This article focuses on the change in collaboration practices within engineering and design teams caused by COVID-19. A specific focus is put on (1) the leader's perspective and (2) on hardware engineering and design teams. A mixed-methods research approach is conducted by quantitatively investigating 503 responses to a survey distributed in August 2021 and qualitatively looking at nine semi-structured interviews of engineering and design team leaders. The study population is formed by alumni of an in-depth mechatronics graduate-level course sequence at Stanford University called ME218. The semi-structured interview protocol was developed based on the CoSpaces Collaborative Working Model of Patel et al., 2012, out of which eight factors were identified to be crucial for remote engineering and design team collaboration. Qualitative content analysis confirms the factors technology tools, communication, informal networks, common ground, team relationship, and management and leadership and uncovers 34 entailing sub-factors. The interviews did not confirm the factors of trust and decision making. Moreover, two new themes were identified, namely meeting structures and work frameworks as well as remote hardware work. In further exploring the research questions of this thesis, 18 practical implications for current and future E&D team leaders on how to better manage remote collaboration are derived.
Keywords— remote teams; mixed methods research; remote leadership; remote hardware collaboration; remote hardware work; remote engineering work; COVID-19; hardware teams; mechatronics; alumni
On April 7th, 2020, 95 percent of Americans were required to shelter in place within their homes. As a result, organizations responded by changing their work arrangements and enabling a rapid shift to work from home for large segments of knowledge workers. Employees quickly adapted to digital technologies for performing their job regardless of how suited their home environment was to such settings. (DeFilippis et al., 2020) Research suggests that work from home will stick, and employees will enjoy considerable benefits from greater remote work. (Barrero et al., 2021)
Especially for hardware Engineering and Design (E&D) teams, this has caused significant disruption in collaboration. While software E&D teams were already equipped with frameworks (e.g., SCRUM) and tools (e.g., GitHub) for remote collaboration prior to COVID-19 (Marek et al., 2021), those dealing with hardware components faced completely new challenges.
The study behind this article seeks to answer the following research question: How can hardware E&D team leaders better manage remote collaboration? To answer this question, three research sub-questions are considered:
A mixed methods research approach is employed to answer these questions.
The quantitative part of the thesis is based on 503 survey responses. The analysis of this data is used to characterize the study population and filter for individuals suitable to interview for this study's research scope. Once having defined the interview sample, the methodology is shifted toward a qualitative approach.
First, theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss, 2017) is employed to identify the most suitable interviewees. Second, semi-structured interviews are conducted, whereby the interview protocol is based on a review of team and VT collaboration literature and structured to answer the three research sub-questions. The qualitative data are then analyzed using qualitative content analysis according to Gioia et al., 2013 to identify common patterns in interviewees' statements and derive propositions for current and future E&D team leaders on how to better manage remote collaboration.
The qualitative data show that six of Patel et al., 2012's factors were verified by the interviewees as important for managing remote hardware E&D team collaboration, i.e. technology tools, communication, informal networks, common ground, team relationship, and management and leadership. In addition to that, two new factors emerged from the interview data. Firstly, the factor meeting structures and work frameworks describes how leaders adapted their meeting structures and collaboration frameworks over the pandemic. Secondly, due to the focus of this thesis, the topic of remote hardware work was very present throughout the interviews. Informants here describe how they worked on hardware in the remote setting, the logistical burden caused by it, and the best practices in translating this process into the digital world. Both new themes state addition to Patel et al., 2012's framework.
In aggregate, 34 sub-themes emerged in the interviews based on which the author could formulate the following propositions for hardware E&D team leaders on how to better manage their team's remote collaboration.
The communication platform Slack was mentioned a lot during the interviews. It can help to maintain a positive team culture and enable informal communication. It is important to quickly decide on one communication tool and not allow various tools as this causes confusion within the team, and knowledge exchange becomes even more difficult. Once decided, a guide on how to use the tool properly must be established to maintain a shared understanding and psychological safety within the team.
Dedicating time for socializing at the beginning and or the end of every online meeting (e.g., check-in and check-out) and offering dedicated virtual spaces for informal interactions allows team members to synch and bond regularly. To further reduce ambiguity for team members and ensure a common ground, repeated and immediate communication about the decisions and the current status quo from the leaders and the C-level is crucial. Regular leadership level meetings can enable this. Clear written documentation and communication can help distribute knowledge and stay on the same page. Communication needs to become more intentional and thought through, especially when presenting project work. A culture of information sharing is key in the online setting as background information is lost due to the lack of knowledge transfer in informal exchanges. As a leader, information sharing is best established by repeatedly giving examples of communication patterns that should be discussed publicly, e.g., in a public Slack channel, and by encouraging employees to have 1on1s with each other.