XMReality Blog
With remote work on the rise, establishing best practices for remote support is essential to keep efficiency up. This might be straightforward for desktop jobs but a bit more complicated for technical projects. We have summarized the learnings from our customers on the key success factors for successful remote collaboration in technical projects.
From housing to healthcare and education to enterprise—digital adoption by businesses and their customers leaped forward five years in just eight weeks (McKinsey), and this “rapid migration will continue into the recovery.” So, if remote working and services are the new normal—how can you make them work best for your business, and what are the key factors to guarantee a successful remote support project?
Whichever industry you work in, 2020 delivered a big change—and for many of us, the biggest has been the rise of remote working. Seemingly overnight, remote services and solutions have transformed from ‘nice-to-haves’ to ‘need-to-haves,’ from ‘extras’ to ‘essentials.’ Analysts agree that with the efficiencies and cost savings remote working enables, the trend is historic and likely to remain. A recent McKinsey report said, “We have vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in eight weeks. The rapid migration to digital technologies driven by the pandemic will continue into the recovery.” (1)
And we’re not just talking Zoom, Teams, or remote conferencing (read more in-depth about the differences here!). Millions of us now are participating in remote meetings and screen-sharing like never before. But it is not just how much we work remotely; the number and range of jobs carried out remotely have also increased dramatically. At XMReality, we have seen the use cases for Remote Guidance mature significantly during 2020. From energy to manufacturing to housing facility management Remote Guidance has been taken up in new ways. Valuable for training, mentoring, internal communications, and even installation, Remote Guidance usage is growing in parallel with remote working—as clients broaden the benefits of their solution.
Take Norden Machinery. A world-leading manufacturer of tube-filling systems, Norden recently installed a 100-tube-a-minute pharmaceutical filling machine entirely remotely. The company now plans to use Remote Guidance in other commissioning and installation projects. The two-week project demonstrated many of the key factors we’ve heard from our customers on ensuring successful collaboration in larger remote projects.
So we've summarized them here to help you succeed with any remote project that you are in charge of:
EVALUATE THE SKILLS LEVEL OF YOUR REMOTE TEAM BEFORE THE PROJECT BEGINS
Before large remote collaborations begin, conduct a risk analysis and carefully assess the experience and skills level of the remote team you will be working with. Once started, this means you will be better able to delegate without micromanaging. Norden’s Project manager was Field Engineer for Customer Service Thomas Sandgren, who shared his view on this “Building a picture for myself of what the team’s technical level was, whether they had handled our machinery before, their language skills and so on—it was vital in deciding whether to go ahead.”
TRUST YOUR TECHNICIANS & TAKE IT STEP-BY-STEP
Successful remote collaboration is always a careful balancing act between trust and support, instruction and independence. Give your team space, but always be on call. Just because it is a remote project does not mean you have to be constantly interacting remotely 24/7. Break the project up into clear, achievable steps. This makes planning and interaction clearer and more measurable.
EXPLORE OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN THE REMOTE ENVIRONMENT BEFOREHAND
What real-time digital channels are already in place that could be used in the project? Is the site secure, focused, and suitable for the project? In the Norden case, for example, the company was granted access by the client to the facility’s security cameras—enabling the support technician to monitor the onsite team’s progress without always having to have an active call ongoing.
YOUR WI-FI IS YOUR LIFELINE—CHECK IT, THEN CHECK IT AGAIN
The tiniest lag during remote projects can cause problems regarding safety and quality. “Check the Wi-Fi first with a live test to see how robust the signal is,” Thomas Sandgren recommends, “if you notice lagging, that gives the IT guys a chance to see if they can boost the signal before the project.”
GIVE YOUR CUSTOMER ACCESS TO YOUR XMREALITY SOLUTION
Remember how we said successful remote collaboration is a careful balancing act between instruction and independence? Giving your remote client a license and login they can use during the duration of the project can really facilitate collaboration. It means they can contact you any time—without you having to send them a link first.
