Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small

fantastic business talk by Ed Catmull (pixar co-founder) at Stanford [VIDEO] btw: I find it hard to believe that Toy Story 3 could be any good (because of the "3"). Is it?

I believe Ed Catmull refers to this as 'keeping your crises small.' That is to say, it's much better to actively surface problems before they leave the shop than it is to ship with issues, and try to deal with implosions after the fact (ahem, Vista). Here he is, giving a really good talk at Stanford Business School, in which he covers this (among other good ideas). About an hour, but worth much more. [VIDEO] Interestingly, an ethos like this suggests that the fate of Microsoft is NOT inevitable. It's only becomes that way when you no longer care about shipping garbage. Exhibit B: Detroit in the 70's and 80's.

Keep Your Crises Small, [VIDEO] It's a lecture from Ed Catmull. I highly recommend it, many gems from a brilliant developer turned brilliant manager.

It's "The Pixar Story"[1]. A great documentary, highly recommended. But Pixar wasn't all roses either - during the tight production of Toy Story 2 (because they changed almost all of the story and had to rush it for christmas), a couple (who were both animators) forgot that their 1-year old was in the car (and not in the day care!), and the girl was there for almost 10 hours... She lived, but still a pretty horrible story. The source for this unpleasant anecdote is [2]. It's a long talk by Ed Catmull, but I can't recommend it enough. It's really, really awesome . Success hides problems (Ed Catmull) Want to know why Pixar was awesome for soooo long? It wasn't luck, and it wasn't because they had great animators. It wasn't even (entirely) because they told terrific stories. It was because they constantly learned from their "successes"... Watch (or listen) to Catmull's talk. I guarantee that you won't regret the 55 minutes you spend on it... [1]: [LINK] [2]: [VIDEO]

Rich Hickey's talk on simplicity is a must watch. [LINK] And one of the most useful talks of all time for building organizations is by Ed Catmull (of Pixar) [VIDEO]

Article is a little shallow. Great video by Catmull to Stanford business school on it: [VIDEO] (54 minutes) And here's an article by him: [LINK] e.g. Toy Story 2 was an impetus to creating the present review system; the reason for saying 5 good things is just to make the people feel better about the criticisms: the last thing you want to do after years of exhausting work is point out what sucked. Catmull is the main guy driving these standards; Lasseter is busy being a creative; BTW: I thought I'd discerned a hidden pattern of pixar having the writer voice the primary mentor role - Brad Bird voiced Edna Mode in The Incredibles ; Andrew Stanton voiced Crush in Finding Nemo - but... Brad Bird didn't voice Gusteau in Ratatouille

Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, has made the same comment about their films. The entire video is worth watching, but the quote in question is at [VIDEO] - The other thing to note is, there is a confusion, I think, that the people have and is — the books and press kind of work this way in that we think about "an idea." When we think of ideas for movies, we think about ideas for products. And it's usually thought of as some singular thing. But the reality is, these successful movies — as with all successful products — have got thousands of ideas. It's just all sorts of things necessary to make it be successful. And you have to get most of them right to do it. And that's why you need a team that works well together.

Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small , Stanford Graduate School of Business [VIDEO] (54:11) Long. Worth it.