Roles, effects, and ramifications of in-person interactions in a digital team

Bonfitto, Federica; Fayon, Gaëtan; Gallucci, Alessandra; Iorga, Mihaela-Bianca; Nigro, Federico; Pushparaj, Nishanth; Alqattan, Yusuf; Sadhukhan, Deboshri; Rümmler, Lucas; Soulard, Nicolas

Abstract

The democratisation of Agile and SAFe development approach in the IT sector following the social web deployment in the second half of the 2000's led in parallel to the emergence of the digital transformation concept. In order to ease the collaboration and management on projects/programmes, particularly for those which involved several teams in different locations, a set of processes and tools to digitalize the way of working have been specifically developed. Starting from the mid-2010s, the aerospace sector-especially New Space actors-initiated this digital transformation. But the COVID-19 crisis, besides the scientific challenge that the world needed to manage, forced all the aerospace industry to either engage and/or speed up their digital transformation. Overnight, organisations-public and private-had to quickly adapt their ways of working, implying for people involved a deep change in the way to manage their activities and their interaction with others. In this context, this study, conducted during the 2024 IPMC's Young Professionals Workshop organised by the IAF, aims to provide a framework to ease digital transformation deployment in the aerospace industry, from the early steps to the continuous improvement loops, also proposing recommendations to balance digital and in-person interactions. After introducing the concept of digital transformation, the methodology of this study is presented. Its backbone consists in organising interviews to nearly 50 people with various experience and background. The data collected-dealing with the interviewees return on operational experience on digital transformation-have been then analysed in parallel to literature study. If it seems that today the digital transformation in the aerospace sector became a must to keep pace with technology development, it appears that the sudden digitalization particularly affected the balance between digital and in-person interaction. This statement is especially observed for the biggest organisations where inertia is generally larger, and where workers can feel lost and lonely by consistently digitally interacting with others. Based on this analysis, a set of recommendations has been proposed, in order to help companies and organisations to deal with digital transformation, from its design to its post-deployment improvements. These recommendations highlight a strategy based on a step-by-step approach, using adaptability and resilience, underlining the importance of the mindset over the tools and-above all-keeping a dynamic way to interact between all.

Citation

Bonfitto, F., Fayon, G., Gallucci, A., Iorga, M.-B., Nigro, F., Pushparaj, N., Alqattan, Y., Sadhukhan, D., Rümmler, L., & Soulard, N. (2024, October). Roles, effects, and ramifications of in-person interactions in a digital team. Paper presented at 75th International Astronautical Congress, Milan, Italy

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: 75th International Astronautical Congress
• Start Date: Oct 14, 2024
• End Date: Oct 18, 2024
• Acceptance Date: Apr 24, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Oct 31, 2024
• Publication Date: Oct 31, 2024
• Deposit Date: Nov 25, 2024
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: aerospace sector; project management; young professional; digital transformation; social interactions; workforce globalisation; Agile; Scaled Agile Framework; hybrid work; remote work; flexibility; meeting culture
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/42471677