Over at the descriptively named GameDevBlog, Torpex Games' Jamie Fristrom (he who is doing Schizoid for Xbox Live Arcade) has posted something called 'The Copper Bullet List' in his 'Manager In A Strange Land' series, and it's basically, uhh, a cheat sheet for making high quality video games if you're a developer, somewhat based on The Joel Test.

And top of the list, unsurprisingly, is: "The key to a succesful team: people, people, people. Try to work with people who are better than you. There's a large body of literature on how to do this - too much to go into here. But what's usually worked for us has often bordered on nepotism, working with friends and friends of friends - friends whom we know are very smart and talented." Even working in game media, as I appear to do, I agree wholeheartedly with this comment.

There are plenty of other good ones, but staying with the floaty-smart ones that will fit in one paragraph: "Keep communication open; try to involve everyone in decisions. Sometimes you'll get a lead who'll say "You went around me!" or "You went over my head!" when two others on the team talk without consulting them first - they'll want to implement a chain-of-command and make sure they're always passing messages, the hub of a game of post office. This is an attitude that must stop. People on the team need to talk, and leads should only get upset when one of their guys actually go off task for someone else without permission."