Managing Product Development and Integration of a University CubeSat in a Locked down World

In this article, we describe how digital collaboration tools used during lockdown require new approaches to project management and systems engineering based on the action research case study of a CubeSat student team in Norway. The COVID-19 outbreak affected the whole world during the spring of 2020. Governments reacted by locking down countries and telling people to stay at home, and the university asked the students to work from home. Little previous research was found on managing virtual student teams, especially when not as initially planned. In this situation, many management tasks proved to require more effort than usual, such as managing team members, helping maintain work/home-balance for team members with families or focusing when working from home, and ensuring motivation and on-time project deliveries. The lock-down resulted in an increase of GitHub traffic on the software product. Reasons for this include (a) needing to commit software before the CDR, (b) strengthening of feeling that Github is a platform to work together in when the offices were closed, or (c) maturity of design in general increased contributions to code. All hardware integration efforts were put on hold, but team members expressed that they had time to focus on documentation. In a non-lockdown situation, they would not have done this because of prioritizing “hands-on” work. This may be beneficial in the long run, especially for onboarding new members to the team. Management of a team during lockdown includes evaluating and improving the technical infrastructure necessary for digital collaboration, managing the diversity of situations and other soft issues of a team, and managing schedule impacts both in the short-term and long-term. We found that project managers must make explicit efforts to maintain the project culture and motivation. For example, make efforts to replace the informal interfaces that take place in a co-located team with questions and round-the-table off-topic discussions in stand-ups and meetings. Furthermore, when large changes such as a pandemic happen, it is important to adapt and reinforce the team culture and norms. We also found that having an agile culture made the team more responsive to the change in working norms, such that there was a high willingness to “try out” the best way to lockdown-work.