Reimagining innovation for remote, distributed teams with collaborative virtual reality.

This paper discusses the potentiality of virtual reality to support the innovation process and to foster the innovation culture of globally distributed teams in industry. We describe learnings from several case studies of using multi- user virtual reality collaborative environment during product development process in a large multi-national manufacturing company. We discuss how to involve experts with diverse backgrounds and cultures in innovation activities through reimagined collaboration. We also discuss the benefits and limitations of VR for industrial research, development, and innovation process. The results show that multi-user VR enhances the innovation capabilities of distributed teams. Furthermore, a hybrid setup, where some participants join via desktop, also increases the level of understanding and depth of collaboration, thus fostering innovations. A hybrid multi-user platform enables larger participation of subject matter experts during the innovation process, which helps to identify and remove barriers in the implementation and otherwise improves the quality of innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]