This week's brainstorming session is the one you have all
         been waiting for!!! It is your chance to offer advice on how
         to:

              Improve the game development process
              Increase productivity
              Maximize creativity
              Make the work place more fun!

         Many of your ideas, generated during the '88 brainstorming
         season have been implemented:

              You asked to have the opportunity to see what other
              people are working on and to get feedback on what you
              are working on: Walkabout Friday.

              You felt like sometimes you put a lot of work into the
              Game Initiation packet, only to find that management did
              not agree with the direction you chose: Concept
              Approval prior to Initiation.

              You wanted to be able to dedicate someone to playing
              your game to look for bugs: Tengen and outside play-
              testers.

              You wanted more productive game reviews: Game playable
              in advance, review agendas.

              You wanted Marketing to be more involved throughout the
              whole project instead of just near the end: Weekly
              project meetings with Product Manager.

              You wanted RAM to simulate the graphics ROM for
              development: G1 has this feature.

              You wanted higher salaries, more vacation, and free
              lunches: Well, you can't have everything!!

         So RSVP to this VAX address by 9:00a.m. Wednesday (1/10) to
         sign up for this once-a-year opportunity!

         As usual, lunch will be provided in the luxurious Central
         Conference Room promptly at 12:00 noon, Thursday, 1/11/90.

         Thanks!!

         John

About your brainstorming memo.

The single largest factor in determining productivity is the
availability of tools.

I am talking VAXes and PCs.

Every second wasted waiting for the VAX to respond is irretrievably
lost, not to mention unproductive. The VAXs have been steadily getting 
slower until last week when they went down a whole notch. Even so,
there are still people running Makes and other processes on KIM that
could be run on one of the Batch VAXes. Running these processes on
KIM brings the system to its knees, so that even ordinary EDTs are impossible.

Until the issues of computers is addressed, the issues of creativity
are pretty much immaterial.

This is not a request to attend the meeting.

Thanks,


	Jed

I have finished documenting and collecting feedback from the 
productivity brainstorms in January. Since they are about 5 
pages for each session, I decided not to take up valuable disk 
space by sending the results to each of you. Instead, I 
encourage you to read the document [ray]bsprod.doc. I have them 
posted on my bulletin board -- feel free to copy them or mark
them with  YOUR comments. Or, send me mail with your comments. I
have also  given Rich and Chris hard copies. 

I will refer to these ideas as I  have spare time to tackle
those areas I can contribute to. I hope others will too.

Thank you to all of you who contributed these ideas!!

John