wiki_ghostguild/content/curriculum/PS Guides/2-shared-purpose-alignment.md

2: Shared Purpose & Alignment

What happens in session

This session, we talk about the challenges of aligning on the studio's purpose.

We go over common pitfalls – vague goals like "we all just want to make good games" and assuming shared politics means shared work values. We do four rounds of The Talk, asking detailed individual questions about financial reality, time/availability, skills/contributions, and decision-making styles. Studios practice this in their channels with the Peer Support present.

👀 Your role during session

This is a big one. You're facilitating The Talk in your studio's breakout room (aka their project or studio channel). Here are some things to watch for:

Financial reality:

• People minimizing their own needs
• Wide gaps in financial situations not being acknowledged
• Someone going quiet

Time/availability:

• Vague answers
• Someone over committing to match others

Skills/contributions:

• People only naming strengths and not gaps
• Assumptions about roles based on past
• Someone taking on the hard or tedious stuff by default

Decision-making:

• Very different styles that could clash (fast decider vs. slow processor)
• Someone who goes along to avoid conflict
• Past conflicts referenced passively

📐 Format

Each person answers in turn (2 min each), use the Miro timer, brief open discussion after everyone answers, then move to next round.

The goal isn't to solve everything today, just to get the conversation started!

This week's Studio Support Meeting: Continuing The Talk

Materials: Notes from Session 2 activity, participants' original prep from Session 1

🗺️ Context

In Session 2, studios practiced The Talk – four rounds covering financial reality, time/availability, skills/contributions, and decision-making styles. They started these conversations but didn't finish them (this is the intention). During this Studio Support Meeting, help them go deeper: Create space to continue conversations that got cut short or stayed shallow, draw out what went unsaid, help the team notice patterns.

This is an ongoing practice!

🌊 Session flow

Check-in (5 min)

"How did The Talk feel for you? Anything still sitting with you from Session 2?" Let each person respond briefly. Listen for tensions, moments of relief, unfinished ideas.

Go deeper on one round (20-25 min)

"Which round felt most unfinished or brought up the most tension?" Revisit the questions in the round they choose, but this time, push past the first answer.

For financial reality:

1. What would change for you if the studio couldn't pay you anything for six months?
2. Are you trying not to seem demanding, and not sharing your true needs?
3. Are there differences in monetary needs that create (a sense of) unbalanced power dynamics?

For time and availability:

4. How many hours per week can you reliably, actually commit – a hard number.
5. What's something that would cause you to miss a deadline? How would you want to handle that as a team?
6. Are you building around one person's availability? Intentionally?

For skills and contributions:

7. What happens if no one does the "dreaded task"?
8. When you're overwhelmed, do you want people to check in or give you space? Does the team know that about you?
9. Is anyone doing work that isn't visible or acknowledged?

For decision-making:

10. What happens if you disagree about something, but don't say anything?
11. Has there been a decision in this group where you felt unheard?
12. When you're under pressure, do you speed up or slow down? Do these styles clash between members?

Draw out the unsaid (15 min)

:::warning This could be hard. "Was there anything you wanted to say in Session 2 but didn't?"

:::

Give silence and let it be awkward. You really need to relish the awkwardness. Let folks build up courage to speak up. If nothing comes up, at least you've created an opening for later.

• Is there a question you wish someone had asked you?
• Is there something you noticed about a teammate's answer that you're still thinking about?
• Is there an elephant in the room?

If something big comes up: help them decide – "Is this something you want to keep talking about now, or table for later?"

Close and next steps (5 min)

"What's one thing you want to carry forward from this conversation?"

Remind them: these conversations don't end here; tension is interesting information, not failure; they can bring things back to future PS sessions.

Nudge them on their Session 2 homework: writing down tension points and unsaid questions. Check that they're doing this – we need this to build on later.

🚩Red flags

• One person's needs consistently minimized (by themselves or others)
• Financial gaps with no acknowledgment of how they affect power
• A founder or initiator whose preferences are treated as default
• Someone checked out or going along without engaging
• A topic the group keeps avoiding
• Stuck or clearly in conflict

Note these for your PS check-in or message in the channel.

👉 Also this week: Scale and Pace

Duration: 15-20 minutes (can be folded into the same meeting as Continuing The Talk, or done as a separate short check-in)

Context: Session 2 homework asks each person to individually reflect on where they see the studio in 1/3/5 years and what their revenue model might look like. This is just a conversation starter. You're helping them notice where their assumptions about the studio's future align or diverge.

Before the conversation:

• Confirm everyone has done some thinking on this (even loosely). If they haven't, give them 5 minutes of quiet writing time before you start.

How to facilitate:

Start with a round: Each person shares one thing about where they see the studio. Keep it brief – you're listening for gaps, not building a business plan.

Prompts to draw out differences:

• "When you picture the studio in three years, how many people are on the team?"
• "Are you imagining one game, or multiple projects?"
• "What does 'success' look like for you personally – not the studio, you?"
• "Is this your full-time thing, or alongside other work?"

Then ground it:

• "Who are your players? Do you know?"
• "What's your revenue model – game sales, services, grants, a mix?"
• "Can that sustain you? For how long?"
• "What happens if the game takes twice as long as you think?"

What you're listening for:

• Major mismatches in ambition (one person wants a 20-person studio, another wants a 3-person collective)
• Revenue model assumptions that haven't been tested or discussed ("we'll just get a publisher")
• Someone who hasn't thought about this at all
• Scale assumptions that don't match the team's actual capacity
• Different definitions of sustainability (covering rent vs. building wealth vs. just making a game)

What you're not doing: Judging their plans or telling them what's realistic. You're helping them see whether they're actually talking about the same studio.

:::tip Tip: If you notice a big gap – say, one person assumes this is a side project and another has quit their job for it – name it gently. "I'm noticing you might be picturing different scales here. Is that something you've talked about?" This is the kind of divergence that festers if it stays unspoken.

:::

After the conversation:

• Note any major alignment gaps for your PS check-in
• They'll keep returning to scale and pace throughout the program – this is just the first pass