't do many online projects, but has time at work to do offline things like editing, writing, brainstorming, etc. So if you've got something like that, check if he'd like to do it instead of doing it yourself.
• Spirit

May be a little crunched for time between RL responsibilities and online titles and duties.

Players

Issues and tips related to players or that players can help with.

• Get the dev stuff organize and publicize to people that there are things to do they can help with and earn themselves EXP.
• Get Tattle Tales restarted.

Chargen Related

Tips related to chargen and approvals.

• Individual wizards should learn how to make the easy +sheet changes so we can do those ourselves and for non-wiz approvers. This spreads the workload out and gets things done faster for approvers and players.
• It's been proposed that we allow leaders and seniors to do restricted approvals, or hand-pick people to do restricted approvals. Another possibility is to at least allow more people to act as seconds. At least half and possibly more of the reviews are for restricted characters and the pool of review wizards is much smaller than the pool of reviewers as a whole.

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