Since 2020 most of us have experienced both the opportunities and challenges that come along with remote work. In a company such as Spaceteams, which is fully remote, there is a certain risk of feeling detached from your colleagues. So much that you don’t dare to approach anyone when you need support.
Renting or buying an office space could help, however not everyone wants to return to the old ways of 5 days in an office every week. So the next best thing for us is a virtual office.
Read on to learn how this virtual office works, why we use it and how it helps to boost our remote working culture.
History
Spaceteams was founded during the first Corona lock-down. So renting an office was no realistic option. Yet the founders were in the habit of working in an agile team setting, which means the whole team in one room, where they could for example talk, pair-program or discuss solutions together anytime. Working remotely, with options like video calls, slack, or even email and telephone, did not replace seeing each other in the office and talking whenever you needed to.
So we started looking for other ideas to improve interaction and getting closer to an office feeling. And we found WorkAdventure (https://workadventu.re/).
We had our own “office” designed - of course it is a spaceship, what did you expect? - to adapt to our needs and team structure. Every company member, and also guests, such as POs from our clients, can now join us remotely in our spaceship-office.
How it works
Every person to enter the spaceship has to choose a Woka, an avatar, for WorkAdventure, and give it a name (preferably your real one 🙂).
There are three types of areas in our spaceship.
- For general interaction
- For conference calls (Jitsi rooms)
- For focus time (Silent room)
In areas for general interaction, whenever one Woka comes close to another a video-call opens instantly, so you can talk to each other. Up to 4 people can come together and talk in this way anytime.
The conference rooms have almost no limit to participants. Whenever your Woka enters a conference area you enter into a conference video call and everyone who enters the same room, joins this conference as well.
The silent room does not allow video calls within WorkAdventure, this functionality is disabled to support focus time.
How we use it
Our spaceship is designed for up to 5 teams, and can be extended in the future if needed. Each team has a regular team room and a conference room attached to it, distinguished by colour. In addition we have a recreation area, the beach, for general interaction and a kitchen (conference area). We always hang out at the beach on Spacetime days, which is typically a Friday. On those days we don’t work on our projects and use the time for learning and practising new skills, e.g. new technology, soft skills, workshops, etc.
We aim for everybody to be available for general interaction in the respective team room during their working hours and on the beach or elsewhere in the spaceship during Spacetime.
If someone is in meetings or needs to focus, they walk their Woka over to the silent room.
Why we use it
Without a physical office it is hard to have a proper team and company feeling. And often you don’t even know who is available when working remotely.
Our spaceship shows who is at work and whether they are available for a quick chat. If someone is in the silent room, I can at least get the feeling that they are around.
Having a room per team provides some sense of where to belong, even though it is just a virtual room. You meet up there in the mornings and come together for chats from time to time. And if you arrive very early in the mornings or leave very late in the evenings you get a similar feeling to being alone in the office with all other Wokas gone, as you might have in a real office.
Our spaceship reduces the hurdle to reach out to your teammates significantly. Not only do you see where everybody is, because of their Woka, but also they clearly signal whether they are available or not. It is very easy to walk your Woka over to a teammate, when you see their Woka standing there next to you. And it is just fun to run across the hall - yes the Woka can run if you like - to visit someone in a different room.
Remote culture
Working remotely has some positive and some negative effects on people. Some people are very happy about the time saved by no longer commuting. Others feel much more lonely and miss the direct contact with their colleagues.
Our spaceship does not replace meeting in the real world, but it forms a bridge between distant remote work and getting together in an office every day.
If you are working remotely and don’t know how to bring people closer together, give this or any other remote office concept a try. (This is unpaid advertisement 🙂)
Our Conclusion: Spaceteams wouldn’t be the same anymore without our spaceship.