At the tail end of 2021, the Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Final Fantasy XIV (FF14) released it's 4th and final expansion; Endwalker. It was around this time that I jumped headfirst into the game. Anyone who knows me, would know that I love the Final Fantasy series. It's mix of relatable characters, interesting storylines and fun gameplay has always gripped me. Saying that, I was hesitant to play this one due to the fact that it was online multiplayer as opposed to the single-player, story-driven titles of the past. After a short time though, I quickly fell in love with the game and have sunk an embarrassing number of hours into it.
Like most MMORPGs (other popular examples being World of Warcraft and Runescape) you join other players to explore dungeons, with each player in the party taking on one of the folowing roles: Tanks, Healers and DPS's. Tanks draw monsters away from the rest of the party with their high defence and high health, Healers keep everyone in the party alive with their restorative abilities and DPS's (Damage Per Second, also known as Damage Dealers) focus on attacking the enemy deal huge damage numbers. I could spend hours talking irrelevant things about how much I love this game but I won't bore you with my thoughts as this party system is what i wanted to write about.
These parties and their make-up remind me very much of a project team where everyone involved with the project has a role that they need to perform. A surface level look at the roles in FF14 and project teams can easily reveal parrellels. A Project Manager could be a Tank running the project and ensuring the team have all the tools they need to deliver the work while protecting them from additional scope etc. A Healer could be your Stakeholders or your Business Sponsor supporting your project with their subject matter expertise and/or their budget and buy in. Finally, your DPS's could be the rest of your project team members such as Business Analysts, Developers, Testers, Architects and Designers who, with their available skills and abilities, are delivering artefacts to help complete the tasks and deliver the project.
Great team members not only know their role, but also understand your role as well. Like a Tank relying on a Healer to keep their health topped up, a Project Manager will rely on a Business Analyst to capture and review the requirements of a project while they arrange availability for Stakeholders and the funding from the Business Sponsor. Not all parties (and projects) work well though... In FF14, I've played a few dungeons in which members of the team were not performing their roles correctly. There have also been times where i have let down the party due to the overwhelming task of healing and have failed to keep to keep the party alive (I play as a healer).
There are many projects in the real world which have failed for a multitude of reasons - you may have some examples from your day to day job. Here are a couple of famous examples of projects which may have failed due to poor coordination or roles not working well together.
Building of the world's largest commercial aircraft (the Airbus A380) was hit with a huge $6 billion issue when it was discovered during installation that the design teams were all using different Computer-aided Design (CAD) software, and thus the pieces didn't fit together. More detail -> link.
Kevin Costner's Waterworld (a film I have still not seen), famously seen as a failure, had multiple problems which plagued it's production. Conflicts between directors, ignoring lessons learnt from Steven Spielberg's experience on Jaws, and delays, exploded the budget as it bombed at the box office. More detail -> link.
These projects could have been more successful if the project team were given more time to embed themselves and on developing the team dynamics. If you think about the Truckman theory, created by Edward L. Truckman, it explains how teams muture the longer a team works together. All teams start within the Forming stage and progress towards Performing (when they are hitting their stride) to end at Adjourning once success has been achieved. More time thinking about this could have turned some of these projects around. It's not a bad thing that projects go through those teething issues at the start - on the contrary; this is how project teams learn and build their relationships together. It's when they do not progress through the Group Development stages that issues occur with delivery.
Now my advice, whether you are new to Final Fantasy XIV or a work role: reach out to other members of the team for support and let them know you are new. You will be surprised how much patience they will have and how much guidance you will recieve.
For those of you who play FF14, or are thinking of playing it, you can find me sometimes on the Shiva server under the name of Rahya Venatahl. The game is also free (on PC and playstation) up until the second expansion so there is nothing to lose and lots of content to enjoy!
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