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Indie game studios often face complex, lingering problems that fall outside standard development workflows, such as team tension, stalled publishing deals, or concerns regarding a game's core loop. According to business coach Martijn van Zwieten, these issues can quietly derail a studio if they lack a clear owner or a dedicated resolution process.
To address these bottlenecks, van Zwieten suggests creating a shared, visible backlog for all studio-related issues. Teams can populate this list by conducting a SWOT analysis to identify actionable weaknesses and threats. This centralized list ensures that all team members have a designated place to report concerns that they cannot resolve independently.
Effective resolution requires reserving dedicated time during regular meetings rather than treating issues as an afterthought. To prevent unproductive, circular debates, van Zwieten recommends the IDS framework—Identify, Discuss, Solve. This method emphasizes identifying the root cause before discussing context or proposing solutions, which helps teams avoid merely treating symptoms.
By establishing these habits, studios can improve their decision-making and contextual problem-solving capabilities. Martijn van Zwieten, who has coached leaders at studios including Bethesda Game Studios and Rusty Lake, offers further implementation details for his FIRM framework through a free template available on his website.
