Hello, this is Kurihara from the WS (Webmaster Support) department.
Currently, the WS club I belong to has two bases, Yoyogi and Kamiyama, and has 13 members.
In a previous article , about six months after the Kamiyama satellite office was established, we discussed how to proceed with business operations between Yoyogi and Kamiyama. This is not a sequel to that article, but now that we are in our second year, we would like to introduce the current issues, such as communication methods and collaboration status between Yoyogi and Kamiyama.
This time, we asked Kamiyama members who have a lot of contact with Yoyogi to help us out and ask them for more specific details.
How is the collaboration between Yoyogi and Kamiyama going now?
Areas that require collaboration between the two locations include management tasks, resource coordination, and project consultations, but the most common of these is communication between members as projects progress.
Our main business is investment projects, which by their nature require long-term relationships with clients, so we build a dedicated investment team for each client. Sometimes the team is made up of only Yoyogi members, and sometimes it's made up of both Yoyogi and Kamiyama members.
For example, when there are multiple locations, such as a director (Yoyogi), designer (Kamiyama), and coder (Kamiyama), there will be frequent communication between members. In such cases, we asked how communication between Yoyogi and Kamiyama is handled.
Q1: What tools do you use to communicate?
Kagawa : Basically, we communicate a lot through ChatWork . We also call for urgent matters and hold internal meetings through Google Hangouts . We use desktop PCs, so we connect from our desktop PCs at our desks. Kurihara is the only one who has a laptop, so when I can borrow one, I connect from my laptop in another room. Also, depending on the content of the meeting, I connect to Hangouts on my smartphone and talk.
Designer/director Kagawa (experience working in Kamiyama: about a year and a half since the office opened)
Q2: What is the "difficult part" of Google Hangouts?
Osaka : Every evening, I check the progress of projects in Yoyogi and Kamiyama, but as I mentioned earlier, my PC is a desktop, so I can't move from my desk. Therefore, it picks up various sounds such as other members' voices and phone calls (howling).
If we had a laptop for Hangouts, we could move it to the meeting space and connect one by one from Kamiyama to Yoyogi, so it would be efficient. Also, it would be convenient if we had a Chromebox (Google's cloud-based video conferencing system) like in Yoyogi.
Kagawa : Also, the unstable connection may be a bit of a problem (laughs). When I was connecting with Yoyogi, my voice was sometimes choppy. If it was one-on-one, I could ask on the spot, but meetings have a certain flow, right? When I feel like I might interrupt the flow by asking, I try to find the right timing to check.
Right: Coder/director Osaka (experience working in Kamiyama: about 6 months *After graduating from Monosus School, he worked in Yoyogi for 2 years and returned to Tokushima in January of this year)
Meetings with Yoyogi have become routinely held via Google Hangouts, but improvements to the hardware, such as the PCs and lines used for connecting, are issues to be considered in the future. Also, since meetings are held over a screen, I feel that more consideration for the other party is required than usual.
In fact, good communication literacy (literacy) is also an important element when conducting a video conference, such as checking the other person's face to make sure they are getting their message across, replying out loud to confirm that you can hear them, and speaking into the microphone.
Wanting to increase contact points, trial and error to achieve that...
Even if they are in the same department, there are members who have never met face to face, or they may have heard each other's voices but never seen each other's faces, and unless they are involved in the same projects, there are few opportunities for them to come into contact.
Maybe it can't be helped since we work in different locations, but even though we work in the same department, it's very lonely to just talk about work over the phone, and there's no opportunity to get to know the other person, let alone show any consideration for them.
Although it's not a fundamental solution, we installed one always-on Hangouts machine in each of our Yoyogi Kamiyama offices as a communication tool so that we could see the atmosphere within the company.
What constant connection looks like (Kamiyama office seen from Yoyogi)The signal is always displayed on the monitor like this.
Q3: What do you think about using always-on connection (Google Hangouts)?
Sawada : I had heard the name of one of the Yoyogi members often, so I was worried that he might have been in poor health due to his busy schedule, but when I saw his face through the screen, he looked surprisingly healthy, so I was relieved (laughs).
Osaka : I think we're not making the most of it overall. The camera position on the Yoyogi side has changed, so we can't see inside the office, and even when we talk to people, no one responds, probably because the speaker volume is low... It's a bit lonely (laughs).
Sawada : It's definitely good to be able to see the room situation. When you want to call a member in Yoyogi, you can check if they're there and then make the call. It's the same in reverse, when calling Kamiyama from Yoyogi, if you can check if they're at their desk, you won't have to transfer the call as often.
Osaka : The good thing is that there are more opportunities for communication. I was working in Yoyogi until six months ago, and now I can wave to members I didn't have many opportunities to talk to at the time through Hangouts all the time, so communication has increased in that respect.
Left: Director Sawada (period of stay in Kamiyama: about two years after graduating from Monosus School)
We tried out constant connectivity between Yoyogi and Kamiyama, and it seems to have had some unexpected results, with some members waving their hands enthusiastically and others saying that being able to see each other all the time has led to more communication.
It's still early days, and there are still many areas that need to be improved, such as the camera's viewing angle, but the fact that we now have more communication tools that allow us to find out what the other person is up to is a positive thing, and I hope that this will serve as a catalyst for expanding the possibilities for how they can be used.
I hope that both Yoyogi and Kamiyama members will understand the purpose of the constant connection and make active use of it.
I want to get closer to you
The reality is that Yoyogi and Kamiyama are physically far apart, but as members of the same department who are involved in the same work, we need to think about how we can narrow the distance and work together to find a solution.
By setting up permanent Hangouts this time, we have been able to create an opportunity for communication among people who previously had no contact, so I think we are moving in a positive direction.
Also, I come to Yoyogi every month for work, and am able to communicate directly, not through a screen, but I still feel that there are advantages to talking face to face. First of all, while valuing communication through the screen, the next step is to travel back and forth between Yoyogi and Kamiyama, so that we can talk face to face and work together.
In the future, I would like to think about ways to increase such real-life contact.
KURIHARA Tsutomu