- Asha Sharma says some Xbox studios had as many as 14 layers of management.
- This led to slower creative decisions and a lack of accountability and quality.
- They will now streamline work and reduce it to 5 or even 3 layers of management.
Xbox has just gone through a major reset which saw the company laying off over 3,000 employees, with 4 major studios going independent. Amid all this, the Xbox CEO has explained why the reset and these measures were necessary.
She revealed that some of their studios had work going through 14 layers of management. This not only led to higher costs, but also majorly slowed creative decisions and blurred accountability, which has now been changed.
Why it matters: This is a ridiculously large number of layers through which the decisions have to go. It, as Sharma said, slows down the process considerably, despite Xbox as a brand being on a decline.
In her long explanation of the reset, Asha Sharma revealed that in the company, work used to pass through 14 layers of management. This has been brought down to just 5 to prioritise creativity and accountability.
In some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players.
– Asha Sharma
She said their platform teams are now 40% larger than what they were at the start of this console generation, despite Xbox player base and playtime having declined. This made it hard to deliver for their user base.
So, now they’ll reduce the layers to 5, or even 3 if needed. They will deliver quality through a flatter organization model, more streamlined work, a cleaner code base, and more importantly, 50% reduced vendor spending.
What are your thoughts on some of the Xbox studios having an insane 14 layers of management? Let us know your opinions in the comments or join the discussion at the official Tech4Gamers Forum.
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News Reporter
Abdullah is an avid gamer who primarily plays single-player titles. If you can’t find him anywhere, he’ll probably be at his desk playing The Witcher 3 for the millionth time. When he isn’t playing games, he’s either reading or writing about them.
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