With the Pandemic looming large and virtual education replacing the traditional classroom, Harvard Business School (HBS) had a distinct problem at hand. Being an institution known for its hands-on approach to teaching and the case method of instruction that relies heavily on in-person dialogue and interaction, they had to ensure that the learning-teaching experience was not getting lost in a virtual or hybrid setting. In this article, our expert contributor, Brian Jackson, Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group, discusses how this esteemed center for education used innovation to enable collaboration and elevate the hybrid experience.
In March of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept through North America and disrupted everyone’s way of life forever. That included Harvard Business School (HBS) in Boston, where the risk of infection meant that students had to be sent home to complete the last few weeks of the semester remotely. Whether they could count on returning for a normal fall semester or not was up in the air.
Decision-makers didn’t sit on their hands and wait for the pandemic to resolve itself. At stake was their valued case method instructional approach, which emphasizes putting students in the role of business leaders faced with difficult decisions in the real world. The education experience at HBS isn’t merely watching a professor lecture for hours on end. Instead, it’s an interactive exchange that involves discussion with peers. The blackboard is also a crucial component of each class, cherished by professors eager to demonstrate concepts in chalk.Â
So the Virtual Teaching Task Force was formed, led by Prof. Srikant Data, and its first meeting was on April 23. Over the next several weeks, the team of dozens of staff, students, and faculty worked on a design to facilitate a hybrid experience in the classroom. What they landed on was a solution that not only ushered HBS through the pandemic but has redefined its approach to education forever. The approach to hybrid collaboration is also being adapted by HBS beyond the classroom for its conference rooms to support operational staff.Â
The Solution
“We worked intensively day in and day out to really think about what our core principles were and what we were trying to achieve, which was equity of education,†says Elizabeth Clark, CIO of HBS. “If we couldn’t have everyone on campus, how could we create a new experience – that faculty had never taught in before, and students had never learned in before – that kept that high quality of the education and the equity regardless of where the student was, regardless of if they were in class or online.â€
The solution HBS designed involves two 4K-resolution video cameras capturing both the faculty and the in-class students. New ceiling microphones capture the conversation. Remote participants are seen on three 85-inch TV screens, and in-class students also join the videoconference from their laptops. HBS created a custom Zoom room solution that stitches together all of the views into one experience integrated with its lecture capture system and learning management system. Thirty contract workers were hired to the media services team to deploy and support the transformation.
The Future of Work Is Hybrid
Any remote worker that’s ever joined a meeting in a boardroom full of colleagues knows there isn’t much equity in the exchange. Office conference rooms are likely to have one screen at the head of a table, with its real estate shared among all remote participants joining in. Remote participants might get a view of their colleagues in the boardroom through a camera placed at the front. Making out individual faces is nearly impossible, especially for those sitting toward the back of the room. Hearing the conversation can be even worse, with tabletop microphones capturing those that sit close by and not much else.Â
How to collaborate in a post-pandemic world is on the mind of almost every organization. In Info-Tech’s 2022 Tech Trends surveyOpens a new window , 97 percent of IT practitioners say they plan to invest in technology to facilitate better collaboration among employees in the office and those working remotely as well. Among our clients that use our CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic, we’re seeing that, on average, CIOs and their direct supervisors both consider there is a critical need to adopt collaboration tools.Â
Three types of technology solutions are more popular than other options to facilitate better collaboration. About one-quarter of organizations have invested in web conferencing or instant messaging, and another one-fifth have invested in document collaboration solutions. The bottom line is that organizations seek to improve synchronous and asynchronous collaboration for their new work context.
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Creating Equity for Hybrid Meetings
One risk for organizations that see workers split between the office and remote is awkward meetings, especially with groups. Expecting that pre-pandemic video conference room set-ups can provide support is likely wishful thinking. Some organizations have maintained an all-remote meeting approach, which keeps all employees on equal footing. The downside is that even colleagues in the same office must remain separated by cubicle partitions as they collaborate.Â
Not so at HBS. The school is adapting the solution it developed for its classrooms to its operational staff. Putting the solution to work in the boardroom made sense after the classroom implementation was such a hit.
“We got so many nice compliments, which you don’t get in IT all the time,†Clark says. “You get all the complaints, but it’s a rare case when people are enthusiastic about something that was delivered.â€Â
The adapted solution was at a smaller scale than what was required in the classroom, with smaller TV screens. The cameras capture what’s sketched on the whiteboard with dry-erase markers rather than chalkboards. But the solution is the same. It includes the integrated multi-view Zoom experience that HBS tied together in its lecture capture system. Clark acknowledges the system wasn’t cheap – the school has tripled its spending on conference room tech.Â
“It’s seen as the top priority to invest in from the institutional perspective,†she says. The benefits have been worth it – meeting participants feel heard even when connecting remotely. It’s created a sense of flexibility in working and has proven effective in keeping teams engaged. “We’re not losing people.â€Â
“The staff greatly prefer the new hybrid conference spaces to the pre-pandemic conference rooms,†Clark says. “I’d guard against thinking that organizations can just get by with what they used in the past.â€Â
Collaboration Beyond Tech
It’s a significant enough difference that HBS has made the new design its conference room standard, just as it adjusted the classroom experience for our new reality. More hybrid rooms will be added next year.
Beyond the tech, HBS is still learning about the hybrid operating model and how to navigate it. But it’s early work in responding to disruption positions it well for the future. Organizing a collaboration session with your colleagues is just one difference among many facing us in the post-pandemic world.Â
Have you recently heard about or been a part of an interesting hybrid model? Tell us about your experience on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to know!
About Expert Contributors: The Expert Contributor program is designed to help kickstart meaningful conversations around the priorities and challenges most critical to C-level executives. The insights and perspectives will help CIOs tackle what’s most important to them. We are always looking for industry thinkers who can help set the narrative for our enterprise audience. To know more about this program, and submit your ideas, reach out to the Spiceworks News & Insights Editorial team at [email protected]Opens a new window .Â
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