Learning Project management through Video Games

I've been sucked into factory games for the past couple months, and ended it with the O.G. of the genre, Factorio. Below is my end game base and also a diagram of only a portion of the full supply/manufacturing chain that you need to build for the materials in this game. By the end of it, you end up with over 50 unique end products, all interconnected throughout the supply chain and logistics networks to distribute materials to outposts as well as within your manufacturing centers.

One of the things that drew me to project management was my appeal to mapping out and planning the things that I do. Photography sessions begin with identifying the theme, planning locations, looks, attire, makeup, and models. Leather working you select a project, make a bill of materials for what you’ll need, design or acquire patterns, and plan the process of the creation with dependencies (this must be made before that can be made, etc). Running tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons you need to plan all of your character sheets, have notes on the world, improvise and build upon everything while gently keeping your players from going off the rails entirely.

I love the act of looking at chaos, and slowly identifying the patterns within, breaking it down into manageable pieces, collecting documentation with my unhealthy addiction to Microsoft Onenote, and setting out a plan of action to execute. Factorio is one of those games that I wish I could use a clip of screenplay as a screensaver, as at times I’ll just sit back and look at the dizzying machine I’ve created for myself and watch all the parts feeding into each other.

Planning, process mapping, and significant forethought for some pixels on the screen

Said pixels on screen