I have read alot of different articles about how to be a effective producer, and their role in game developement. Description: A producer makes sure that assignments are completed on time, and that the team is motivated and encouraged. He also creates the assigments, and their due dates. But my question now is, how does the Creative Director and Producer interact? The Creative Director keeps the art of the game consistent. It would seem that according to those definitions, the Creative Dir. tells the Producer what he needs, then the producer sees that they get done. Or is my understanding of either roles incorrect? Anyone want to elaborate?

There isn't a straightforward answer to this, because of a number of reasons:

1. Not every job description is identical. The position of producer at one company differs from the position at another. Same for creative director.
2. Not every producer has the same skills, personality, and experience as every other producer. Same for creative director.
3. Every project has a different set of needs and exists in a different environment.
4. Then there's the human element - how well two people get along. Different for every conceivable producer, creative director, project, and set of circumstances.

The description you wrote is "close enough" to the working definitions we tend to use (except that the creative director would usually not be in the position of giving orders to the producer - it might be the opposite, or they might have some sort of power-sharing arrangement). It would not be useful to try to elaborate it much further than you have, given the numbered reasons I gave above.

[Edited by - tsloper on September 12, 2006 4:40:36 PM]

As Tom says it varies from company to company. I would say that (depending on the skills of the producer) they are part of the dev team but their task is to stay half a step away and keep an overview of the whole project.

The producer needs to manage the schedule but (in a good team) the tasks and timings that make up the schedule would be defined by the art director, design director and technical director along with the various leads (and even individual staff). Provided that those timings fit within the budget and scheduled completion for the game then that schedule is accepted. If it doesn't then it would be the producers responsibility to go back to the team and get them to make changes.

This process of management would be on-going throughout development with the Producer working with the various directors to ensure that the necessary tasks get done, that decisions get made, that changes are made when needed and not made when not needed.