Part 8
The following Friday, it was time for the usual regular meeting.
"Then we'll start the meeting ..."
Starting from the director, one by one the contentless reports proceeded.
Charaji, Queen, Sakurai-san, and me. We went through the whole process without incident, and finally returned to Takoyaki-san.
"Well, then, do you have any new suggestions or comments... none, right?"
It was time for the usual, standard greeting. I quickly raised my hand in agreement with Sakurai-san next to me.
"I'm sorry, I have a new proposal. Could you please give me a moment?"
"Ah, y-yes ... Hashiba-kun, what's up with everything all of a sudden?"
Takoyaki-san nods his head in confusion.
"What is it? You and Sakurai were doing something together after all?"
Charaji's jeers went through, and I handed out printouts to everyone.
"What's this?"
The queen nodded her head as she flipped through the printouts.
"It's a business improvement plan"
"He?"
"As has been said. There is too much inefficiency in what this department is doing."
An analysis of all the work performed by the 13th Development Department revealed that data entry, analysis, etc. were the most common, followed by a large number of support tasks.
"So I decided to automate around the data first."
The first step was to reform the survey postcards.
What used to be a handwritten response section has been simplified and made into a mark-sheet format. This way, the data can be easily compiled by scanning.
"I then contacted the official site manager to get the FAQs in place."
Based on the data we have accumulated so far, we compiled a list of frequently asked questions and answers. We then asked them to call or e-mail us only those questions that were absolutely unclear.
This would have dramatically reduced the amount of time that was spent responding to support and organizing data.
"He~e, if it's easy, that's great."
Charaji glances at me as he flips through the material.
"Remember those old development guys who wanted to write the survey in their handwriting? How did you deal with that?"
Indeed, the simplification of the questionnaire received some pushback from older employees.
"That's okay, it's been resolved."
"He~e, how did you convince them?"
"I've requested their cooperation, support services."
"Cooperation...?"
I nodded and explained how it happened.
It is good to keep the directories items. But until now, most of the things that fell under that category were details of the game or system glitches that needed to be confirmed by the development site.
Therefore, we requested that they cooperate in answering the questions, as we will forward the contents to them, instead of having the support team investigate and verify them sequentially as they have done in the past.
"I did so, and everyone said it would be okay to eliminate the handwritten items."
"... Well, they don't want to do this or that on their own."
He nodded his head in agreement, though he spits out.
"Next is the simplification of data entry."
Until now, all input into Excel data had been done manually by each individual. By automating this process and using the same format, we aimed to save time.
"That's indeed a good idea"
The queen nodded.
"But if you want to do it right, you'll need to develop an app for internal use ...... How did you arrange that?"
"It is obviously very expensive to develop an application. Even if we wanted to order in-house, I don't think we would be able to find a programmer that easily."
"Then, what should we do?"
I smiled,
"You did it, develop it."
The queen's eyes blinked and she looked at me like, "What are you talking about?"
"Eh, did you do something like that?"
Charaji also looks at the queen and looks surprised.
"I told you I didn't do it. Hashiba-kun, what do you mean by that?"
I opened my laptop and showed them the Excel file that the queen had created.
"I'm sorry, I analyzed the created macro."
"Ah……"
"Yes, we reworked the macro files to make them easier to understand and more versatile. So that everyone in the department can use them."
While checking the Excel files after data entry, we found that only the queen's file was more organized and had fewer errors than anyone else's. So I checked the files one by one and discovered that she had set up macros for each item to speed up the process.
"So I reassembled it."
Even if app development is impossible, macros can be read to some extent if you try hard enough.
I spent all my free time creating this macro while using an explanatory website.
"What the hell, you've got all this good stuff, why don't you share it."
Charaji complains,
"I wasn't asked for it, and I didn't know it was necessary."
Yes, there has been no particular need for this. So I guess she was only thinking of making her own work more efficient.
"I've put together this document on how to use the new macros. I've also put a pdf version of it on the shared disk, so if you have any questions about how to use it, just look there."
Other minor improvements were also made, such as labeling the warehouse with a common numbering system for organizing the warehouse and introducing convenient goods to save time in the task of applying correction stickers.
"That's great, Hashiba-kun, it takes less than half the time to do all the work required so far!"
Takoyaki-san was understandably overjoyed and happily flipped through the materials.
"But, you know, in a department like ours, what are you going to do with all this spare time?"
The queen sent me a comment that was too much of a basic premise.
"It's development"
"Ha?"
"Development! What do you think the name of our department is? We make time to develop games there!"
Charaji and the Queen did not hide their surprise at my words.
"What are you talking about, are you sane?"
"What are you going to do if you don't have the tools or a good computer to develop?"
Well, I thought, of course, that concern would be voiced.
"Of course, I'm not going to tell you to go out of the box and do field development work. What I want you to do is ...... this."
I turned to the last page of the document.
This was the purpose of this project in the first place. I believed that by doing this, by being able to do this, I would definitely be able to take the first step in development.
"Let's do a planning meeting!"
The meeting has never been held since the creation of the 13th Development Department.
I would revive that, which is done as a matter of course in a normal development department. My plan was to make roots to grow trees... or so it is.
"Every Friday afternoon will be dedicated to that time. Is it okay...?"
No objections were raised to the proposal after the outer moat was firmly filled.
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