Accelerating Data Center Deployment: How Time to Market is Being Redefined in a Remote World

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data-driven technologies are increasingly prevalent across many aspects of daily life. But what’s going on behind the scenes to make it happen? Along with the rapid rise of the AI industry has come demand for data centers and mission critical facilities. In fact, the need for infrastructure to support this exponential growth is so great that any reduction in the planning, design, and construction timelines for these facilities presents massive value.

As data center demand grows, it coincides with another rising area in remote work. Remote work, in some form or another, has become commonplace in today’s workplace. This dynamic has found a greater foothold in some industries more than others, and in many cases the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) field has been slower to adapt. While some project tasks naturally require ‘boots on the ground’, one group within our owner’s representative team has strategically designed itself with a remote model to find efficiencies in project management processes.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how today’s tools of remote work are being utilized to accelerate data center deployment and meet their growing demand. Read on or skip ahead:

• Consolidating Teams with Continuity
• Maximizing Schedules Across Geographies
• Building a High Performance Remote Environment

Consolidating Teams with Client Continuity

Launching a new data center involves many logistical and administrative steps across each phase of development. Even before work begins, this process typically involves identifying a site and building a project team which then travels to the site to complete onboarding and safety training. This project activation phase alone can last anywhere from two to six weeks, taking time from the start of design and construction.

A lengthy onboarding period is compounded when managing across multiple sites—as data centers often are—with the cycle needing to be repeated for each location. As locations and stakeholders spread, it also increases the potential for misalignment in a client’s processes and procedures.

A remote team structure bypasses these bottlenecks. Because project managers are operating remotely, they can administer 7 to 9 projects at once without the need for repeated steps. This means projects can be activated across sites almost immediately and in tandem. And because this approach consolidates the project team, there is greater continuity across project phases and sites, reducing risk and costs for clients.

Maximizing Schedules and Timelines Across Geographies

One of the challenges to faster data center deployment exists in the inherent inefficiencies that can come with operating across multiple time zones. By strategically distributing project stakeholders across geographies, a remote team helps reduce delays that come with waiting for centralized teams to mobilize or coordinate across time zones. This deliberate approach enables the team to support clients from coast to coast with flexible schedules that cater to where work is being done.

As East Coast projects get underway, a remote project manager can stagger their schedule—joining key meetings in the morning and shifting to administrative tasks once activity winds down in that time zone. Smart scheduling tools, centralized collaboration platforms, and real-time communication systems further support this model, allowing multiple stakeholders to work in sync across locations.

The result is a remote, regionally integrated approach that ensures core team members remain engaged across phases and locations, accelerating schedules and compressing timelines across the complete data center project lifecycle.

Building a High-Performance Remote Environment

With work spanning more than three countries and twenty metros, the Otak mission critical team is harnessing the power of a remote-first model. Their success has come not only from the digital tools they utilize, but also the partnerships and team-building strategies they’ve implemented. By intentionally cultivating a strong team culture, the group is able to operate as a cohesive unit while maintaining the flexibility to support projects coast to coast.

In parallel to their own approach, the team has cultivated strong partnerships with architecture and engineering firms that also operate with a remote-first mindset. These collaborators share our emphasis on streamlined delivery and flexible engagement. Rather than embedding full teams onsite for extended durations, they use focused field walks at key milestones to ensure critical design and construction checkpoints are met.

To keep the remote team feeling connected, our mission critical group has also taken numerous steps to stay close-knit and collaborative. Regular team building exercises—both digitally and in person—are built into their schedules. The CliftonStrengths Assessment is another important tool the team utilizes for deeper communication and understanding, as it provides specific insights into individual and group strengths and communication styles.

By eliminating traditional roadblocks, consolidating project oversight, and building a distributed culture rooted in technology and individual strengths, Otak’s mission critical team is demonstrating a blueprint for how remote teams can not only match but elevate data center deployment.