Can extended reality technologies change the way project management works in the future? To answer this question, it is important to first understand why these technologies will hold a sustainable role in the future, and how their use will affect the performance of projects.
The benefits of Extended Reality in project management
The use of Extended Reality (XR) in project management has several significant benefits.
It can be extremely useful in solving decision-making problems in complex environments. This is especially true in areas where quick and accurate reactions are required to respond to the fast-growing economy, as XR allows large amounts of data to be processed extremely quickly.
Undoubtedly, real-time remote collaboration reduces travel costs and facilitates logistics. Overall, the use of XR technologies across industries improves efficiency, saves time resources, and increases productivity. It also allows more effective workforce and efficient processes.
The visualization of future products can be presented to customers in the development phase, and they can visualize directly future products and do not have to wait till the validation step to do so. Also, iterations and the number of trials and tests in the development phase are less expensive thanks to Extended Reality technologies, which can significantly boost innovation.
Furthermore, the commercialization of future products has become considerably easier. Indeed, Extended Reality allows to offer a rich experience to end-users (interactive experience, in-store customer experience, personalized customer experience, etc.) even before the prototyping phase.
In which sectors is Extended Reality useful for project management?
Extended Reality is no longer limited to the gaming industry. It has found use in other sectors, including construction, education, and training.
| Architecture, civil engineering, construction, and real estate | With Extended Reality, the quality of drawings and renderings is greatly improved. As a result, investors and clients can now better visualize their future buildings, apartments, and commercial spaces, both from the outside and the inside, well before the final project phase. Extended reality significantly reduces costs and time, improves design, and facilitates construction planning in these types of projects. |
| Marketing and Sales | Many companies have recognized the additional value that Extended Reality brings to retailers and customers. For example, the Ikea Place app, rolled out in some countries, helps customers make quick decisions when buying furniture, using their smartphones or tablet cameras. The app analyzes the customer’s space and suggests putting the furniture in a suitable position. This way, customers can clearly visualize how their items will fit in their space. |
| Education | Extended Reality offers many opportunities to make the learning process more fun and enjoyable, especially through interactive courses. In addition to university education, corporate training and individual education (e.g, applications available on the Internet) are also affected by the innovation brought by Extended Reality. |
| Industry | In complex manufacturing processes, XR helps to provide the right information at the right time on the assembly line. This is extremely effective for factory workers, allowing them to reduce errors, cut costs, save time, and improve productivity. |
| Healthcare | The training of future surgeons is one of the areas in the healthcare field where XR technology is most effective. XR technology is used in emergency care, using XR headsets. |
| Defence | The TARGET project (Training Augmented Reality Generalized Environment Toolkit) is a European project that started in 2015. It allows the development of augmented reality solutions dedicated to the training of all agents working to maintain security (e.g. police officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, anti-terrorist units, etc.). This project uses different approaches to remotely connect Augmented Reality systems to geolocation and other tools, involving 3D modeling, drones, and other advanced technologies. Through TARGET, a new mixed reality environment is created, where training is conducted under extremely tight security situations. In addition, Mixed Reality technologies allow the development of advanced training environments that are easy to customize and low cost. |
| Support service | With Extended Reality technologies, remote maintenance and repair is possible. |
The growth of remote work has accelerated remarkably in recent years. With the current health crisis, employees when working remotely are usually faced with communication problems due to the lack of proximity. In other words, a “virtual office” seems to be the right answer to employee isolation, since the latest company news, projects, etc. can be published on a platform accessible to employees whose physical offices are located all over the world.
Most project managers are used to follow the conventional management approach. This approach is very directive. However, when using extended reality, project managers get used to looking at the big picture rather than focusing on micro-management.
As disruptive technologies, Augmented Reality and Extended Reality bring a multitude of new opportunities and benefits. However, this is currently an under-explored area.
How can UpRooM revolutionize Project Management?
Our product UpRooM is dedicated to innovation teams engaged in product design and idea management processes (Lean Start-Up, Design Thinking, etc.). Innovation workspaces can be transformed into project management workspaces. It includes all the features of UpRooM, with the ability to navigate through time and compare different states of a project at different times.
UpRooM offers the following features:
● Focus on Innovation management: UpRooM allows you to have access to the working space with avatars, it helps you solve problems together and allow you to exchange ideas, to discuss issues and track results in a highly interactive virtual space.
● Collective intelligence: UpRooM contributes to make collective intelligence happen in your company, as it encourages collaborative work.
● Visual management for knowledge retention: UpRooM offers the possibility to interact with virtual objects as in real life and through this, helps create knowledge retention. In addition to this, you can have easily access to other different means of working together such as l virtual boards, or data visualization.
● Workforce engagement and productivity: UpRooM undeniably boosts engagement and productivity of the workforce as it offers a stimulating working environment through the possibility of interacting spontaneously with your colleagues.
