In the wake of my boss and colleague both leaving in proximity, my colleagues and I took a day to take stock of our situation as an engineering department and decide what to focus on. The exercise was rather simple, in theory. List what is good/bad about our current state -> Infer a likely evolution of that state -> Draw an ideal state -> Analyse the gap between ideal and likely state, and decide on actions that can lead us from one to the other.
It ended up taking the better part of a day just to do the first 3 steps. We ended up with a long list of things we want to do to bring our department closer to this ideal state, and the painful realization we cannot possibly do even half of them with our current staff and limitations. So we boiled it down to four things we are going to focus on in the coming months, things that will put us in the best position the next time we are going to have the same conversation.
That means we decided not to do over a dozen things.
While that may sound disheartening, one of the most valuable skills I picked up as a manager is the ability to analyse a ball heading towards me as if I had a velocimeter for a brain, all the while juggling a bunch of other balls, and apply that analysis by letting it fall at my feet without missing a beat with the other balls. I definitely owe some of it to the game we’ll talk about today, Lords of Waterdeep.
Over the course of 8 turns, you, as a secret lord of the fictional city of Waterdeep, will compete with the other players for control of the city by placing your agents around the board and completing quests for the city. You start with a handful of agents, a secret lord card that tells you which types of quests you will gain a bonus for completing, two quests available only for you to complete, and a bit of gold. Placing an agent on the board will get you a combination of adventurers (the currency you need to complete quests), gold, or more quests to complete, and also allows you to complete one of the quests you already have.
Quests come in five varieties, each one leaning towards a specific type of adventurer, i.e. warfare quests will always require some fighters, and require a combination of adventurers and gold to complete. That will give you points, as well a reward in the form of other resources or quests, or sometimes a passive ability that manifests when certain conditions are met.
And so you set out to find the synergies. Every quest will dwindle your resources, but will also give you new opportunities in a very tight board. The trick is to find a sequence that will let you complete the next quest after this one with the minimum amount of actions in between, while at the same time playing to the strengths of your secret lord.
You take in the board state every time it’s your turn to place an agent, and assess - can I still pursue my goals after everyone else went? If not, what is the back up plan? Did a new opportunity present itself that is worth disrupting my plans for, like a long term strategy with a big score, or an optimisation of the current strategy?
If you consider a new direction, you will have to recalibrate all the synergies in your head again. Your new direction has to match your overall strategy, the resources you have available, the opportunities at your disposal, and, if you’re lucky, not compete with the priorities of your opponents.
Balancing focus and adaptability is key to success. You must know when to reevaluate your priorities, when to stick to your guns, and you can never lose sight of the big picture, or you will have the dubious pleasure of watching the pieces falling into place on an opponent’s board as they leap ahead with a series of carefully planned executions, while you are randomly chasing short term goals.
Thinking Changes Priorities, Priorities Change Lives
In a recent interview, a candidate told me “There’s no such thing as not enough time, you’re just not trying hard enough.” in response to a question. While I think it’s a problematic statement that can be used tyrannically when applied to others, especially ones’ reports, I see value in addressing it to oneself.
When you manage a certain amount of people, especially across multiple teams, your calendar gets busy very quickly. Overall, I spend about a day every week in direct conversations with my reports, and more than half a day syncing with peers from other functions. Before I know it, I can end up, and often do, with 6-7 hours of meetings in a 9 hour work day.
One of the most painful lessons I’m still learning is that it’s all too easy to let your calendar manage you, and you’ll always regret letting it happen. There’s so many things to do, and it’s really easy to forget your highest priority as a manager is to enable those who report to you. A few weeks back I confronted a couple of my reports over a sloppy release they overworked themselves past the point of exhaustion over. I only learned about it after it was too late for me to do anything on the matter, so I asked why I was not informed as it was happening. They simply said they thought I was too busy to get involved.
As a manager, little could make me feel worse than those words.
When you think about it, if you say you don’t have time for something, it really means one of two things:
It is less important than anything else you are currently doing or are planning to do.
It’s important, but you haven’t taken the time in to fit it in your calendar.
As a manager, you are responsible for your own time, and the way your team spends their time. If you can’t say for certain about something that either of the above statements are true for it, then you are being managed by your calendar. What that boils down to, is that you are not spending enough time thinking and deciding what you or your team should be spending time on, which in turns means whatever is being done is not necessarily the most important thing that can be done at the moment.
This is why pretty much every successful leader has some form of focus time blocked into their calendar.
You simply have to prioritise prioritisation.
Any worker placement game embodies the dilemma of managing a calendar or work plan. You are always painfully aware of your limited time units - your available workers in hand, and the opportunity cost of choosing one course of action over others.
When you play Lords of Waterdeep, your priorities take the shape of quests laid down in front of you. But they don’t end there. After all, they are a means to an end, not goals by themselves. On the board, there’d be 4 other quests available for grabbing at any given time. What’s to say what you are currently focusing on is a better investment than one of these opportunities? Securing such an opportunity, however, costs a valuable action you could be spending gathering resources, so it needs to really be worth it.
Whenever you place a worker, you have some idea of what your next move should be. But by the time your turn comes again, there’s no guarantee that will still be an available move. Or the right one. So securing a future opportunity may end up costing not just the action it requires you to spend, but also risks another player securing the resources you are vying for, and delaying your plans. You may end up with less clerics than you could have gotten, or with no way to get them at all until the next round - and there are only eight rounds!
The language of Lords of Waterdeep is the same language I use to manage time - priorities and opportunity costs. The discrete simulation of time hammers a perfect point - there is a time to do, and a time to think, and success lies in the ability to make room for both, estimate the risks and rewards of your options, and committing to your choices.
Scoring Time
We’ve sent many adventurers on quests, and foiled each others’ plans consciously or inadvertently enough for this series. While only one of us gets to be the true lord of Waterdeep after we reveal our secret lords and their bonuses, I hope anyone who’s read this took away something about planning, prioritisation, and adaptability.
I urge you to go ahead and give it a try if you never have. There’s nothing quite like the rush of a plan falling into place after overcoming a hiccup. I am still internalizing the many lessons this game, and others of its kind have imparted on me.
There are many aspects to Lords of Waterdeep I haven’t touched on here, from intrigue cards to buildings, not to mention the excellent expansions. I will let you find those out for yourself while I keep things simple in this writing. Worker placement is an incredibly varied space that is constantly evolving and keeps surprising me with its depth.
For further recommendations, I’m going to avoid the classics you can hear about anywhere, and recommend a few niche options that put a twist on the classic formula:
Everdell - If you are looking for a lighter, all family theme and a less competitive atmosphere, this lovely woodland animal village is your place to go.
Architects of the West Kingdom - On the opposite scale, if you want more player interaction and are not afraid of some direct opposition, try your hand at the cutthroat world of building cathedrals in the middle ages.
Dungeon Petz - This one may look light hearted and whimsical, but underneath this facade hides a game of truly thin margins of error, where you constantly have to be a few steps ahead, have a couple of contingencies, and watch out for synergies.
Until next time, remember that playful growth is healthy growth, no matter how old you are!