Are remote working teams the future of the AEC Industry?

Watch the episode on YouTube right here!

Getting the right AEC-people, with the right experience and abilities, to the area of your construction site has become quite the challenge – or impossible.

We created a podcast episode called: ”Are Remote Working Teams the Future of the AEC Industry?” Founder and CEO of TEBIN , Alexander Nikitin, shares his experiences on creating and running a remote working company in the AEC Industry.

Cross-pollination of ideas from other industries has an awful lot of value to offer the Construction Industry.

And the Industry needs this increased efficiency if we want to keep up with demand. When executing a project we need specialized knowledge on every single topic. By bringing in remote working, you have the possibility of getting the best available resources from all over the world.

But… it´s a new mindset for us.

What you need to know about remote working teams:

1. The advantages and disadvantages.

2. How to organize a remote working AEC company.

3. The optimal size of a remote working team within our Industry.

Keep reading if you want to know what possibilities and challenges we think the remote work in our Industry can create.

The advantages and disadvantages

Let´s start with some of the advantages of implementing remote working.

No matter where your project is located, you are able to gather the best team available. A team with the right capabilities. This is the greatest advantage since the biggest delays in the industry are in project mobilization. You don´t have the required resources available.

Experts with experience from all over the world can contribute to the project.

People get to live where they want to live rather than having to travel for work opportunities.

By using remote work, you will save money on relocating people to the project site or your company location. You´re able to balance your cost with the involvement from the different countries.

Of course there is a big disadvantage in the lack of face-to-face communication.

A physical kick-off meeting is a crucial way to handle that. Even though it won´t be able to replace the daily face-to-face contact.

To summarize:

Advantages vs. disadvantages:

• You are able to mobilize the best people within the industry vs. by communicating digitally you may get a less creative process.
• You can live wherever you like vs. you won´t have the same opportunities for social activities with your coworkers.
• The company saves money by not having to relocate people, and they´re able to balance cost between countries vs. you have to invest more time in building trust with your client when working digitally.
• You are able to share knowledge much easier between organizations and teams vs. it forces you to develop quicker because knowledge spreads faster.

But how do you organize a remote working company?

How to organize a remote working AEC company

In the last 10 years, Alexander Nikitin have worked with remote teams and ways of improving this structure.

His company uses a completely flat structure. There are no departments. He calls it the “Spotify way”. In the “Spotify way”, you use different specialized tribes. Specifically in TEBIN , there are tribes like the Industrial Tribe, the Battery Production Tribe, and the Commercial Tribe etc.

This way people are specialized on a specific topic.

They are not generalists.

Also: The tribes are based on hobbies when possible. A big challenge when using remote teams is to share and communicate knowledge between team members. By using people’s hobbies, as a way of connecting team members, it´s much easier to exchange knowledge.

An increased sharing of knowledge made possible through a digital structure of virtual work.

How TEBIN structures itself digitally:

1. They have daily standups where they discuss three important topics: “What was done yesterday?”, “what will be done tomorrow?” and “what are the problems and challenges?” The goal is not to solve the problem in that 15-minute meeting – just to discuss it.

2. They share their knowledge at demo day: They introduce and demonstrate progress. They discuss. They involve clients. They share and implement processes. And they invite other parties from the industry to share knowledge with them.

But… for this to work efficiently, the right size of tribe is crucial.

The optimal size of a remote working team within our Industry.

We don´t want a formal relationship with our coworkers.

That´s why the tribes are most efficient between 20 and 30 people. With this size, people are able to get to know each other. And they are able to create relationships with the clients. As previously mentioned: This structure is borrowed from Spotify. It´s a Spotify Engineering Culture.

It´s a proven structure.

We need around a hundred times increase in efficiency in the Construction Industry.

But to achieve that we have to learn from other Industries. Industries more advanced than ours.

Creating interest groups and tribes is a good example of this.

Are remote working teams really the future then?:

Yes…

• By using remote working teams, we can get access to the best specialists available.

If we want to increase the efficiency of our industry and meet the demands for construction and infrastructure, we have to go digital, use remote teams, and change our mindset.