Remote work: Cases of Bright Box’s Firmware, Technical Support, Product Development, and Project Management teams
Team leader of Firmware:

Problems

Even before the pandemic, Bright Box employees were able to work from home two days a week, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, when the home became a full-time office due to the pandemic, psychological difficulties began. Many people found it difficult to recreate the working experience at home, and family relationships and habits interfered with work.

First of all, as a team, we faced the problem that the daily routine was down, which in its extreme form became insomnia. To address this problem, we introduced a “day schedule” where we strictly defined work start, end, and break times. The team also decided that it was necessary to separate work and non-work spaces. Some workers turned a room into an office; others used a balcony. HR and office managers provided employees with everything they needed to be comfortable: ottomans, desk lamps, office chairs. Everything for work was put in a specific place; entering this space meant that employees could focus on work tasks, and exiting this space meant employees could switch to home affairs or relaxation.

In terms of positive changes, we noticed that the absence of office noise increased the speed of task completion. And even though additional meetings and organization of new workflows partially restored the office environment, the productivity of employees increased at home compared with the office.

But, the synergy between team members suffered most when moving to remote work. The synergy is crucial for efficient execution of complex tasks and finding solutions to fix them.

Bright Box office

Technical equipment

The developers took telematics devices home with them in order to provide remote support and develop new functionalities. An approximate set of devices for each developer was as follows: nine telematics devices of the last three versions, four controllers, a tourniquet to connect the emulator, transmitters with harnesses, a laboratory power supply, three tachographs, and a USB-port extender.

Communications

Our team conducts research on cars, so it is important for us to have cars physically present near the office or to be able to work on clients’ premises. Writing and debugging code and functional tests are also performed on real cars.

But, due to the pandemic, we have mostly shifted our focus to remote research. In local offices or on client premises, one employee conducts work. With the remote assistance of our engineer, he performs research work, collects and transmits information for analysis, and performs minimal tests. He relays this information to the team, and they provide a solution. This approach is subject to limitations, but in the current situation, it allows us to continue some of our planned work without traveling. Employees also carry out work on personal vehicles or vehicles of colleagues.
['Darya Knyazeva']
['Connected Cars', 'Productivity', 'Remote Working', 'Business', 'Remote Work']