Interactive Entertainment – Frank Russell Consulting

Program: Financial Reporting

April 18, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Program objective:

Implement the systems and processes to support more efficient financial forecasting and reporting.
Projects
- Forecasting System (Clarity, Hyperion Essbase)
- Financial Data Warehouse and ODS (Oracle)
- Financial Reporting (Cognos)

The program goals were achieved through:

Securing commitment from senior executives to standardize the chart of accounts.
Setting common definitions for key terms critical for project accounting.
Successful management of internationally dispersed team including external developers.
Close involvement of Finance stakeholders.

Key accomplishments:

Provided the systems and means to produce the company’s first automated consolidated financial reports, aggregating data from 13 independent financial systems (and charts of accounts). Quarterly close was reduced by 4 days.
Initiated the replacement of 13 different charts of accounts with a single corporate standard.
Established the basis for effective project accounting across all studios

Program: Enabling Collaborative Development

March 20, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Program objective:

Implement the infrastructure and processes to facilitate knowledge transfer, collaborative development and the sharing of best practises across the company. (Based on its early success the scope was expanded from its initial focus on game technologies to target all knowledge and collaboration in the studios.)
Projects
- Enterprise Search (SharePoint)
- Team Sites (SharePoint)
- Technology Database (SQL, .Net, SharePoint)
- Support Application (TechExcel)
- EA Knowledge (SQL, .Net, SharePoint)

The program goals were achieved through:

Successful use of Agile development techniques.
Persuading each technology group to adopt common systems and processes for support.
Fully integrating all systems within existing enterprise architecture.
Quickly responding to requests from teams outside of scope to adopt infrastructure.
Successfully customizing SharePoint with key features including forums and enhanced search.
Effective management of an internationally dispersed team.

Key accomplishments:

Widespread adoption within the first year (over 200 intranet sites and 300 forums (23,000 posts)) led to a dramatic increase in the sharing of knowledge and practises across the company.
Migration to a single support and development system by the company’s central technology providers greatly facilitated the adoption and support of central tools and technologies.

Program: Game Development Productivity

March 19, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Program objective:

Implement systems and processes that improve development efficiency and game quality.
Projects
- Project Management (MS Project & Project Server)
- Digital Source Code (Alienbrain)
- Digital Asset Management (TEAMS)
- Defect Management (DevTrack)

The program goals were achieved through:

Constant communication and interaction with internationally dispersed stakeholders. (Frequent travel.)
Creation of Worldwide Project Management Council and Worldwide QA Council to promote the identification and adoption of best practises across the company.
Development of project management courses in conjunction with EA University.
Securing agreement from senior executives across the company to standardize on testing systems and processes.

Key accomplishments:

Helped raise project management standards throughout the company.
Through the implementation of the global defect management system led the company to establish common practices and systems, which enabled game testing to be distributed across the company, significantly reducing costs and enhancing flexibility.
Helped drive production efficiencies by implementing configuration management systems for digital assets.
Improved productivity and reduced costs by enabling reuse of existing assets through deployment of digital asset management (DAM) solution.

Program: Scaling to $1 Billion

March 18, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Put in place the systems and processes to support the studio’s growth to 1,000 employees and revenue of $1Billion.
Projects
- Accounting (Oracle Financials)
- Budgeting (Oracle Financial Analyzer)
- Human Resources (PeopleSoft)
- Payroll (ADP)
- Asset Management (Wisetrack)

The program goals were achieved through:

Close working relationship with stakeholders including senior executives.
Establishing common language for terms across departments.
Integrating all systems to eliminate redundancy and ensure data integrity.
Re-engineering processes to optimize efficiencies across departments.
Successful management of cross-functional team and external consultants.

Key accomplishments:

Efficiency gains from streamlined processes and an integrated application architecture succeeded in reducing the monthly close cycle by 2 days.
Re-engineered on-boarding process for new hires resulting in greatly improved data integrity through elimination of redundant data entry across several departments.
Managers had on-demand, up-to-date, reliable view of key performance measures, including headcount and budget performance, for the first time.
Studio consolidation and relocation of three offices to a new building resulted in no reported losses of key assets.

PMO – Game Development

March 18, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Managed the Project Management Office for the world’s largest game development studio. Oversaw planning, scheduling and budgeting and managed the project management system for the studio’s development teams (10-15 concurrent projects). Initiated development improvement process based on project post mortems.

PMO – IT

March 18, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Implemented a Program Management Office for managing worldwide IT projects. Established standards for project documentation including project charters, requirements documents, budgets and business cases. Developed innovative communication plan for status reporting as well as for tracking and managing stakeholders’ expectations and perceptions. Engaged in strategic planning with senior executives to align project resources and priorities with company objectives.

Marketing Data Warehouse & Analytics

March 18, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Built a data warehouse and reporting environment for external market data that enabled Marketing to produce reports and analysis in minutes or hours instead of days or weeks.

Human Resources Data Warehouse

March 18, 2018

Client:	Developer and publisher of video games
Employees:	8,000

Led the design and build of a data warehouse and reporting environment to consolidate data from multiple PeopleSoft instances and other systems. Provided self-serve manager and employee reporting. Produced the company’s first global view of human resources data.

Category: Interactive Entertainment