WLP226 Researching Collaboration Spaces
Unusually for this podcast these days we bring you just one in-depth interview - produced without the help of our usual editor Ross, we know you’ll enjoy the quality of the conversation nonetheless.
(And if you do then you might also enjoy some past episodes, including when Pilar and Maya discussed ‘planned spontaneity’ in the context of visible teamwork Episode 211, and also the workspace design interview with BrainyBirdz back in Episode 159).
But first, enjoy the interview with:
6.07 Caitlin McDonald
Dr. Caitlin McDonald
Dr Caitlin McDonald is a digital anthropologist at the Leading Edge Forum, an organisation which works with senior leaders to help them reflect on decisions and outcomes through research, events, and advisory services.
Pilar participated in recent research for the Forum on Reconfiguring the collaborative workspace, which took a deep anthropological dive into business organisational structures and digital tools - in particular the ways we interact differently on and offline.
For example, we have many more opportunities for spontaneous micro-interaction in the shared physical space (even though we talk about planned spontaneity, the unplanned stuff doesn’t happen in the same way). Proxemics, the study of personal space and distance, has new meaning online too - and the field of digital proxemics is really just emerging (Caitlin recommends Digital Proxemics: How Technology Shapes the Ways We Move (Digital Formations) for more on this fascinating subject).
Caitlin’s research took a blended methodology approach, using expert interviews for background insight, and focusing on lived experiences from estates management professionals to digital nomad bikers. Digital ethnography also played a part through diary studies (via a mobile app, which prompted for systematic data point contributions, including open-ended queries). Participating companies included a pharmaceutical, insurance, power, defence and advertising - a diverse set of alternatives to the tech firms who are typically over-represented in remote work research.
Flexibility was a strong emergent theme, but the outcomes indicated that being flexible can require more work to make it happen in the first place however fluid it sounds, and often there are practical constraints like meeting times which are fixed and out of their control. Sometimes there are regulatory and compliance restrictions too, on the kinds of collaborative technology which can be used - further impeding ongoing flexibility, but, potentially enhancing its value and appreciation for the more autonomous phases of the work.
Communication and collaboration are often conflated and confused, but Caitlin explains the difference for us clearly: collaboration requires the action of both/all parties to actually contribute to something moving forward and achieving an outcome, and goes beyond simply communicating (even communicating about the work).
Both can happen either synchronously and asynchronously, but the research suggested poorer outcomes for collaboration done purely asynchronously (at the very least, it will take longer).
5 detailed case studies indicated broad themes, including what people did first thing in their workday - checking messages or appointments - in order to plan and organise their work. The physical environment was another strong theme, including for those colocated participants when it came to avoiding distraction and creating breathing space for deep work. But ‘space’ encompasses mood and mental space too, and how that intersects with the collaborative zone.
Attitudes towards work itself diverged greatly and depended a lot on how people interpreted the meaning of their work, and this had a lot of impact on the perceptions of time and space. Lots of workplace habits were curiously mirrored from the offline to the online space - like digital presenteeism, a need to make your level of activity and engagement visible online. For others a lack of boundaries and a feeling that you ‘can’t say no’, to requests for meetings, etc. - especially where this perceptively clashed with the expression of company values (e.g., ‘we always go the extra mile for our customers’), was a big issue.
It seemed like there was often a missing conversation or shared understanding in teams about ‘what work looked like’ in the digital space, and how people showed up as active and productive, even if their work had few visible milestones and outputs (such as those working in innovation roles).
The case study from Uniper, a European power company based in Birmingham and Düsseldorf, highlighted the ‘seeing and wanting to be seen’ issue particularly, and issues with a ‘bring your own device’ policy - it wasn’t all about the latest high tech, it was things like the quality of office headphones they’d been allocated, because it impeded collaboration with remote colleagues. Security and privacy issues always come to the fore in this as well, but it proved the point that in-office workers deserve decent gear too.
Recent policy shifts in remote working and travel restrictions will affect many organisations for the first time, and Caitlin was keen to point out that ‘remote under duress’ is not a recipe for success, as we have discussed in this podcast previously. And in urban areas particularly, not everyone has a home environment suitable for work - it could be noisy, shared, unheated, etc. Asking employees to set up their own space doesn’t always work, people need support and resources from the organisation.
We strongly recommend checking out the executive summary of Caitlin’s research here, and you can connect with her on twitter to continue the conversation.
And do keep your feedback coming, we really enjoy it - please contact us, or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with any of your thoughts and ideas. What do you think of our new podcast artwork for a start, we’d love to hear your thoughts!
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