Project Management in Video Games

Heather Maxwell Chandler wrote an article posted on Gamasutra this morning on the value of Project Management in Video Game Design.  I found this existence of this article somewhat suprising.  Video Games are from a development standpoint, complex on the level of Enterprise-level business applications.  Furthermore to make a really great video game, into the complex land of code must be integrated concepts of gameplay design, artwork, sound, music, artificial intelligence, and so forth.  In short, making a game is hard.

 So how can a large team of people, most of whom own a greatly varying supply of skillsets manage to possibly put togethera game worth half a damn without using project management techniques?  I understand that there is likely a history of “Business Analyst Style” Project Managers who feel that, in the words of Abraham Maslow, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything tends to look like a nail.  Obviously the management techniques which have been have been honed in the business world to deal with highly structured process models are not going to be directly applicable to a creative work such as a video game, but to go the complete other direction would, I think, also be madness.

This article seems to suggest that the latter is exactly the case in much of the industry, which I find difficult to believe (although it would explain why 80 hour work weeks seem to be so common).  Could anybody who’s had some experience in the industry comment on that?