Teaming At Disney Animation

Speakers: Matthew Schnittker

Level: Fundamental, Lecture

Excerpt: In 2013, The systems team at Walt Disney Animation Studios worked with Harvard Business School on an ambitious case study about how to improve team collaboration and communication. The emphasis was on “soft skills” and interpersonal relationships. In this talk I’ll discuss some of our learning as well as how it contrasts with what other companies have learned and I’ll share some ideas on how to improve relationships in the work environment.

Description: Between 2011 and 2013 the Systems Team at Walt Disney animation worked with Harvard Business School on an ambitious project to reorganize their teams for better productivity. The emphasis was on “soft skills” and interpersonal relationships and resulted in an interesting case study ( http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=47906 ) Other companies have done similar studies and covered similar ground. In this talk I’ll discuss some of our learning as well as how it contrasts with other references on the subject.


About the speakers

Matthew Schnittker – Manager, Technology – Walt Disney Animation Studios (Twitter: mschnitt)

Matt Schnittker began his association with Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1998, and currently serves as a Manager in the Systems department. His first film contribution was on Disney’s ambitious 2000 animated feature, “Dinosaur,” and he most recently worked on the Studio’s feature release, “Zootopia”. Schnittker has been involved in both traditional 2D, and fully digital 3D animation pipelines across both Systems and Software teams. He has contributed to several Disney patents and won an International 3D Society Lumiere Award for his work on 3D Pipelines. He currently is a manager in technology systems focusing on web and mobile software development.

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