Session Name: | Smoldering Conflicts: Managing Cross-Cultural Teams |
Speaker(s): | Christopher Schmitz, Benedikt Grindel |
Company Name(s): | Ubisoft Blue Byte, Ubisoft Blue Byte |
Track / Format: | Business, Marketing & Management |
Overview: | Development teams all over the world are now often comprised of many different nations, as talent is moving around the globe quickly to work on the most interesting projects. These multi-cultural teams often suffer from a clash of cultures caused by the different social paradigms and communication styles. Smoldering conflicts caused by cultural misunderstandings can often evolve into a project-threatening crisis. This talk is about Ubisoft Blue Byte growing from a purely German development studio of 25 teammates into a truly international studio of more than 350 employees from 25 different nations. Experiencing a new level of conflict quality within our teams in the beginning, we had to learn how to tackle these problems, and we eventually formed well-performing teams. This is our story of how we did that. |