A Place to Encounter the 'Potential-Filled Divergence' Between the Field and HR: We Held an 'Engineer Talent Placement Experience Board Game Session' at the HR Library
Nanikason Inc. This is an article about activities before the company was established. It will be carried over as content for the new organization, 'Nanikason New Business Unit'.
Hello. This is W2Nanikason.
This is a report on the event held at the HR Library on April 4th. Sorry for the long wait!
What is this?
This is a report on the following event held at the HR Library the other day, on April 4th.
Date and Time | 2026/4/4 (Sat) 10:00 - 12:30
Location | HR Library
Engineers and HR professionals bring their respective 'pains of placement and assignment'
Looking together at the structures that are invisible to each other
It was a game-based workshop designed with that goal in mind.
Here is the game we used!
'Hero-Driven Development Project' is a cooperative game where engineers in the development field are likened to hero-like adventurers, and players negotiate with each other to tackle various development projects.
Where HR and engineers intersect
On the day, we had enough participants to form two game tables. (It is a game for 2 to 6 players.)
As for the aim of the day,
having participants from the HR field and the engineering field (or those equivalent to it) in a roughly 50/50 ratio
was a fairly important factor.
When we opened the lid,
43% were from the HR field and 43% were from the engineering field
the remaining 14% were neither
And so, we ended up with a quite ideal participant ratio!
As for our call for participants,
we really wanted people to join from both sides!
We had encouraged this, but since it was a part we couldn't necessarily control, this was a very happy result.
Furthermore, depending on the balance on the day, we had considered intentionally having those with experience on both sides, or engineers in positions with a certain level of authority or say in personnel assignments, shift their perspectives in a balanced way.
Summary of the Event
We are thinking of further developing this program and brushing it up into something even better. In a sense, you joined us for an 'attempt that also had a somewhat experimental aspect.' Therefore, I will refrain from describing the content in detail here for now, as I consider when we might be able to offer it next.
Even so.
Though I say it myself, it was a sufficiently rewarding experience, and I observed that we were able to deliver an experience where each person could find meaning, rather than just having them accompany us in an experiment.
There were no major troubles that would spoil the participant experience,
conversely, in a good way, we were able to observe expressions and enthusiasm beyond our expectations from the margins,
and for some, it served as a confirmation of answers, while there were also some unexpected findings.
Of course, there were several challenges, including in terms of attracting participants. But even so, the comment I received from the management immediately after the event was, 'It's a huge success!'
I think this was likely based on the realization that naturally emerged from the dynamism of the participants' enthusiasm, expressions, and the words of realization actually spun on the day, which cannot be fully quantified or measured.
Regarding the challenges,
there were areas we could predict to a certain extent,
and areas that were tougher than imagined,
there were both.
I believe this content served as a first step to better identify which challenges arise, to what extent, and in which areas, based on what actually happened, and to connect that to improvements.
Conviction and Betrayal from Hypotheses and Predictions
Although it is a mechanism that only those who participated this time would understand, we implemented a design where, while based on the same experience, the questions presented on the worksheets gradually changed into different ones for those in the HR and engineering fields.
I am not very good at revealing my intentions (as a matter of style, I tend to avoid explaining the nuances), but the background for doing so was:
Articulating thoughts from questions that stir up each person's stronger areas of interest or 'true feelings'
The perspectives of both HR and engineers that become visible as a result
The high probability that a 'certain amount of friction' would naturally occur from there, which I felt was almost certainly going to happen
That was the hypothesis I had formed.
As a whole, the response to the objective itself was beyond expectations. However, what to take away from it, how to process it, or whether to process it at all—in the end, the participants are the protagonists and the ones who decide.
Without intervening too much, just observing... and as a result,
Events that turned my original predictions into certainty
A sense of a certain (positive) betrayal, like 'Oh, is that so?'
For the organizers as well, we found quite a complex set of takeaways.
Melting away through games, even when meeting for the first time or visiting for the first time
What was happening in this workshop was,
Raw, honest feelings flying back and forth
But, thanks to the game, it was incredibly fun
Being able to accept it positively even while being shocked
This was an experience that, while it was the goal, exceeded my imagination in terms of how it felt.
A gathering of engineers with strong coordination skills?
This time, since it was held at the 'HR Library'—a location that, if taken literally, is hard to call the home ground for technical staff—I predicted that the engineers who signed up and came to the venue might have slightly higher coordination skills than the general population trend.
In fact,
When I asked them to choose an engineer similar to themselves
or an engineer whose role is close to what they play in the field,
the ratio of 'Heavy Infantry' and 'Hero' was relatively high, and even those who chose 'Swordsman' seemed to be the type who had acquired a certain level of coordination skills.
'Being able to handle technology is a given. In the AI era, technology alone seems risky. Even just having coordination skills makes a difference. The kind of people who will be viable in the coming era are like swordsmen.'
I heard comments like that here and there. I also thought that perhaps engineers, unless they have mastered their craft to an extreme degree, don't really see themselves as 'Mages'.
Even so, they confessed, 'This field is tough'
In the dialogue after the game, there was a continuous stream of raw, vivid declarations of 'This field is tough'.
'A field that is nothing but coordination is exhausting, no matter how blessed you are with team members. I don't want to participate, and I wish they would take care of those people.'
'The Hero might be an engineer who is being exploited for their passion. If the treatment were like this, this person would probably quit.'
'An experience where you can be pleasantly shocked'
Participants from HR and management backgrounds listened intently to these remarks, sometimes with expressions that looked as if they had been caught off guard.
I think the persuasiveness came from the fact that the aversion to fields requiring constant coordination was consistently expressed by almost all the engineers, that they were negative toward fields where coordination seemed to be the only thing happening regardless of whether the field was functioning well according to the game rules, and from the many emotionally charged comments.
'For people in technical fields, a field that is this focused on coordination is such a grueling experience...'
The engineers also quietly observed the reactions of the HR staff, and it seemed as if they were confirming the differences in perspective they had vaguely felt in their daily lives, in a way that felt like checking the answers.
Conversely, the engineers seemed to accept the evaluation criteria that came from the HR side, such as
'This person seems likely to be evaluated well,'
'This field seems to be going well,'
with a calm tone, as if thinking,
(Well, I thought as much).
There were many who accepted it in that manner.
Furthermore, the HR side
A good team where new hire training seems likely to progress well
—a field example viewed as such, while engineers evaluated it based on their own experience as
It looks tough if a new hire joins this group
—such gaps in evaluation criteria and areas of high or low resolution became clearly apparent.
These became experiences where one could 'enjoyably be shocked' precisely because it was a game, and I believe even raw divergences could be shared safely while mixing in laughter and surprise.
Excerpts of feedback received
It was interesting. I thought it was important to know the status. It might be good to have engineer events at the HR Library too.
I enjoyed the game format. It left a strong impression on me that engineers dislike projects that require coordination skills.
I thought that while talent placement is logical, it also has strong elements of a game of chance. I learned the difficulty of overall optimization.
It is difficult to adjust even with this many variables, so I thought placement is too difficult for humans.
It was fun and lively! People with rich backgrounds gathered, and the conversation was interesting. I thought there might be differences in perception between engineers and HR regarding coordination (and the interpretation of the word itself). It might be good as new graduate content to experience the manager's perspective.
It was a short time, but it was a good Saturday morning where we could exchange various opinions. I felt it was frustrating not being able to convey each other's situations in a cooperative game.
I understood the true feelings of the engineers well. I thought that I should not ask questions from my side during interviews with engineers. I felt the difficulty of balancing a team. It was very educational, and above all, it was fun. I want to know the true evaluation criteria that engineers are looking for.
The 'potential-filled divergence' between the field and HR
After finishing the workshop, several things bordering on conviction were born within me. If I could make the scenery that emerges when the various conflicts I have felt in development sites for many years intersect with the HR perspective available for more organizations to experience, I believe something—a new landscape—would unfold from there.
I hope to use the 'potential-filled divergence' between the field and HR that I reaffirmed with a sense of reality this time, not just as something that was 'good to know,' but as a catalyst to actually improve the way teams and organizations work, even if just a little.
To everyone who participated, thank you very much.
If you thought,
'I would like to hold a workshop using this game in my own team or organization'
'We are facing similar issues, so I would like to discuss the details'
'I would like you to customize this mechanism for our company'
please feel free to reach out to us.
Other event reports from us at the HR Library
Please check them out!
(W2Nanikathon - Excitement Majin S)
