Starting up an XR Production Team

Capturing some thoughts and learnings as I read about how its been done in the past while I do it in the present.

The model I am using is that of a distributed team. This is opposed to outsourcing. My company has used and been abused by the outsourcing model. The difference boils down to who owns the experience gained by doing the work. There are other important aspects like licensing and who owns the IP.

Outsourcing is fine for getting something done that is not in your wheelhouse and is well-defined. “This isn’t what we do, find someone who does and pay them.” A perfect example (if partly because it seems obvious) is a doctor.

When my company outsourced XR content development it was based on that concept. The problem was they kept paying different companies to do essentially the same job over and over again. We found three projects addressing the same essential skill. Created by three different companies using three different headsets and three different approaches to tactile feedback.

It would have been far better to set up a small team to manage iterating on the base functionality. Lessons learned would be incorporated into subsequent projects. A common framework could have been specified. Along with a “blessed” toolchain, production process, hardware and publishing framework. This would lower the bar for additional use cases and build up economy of scale.

This can be accomplished without hiring an in-house army of developers and artists. We contracted with an established, trusted partner that provides technical teams for a variety of technology projects. Most of the team are probably freelancers, but who work with each other frequently. The work they do is work product owned by my company. I provide the continuity and glue that connects what is learned developing each project as the product owner.

I don’t expect to be the sole product owner for very long. The model is working so well that we are frequently asked to do additional projects. This is partly due to the halo effect of the previous projects I mentioned (which we may not have had much involvement in). But it is also because of an extremely important benefit we provide: relief from procurement.

One of the most challenging aspects of getting boutique software development services inside an enterprise is procuring and vetting suppliers. It can take months to get through approvals, security checks, financial assessments, billing, and other seemingly random administrivia. Once someone has done it, the benefit is they acquire the gravity of the sunk cost. Now other parties see that they will not have to shoulder. In other words, a lot of the risk is eliminated.

I call it risk because the process leaves one exposed. It requires spending time and money at a clip while having absolutely no results to show for a long time. Strong management support that wants to eat that cost and, possibly, fail at some point along the way.