LightFury Games
Production planning, company-wide systems and a shared view of the work.
Jira projects built
boards configured, approximately
company size during my tenure
direct reporting stakeholders
The starting point
I joined as the studio’s first game producer and approximately its tenth employee. The company was developing a AAA-quality mobile game and grew to around 180 employees by the time I left.
There was no Jira implementation and no internal Jira expertise. I recognised that coordination through Slack would become harder as more departments, dependencies and decisions entered the picture.
My role combined hands-on production planning with significant workflow and prioritisation responsibility. I reported to the CEO, CTO and CFO and worked through department leads; I had no direct reports.
Production planning
I worked with leadership and department leads to turn an approved design direction into a sequence of work with visible dependencies.
I gathered the CEO and CTO’s expectations for workflow and visibility. With the Design Director, I coordinated design-document reviews, captured feedback and followed revisions through approval.
After approval, I created high-level tasks and milestones, then met individually with leads across Design, Gameplay, Art, Animation, IT, HR, Technical Design and Technical Art.
I brought leads together to agree sequencing and timelines. Formal task links in Jira made blockers and downstream consequences visible in the plan.
I led weekly sprint reviews from the live Jira board and biweekly milestone-progress meetings, updating priorities and actions as the team discussed them.
Systems built from zero
Jira
I designed four projects and approximately 20–30 boards across development, builds, art, engineering, design, services, hiring, HR, IT and security.
Notion
I helped establish an organisation-wide workspace for onboarding, department documentation, shared knowledge and executive meeting notes.
A dedicated page captured each executive review’s context, risks and decisions. I maintained it before the meeting, updated it during the discussion and used it to support follow-through.
Change management
I learned advanced Jira administration as requirements emerged, using a repeated cycle of understanding the need, researching, testing and implementing.
Major changes were tested in a separate environment. I created a backup before changing the live system and scheduled implementation outside active working hours.
Two major changes needed rollback. I restored the previous state, communicated the recovery, diagnosed the configuration issues and later implemented the corrected changes successfully.
After training employees and the technical administration team, I handed routine administration to IT while retaining approval over significant workflow changes.
Decisions & visibility
I prioritised by dependencies and time sensitivity. A task blocking several others could have a wider delivery impact than a more visible task with fewer consequences.
When a target was shorter than the team’s estimate, I investigated the gap with leads and presented leadership with options: support, reprioritisation, scope changes, overtime or a limited extension. Final scope decisions stayed with the CEO.
Executive reviews combined Jira progress, Notion context and a live build demonstration. I showed the current milestone build, including its issues, so leaders could assess the actual product state.
Meeting outcomes became tasks, documentation updates or formal communication. I followed up until agreed actions had been implemented.
Approximate structure of an executive review
Jira · progress and priorities
Notion · risks and mitigation
Live build · actual product state
People & responsibility
When the CFO approved a fixed hiring envelope, I assessed workloads and bottlenecks to recommend how approved headcount should be distributed. Budget ownership remained with leadership.
I also took part in final-stage team-fit screening, while department leads handled technical evaluation. Once someone joined, I set aside pre-hire reservations and supported their development fully.
Explore the people side of my work