For our latest entry in the Magic Media Day in the Life series, we had the pleasure of speaking with Aleksandar Djokic, our Head of Production! Aleksandar leads a varied role day-to-day to say the least. His role encompasses many different disciplines and activities, leading to every day being exciting and unpredictable.
Join us as we gain insights into being the Head of Production, his daily routine, tasks, and how his role is instrumental in binding together game production projects of all kinds and fostering collaboration.
Defining the Head of Production Role
As Aleksandar puts it, the Head of Production is everywhere but rarely seen. His responsibilities range from communication with producers and other game production staff and analyzing our output to performance analysis on projects, individual tasks, and more. More than anything else, he focuses on Magic Media’s processes, how we conduct business, and finding ways of making things more efficient and streamlined. Whatever is needed on a project, he can step in and help in one way or another.
A Typical Day as Head of Production
A typical day for Aleksandar is filled with activity – Magic Media is a global group, meaning that there is a constant need for communication at all times of the day. Over his morning coffee, he begins the process of checking messages, triaging tasks, responding, guiding, and directing. Directly after this, he prepares for a block of regular daily meetings where he meets with key stakeholders and weekly meetings with other department leads and directors.
Between meetings, he keeps on top of his game production responsibilities by checking in on project statuses and effectively managing the considerable Magic Media workforce spread across various projects. Not content to fulfill just his game production obligations, Aleksandar likes to get hands-on with projects by playing builds and opening repositories to give feedback, check out the team’s work, and suggest improvements.
As far as project work goes, Aleksandar joins them early on in the planning phase. He supports the team by gathering client requirements, understanding their goals, and aligning our teams with their objectives. Beyond this, he engages in extensive resource allocation to ensure that the right people with relevant experience and talents are assigned to the game production in the most fitting roles. Once a project has started, he makes a habit of checking in on progress, snooping around in code, and providing valuable feedback. Importantly, Aleksandar mediates between clients, our team, and various other stakeholders to assist in decision-making processes.
Communication and Game Production Challenges
Aleksandar recognizes three distinct areas of challenge with his Head of Production work – team composition management, continuous systems improvement, and communication. With managing team compositions, the main thing for Aleksandar is that roles are filled promptly with the right people, for which he, fortunately, has several tools at his disposal to help that process operate more efficiently. Speaking of tools, he also assists in updating and maintaining them to ensure we’re continuously improving – becoming faster, more efficient, and more accurate.
Communication is one of the biggest challenges he faces. It’s about more than just sending a message to someone in the right timeframe, it’s about ensuring that the communication is received and understood, which necessitates follow-ups, checking progress, and providing helpful feedback where possible. The importance of communication is amplified by the collaborative nature of the Head of Production role. Aleksandar frequently collaborates with other departments including HR, IT, Accounting, Marketing, and more, to problem solve, communicate, analyze KPIs, direct, and guide. As the glue that bonds many different departments and disciplines together, communication is a top priority.
As for our clients, it all depends on their needs. Typically, we use multiple communication channels daily for client collaboration and to ensure they receive frequent updates, meetings, stand-ups, and check-ins, all of which are agreed upon before the project begins or during the production phase. Though we have team members in practically every timezone, we make certain that if our client needs it, team members are available. Ultimately, every client has different needs, some require frequent communication and updates, whereas others prefer to be more hands-off. Regardless, Aleksandar and the team strive to be adaptable to all client requirements.
If you’re looking to leverage the expert game production services led by Aleksandar, reach out to Magic Media today. We offer an extensive range of services including full-cycle game development, game porting, and much more including services for entertainment and tech projects. Get in contact, and let’s create magic!
