In this thesis, I conducted a case study on a design studio in Helsinki, to find out how design teams have been affected by remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope that my findings in this thesis will benefit organizations looking to improve their work practices and policies. I also hope that this thesis will function as a good starting point for researchers interested in further exploring the intersection between management and design, as this field of research has so far got only little attention from scholars.
As this study focused on one case company, it would be interesting to see if the findings would be similar also in other design studios. This could tell a lot about the generalisability of my findings. Additionally, the findings do not necessarily relate to only the field of design work. Other fields of work that rely on characteristics like project-based teamwork and creativity, might also be affected by remote working due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in a similar way. For future research, it would be good to test the main findings of my study on a broader sample.
In this study, I found that the information flow in the teams was functioning as well as before the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be due to an improved usage of digital tools and more organized ceremonies for communication. It would be of interest to study whether these two practices could improve the flow of information also in other teams working remotely. Additionally, these practices may also be useful outside of remote working. Once the restrictions are lifted, the respondents in this study will likely go back to working at least partially in the same physical space. It would be interesting to study whether these improved practices for communication will continue to be used, and if they are equally beneficial in a non-remote setting.
It may be that also other improvements in work practices from the remote working setting will continue to be used. This study focused on comparing the situation before the COVID-19 pandemic to the situation during the pandemic. Future research could focus on comparing the situation before the pandemic to the situation after and identify which the main changes are and how they relate to the lessons learned from the remote working practices.
As I mentioned in the discussion, facilitating hybrid work practices may be an increasingly important topic for organizations. Future research around this topic may prove to be in huge demand by organizations trying to develop the best ways for organizing hybrid work practices. This study identified some challenges with the current remote work setting, such as difficulties with interpersonal communication and collaborative creativity. Future research should focus on how to alleviate these challenges, both for facilitating hybrid work as well as for facilitating teams working fully remotely.
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APPENDIX 1 INTERVIEW GUIDE
Introduction:
• Presentation and aim of the interview
• Anonymity, recording and use of collected data Personal questions:
• What do you mainly work with? (Role, responsibilities, recent projects)
• How long have you been doing design work in the case company?
Personal experience of remote working:
• Do you have previous experience in remote working?
• How much have you been working remotely during the pandemic?
• What have you felt about it?
• What have the main challenges been?
• What are the good sides with remote working?
• How has your workload and productivity been affected?
• How have you experienced the virtual meetings?
Experience of remote design teamwork:
• How has the communication in the team been affected by remote working?
• Information flow
• Common understanding of the design problem & concepts
• How has the client management been affected?
• Communication
• Relationship
• How has project management been affected?
• How has remote working affected solution generation in the team?
• Creativity
• Analysing solutions
• Do online tools facilitate the teamwork well?
• Online tools compared to being in the physical office space
• How is the atmosphere in the team affected?
• Conflicts/tensions in the team
• Office culture
• Any other differences in the teamwork?
Improvements for current situation & work going forward:
• What has been done already to facilitate remote working, compared to the start of the pandemic?
• Could you describe how you would like to work (considering the current restrictions), and what would best support this?
• How would you like to continue to work after the pandemic is over and the restrictions are lifted?