Community Management and Leading Remote Teams

In an interview with GamesMarkt, Dominika Borgosz, Director of Community Management at InnoGames, explains how community management has changed over the last fifteen years and how artificial intelligence is advancing the field. She also discusses the challenges of managing remote teams.

Dominika Borgosz has been with InnoGames for 17 years. Currently Director of Community Management at the Hamburg-based company, she talks to GamesMarkt about how the job has changed in recent years - and the increasing role of artificial intelligence.

Dominika Borgosz: "In my job as "student" Community Manager, my task was to translate Tribal Wars (which is called "Plemiona" in Poland, btw) into Polish, then to set up the local community - including a supporter team consisting of players. The next position required me to work from the InnoGames office, which was in Stade at the time. That job was to coordinate all Community Managers of Tribal Wars and, later, also of The West and Grepolis. Over time, my responsibilities kept growing and I started moving further up the ranks, from Product Consultant to Product Manager to Head of Community Management."

"Today, I am InnoGames' Director of Community Management and, as such, also in charge of our player-facing social media activities. To those who might wonder if spending 17 years in Community Management doesn't get boring: Absolutely not! Technological developments, new game releases, ever-growing responsibilities, and changes in how our communities tick have kept things quite exciting. Speaking of technological advances, and at the risk of stating the obvious: Community Management isn't just about sending messages back and forth to/from players. Not anymore, anyway. These days, AI in general, and automated machine translations and voice overs in particular, play a huge role in our line of work. Exciting times! However, while we can already see how AI makes our jobs easier and more efficient, I don’t think it will be making Community Managers obsolete anytime soon. Or ever, really, as our job requires a high level of emotional intelligence, creative problem-solving, and a deep understanding of the wants and needs of the players," Borgosz says.

"What I love most about Community Management is that it's all about people. Community Managers have a dual role: They are both part of the community AND the company, representing the interests of the latter to the former – and vice versa. In practice, you are tapped directly into the source and learn to understand what players want and what is important to them. Meanwhile, you ensure that community management strongly supports the product and helps development teams implement player feedback. Maintaining a healthy balance requires diplomatic skills and is quite challenging. However, when you do get it right, it’s incredibly fulfilling to see how our work helps improve the player experience and contributes to game development."

She also manages the remote teams of the successful Hamburg-based developer. This brings new challenges, which she then explores in depth - from the obvious to the special measures InnoGames has taken.

"Unsurprisingly, different time zones are the greatest challenge. They make most aspects of coordination between team members difficult. Working hours have little or no overlap, productive times within these working hours vary, responses to emails are slow, finding meeting times that work for everyone is tedious. To tackle this, we are using tools that facilitate asynchronous work, while taking every chance we can to work synchronously. In addition, we ensure that our game development teams are aware that our Community Managers cannot always assist immediately and that they plan their tasks accordingly." - Dominika Borgosz, Director of Community Management

"Another considerable challenge is the diminished personal interaction. Without face-to-face communications, the sense of being a team requires more nurturing. Developing trust and informal relationships remotely is harder than in person. That aside, the lack of non-verbal clues increases the risk of misunderstandings or misinterpretations. Consequently, leading remote teams successfully has - paradoxically - much to do with finding ways to reduce remoteness despite physical distance, i.e. creating opportunities that foster a sense of closeness. To this end, we have implemented various measures, such as inviting our Community Managers to join us in Hamburg to meet in person once a year. On such occasions, we engage in a range of activities, including workshops and leisure activities, to help us bond and build team spirit. Our CEO seizes such occasions to share the company strategy and plans with our Community Managers, so we are all on the same page. Other measures include regular online meetings to discuss upcoming topics in our games and to involve the Community Managers in creating new game design concepts as well as virtual workshops and training to further develop the team's skills. Last but not least, we send out weekly InnoGames updates to bring the company and the team closer together and to share knowledge in the form of articles or video tutorials."

"All in all, though, none of these challenges are specific for InnoGames or even the games industry. And none of these challenges are new or were triggered by the pandemic, as we have always been relying on local Community Management that needed to be managed remotely."

Find out more about Dominika Borgosz, her work at InnoGames and her experiences as a woman in the games industry in her Women in Games portrait. (GM Plus)

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