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Dalahn Colley
Entrepreneur, United States
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Leading and Developing a Virtual Team
A virtual team - also known as a Geographically Dispersed Team (GDT) - is a group of individuals that work across time, space and organizational boudaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology (source: Word IQ, 2010)".
There are many advantages to creating a virtual team by bringing together contributors through the use of company intranet, groupware applications, email, teleconferencing, phones, computers and other technologies.
On the other hand, the absence of face to face interaction may contribute to misunderstandings and conflict.
The challenge for the management of a virtual team is to create a cohesiveness usually reserved for successful collocated teams. The manager must create a tier of collaboration, productivity and communication that spans cultures, time and distance...
Success can be achieved when the virtual team leader addresses these questions:
- What is my role as a virtual team leader?
- How can you build high-quality relationships when people seldom, if ever, see each other in person?
- How can I enhance the performance of my virtual team?
- How can virtual relationships be managed more effectively using the company's existing communication technologies?
- Is it possible to manage performance and ensure accountability at a distance? (source: Kerber, Buono, 2011).
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Fernando de Diego
Project Manager, Spain
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GDT Geodispersed Teams Perform Poor Managing that kind of teams is still an issue. New videoconferencing technologies help a lot as do new messaging applications, etc.
But when a team spans over different countries and different languages then performance is really poor versus collocated teams.
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Lito Fadera
Management Consultant, Philippines
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Tip for Geographically Dispersed Teams: Have a Meeting Each Day @Fernando de Diego: I have been a member of a project management team that spans three countries for more than five years now, and I find this arrangement to be effective and productive.
There is a need to meet every other day, though, to ensure that all members are on the right track.
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Purathatil Krishnan
Manager, United States
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Virtual Teams need Cultural Intelligence Virtual teams often involve diversity in ethnicity, culture and - most importantly - thinking. With adequate curiosity and open minds, increasing Cultural Intelligence can help build relationships resulting in the establishment of trust. This is critical for success with virtual teams.
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John Minett
Director, United States
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Cross Cultural Teams - Trust is a Fundamental Issue These comments have been very useful. Placemaker associates is a start-up company that focuses on public involvement in planning. We use Skype as our prime means of contact.
An issue over a part-time employee's fee has become a source of contention that we are now tackling. It is clear that trust is a fundamental issue, and that the process requires sympathetic and inspiring management.
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Peter Durrant
Director, Australia
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Geographically Dispersed Teams - Email is not communication Hi Dalahn I am working from home in Perth and interact with Adelaide and Sydney. Over 10 years two different companies and now contracting my services. I have been made redundant and had relationships destroyed because of the geographic diversity and misunderstandings. Your discussion is very important.
I was GM of a Western Australia business and all the other GMs and MD were in Adelaide I was out on my own without regular close contact with my peers.
Lessons learnt through this pain are invaluable. Email is not communication - it can be so easily misconstrued and misinterpreted I now spend time constructing emails specifically with the readers position in mind. I am extremely careful with my words, intimations and sentence construction.
Next when I receive a communique that is open to interpretation, I pick up the phone and have a conversation with the sender.
I now practice effective communication maybe I should have done that from the very beginning!
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David Whitfield, United States
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Communicating with a Virtual / Geographically Dispersed Team To communicate with a virtual team:
- Expectations of all the team and all team members must be clear;
- Rationale for expectations must be crystal clear with realistic metrics consistent with reward criteria;
- There must be trust--a culture of trust is a must;
- A proper medium to convey info, with feedback loops;
Also if you haven't established solid, meaningful relationships with all relevant parties, the foregoing will not work effectively.
I also recommend that contact should be made every other day, such as a meeting with the proper medium.
The above, though a bit cryptic, worked quite effectively for me.
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Joachim Armbruster
Coach, Germany
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More Information on Virtual Teams? The 5 questions asked by Kerber and Buono are good, the answers would be even more interesting. Any ideas about that? Any books, lectures or research I can have a look at?
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Bill Boynton
Teacher, United States
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Opportunity to Learn from a Variety of Experiences and Backgrounds A "virtual" team is still a team of people that needs to be addressing the same objectives of team performance. Everyone needs to understand the "vision" of the team, its direction, purpose and objectives.
Team members growth and learning needs should also be aligned with the teams objectives, so the whole process is a win/win scenario.
Their opportunity to learn from a variety of experiences and backgrounds of others, is a huge opportunity in this environment, and should be recognized by the members.
Each member needs to know what is required from him (her), and how this fits into the team as a whole.
There has to be ongoing communication as to the progress of the project, and hopefully communication can be done through a "dialogue" process.
A good (multi-cultural) facilitator is important too, leading and guiding the sessions, allowing for lots of contributions, and clarification for meaning and understanding.
When everyone is involved, feel they belong and are allowed to contribute, all kinds of good things can happen.
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DR.VIVEK DIWADKAR.
Business Consultant, India
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Virtual Team Concept still in its Infancy although Fast Spreading The virtual team-culture value-connect cauldron is a tricky business which deserves a very deep psychological study. The concept is still in its infancy although it is very fast spreading. I believe the key to its success is to have similar socio-cultural-intellectual thinking and approach.
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Srikumar Varma
India
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Managing Virtual Teams Video conferencing and teleconferencing is all right if the people are more or less of the same origin although settled in different countries. If on the other hand the virtual team consists of multic...
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Miguel Sacramento
Business Consultant, Brazil
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Virtual Teams - Geographically Dispersed Team : Create a Shared Dream It doesn't matter where people are working if they are sincerely sharing a common vision. That is what leadership is all about: making a shared dream come true wherever your team is located....
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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Virtual Teams - Tomorrow's Challenge We are sitting atop a universal collaborative commerce community and global corporate dialogue culture. Virtual teams are dealing with complex -- and often perplexing geographical issues.
Management ...
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KATHRYN STEINER, MBA
Entrepreneur, United States
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Virtual Teams Have to Encompass Many Elements Virtual global cross functional teams are something I'm also familiar with from my online MBA. They present many challenges as the discussion participants have outlined.
One more challenge was the d...
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Emad Adeeb Eskander
Manager
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Summary Tips for Managing Virtual Teams Here's a summary of tips for managing virtual or geographically dispersed teams that have been mentioned so far:
1. Create and communicate a shared vision / dream
2. Create an agreed action plan.
3...
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Nguyen Tri Hue
Project Manager, France
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Multi-cultural Aspects and Control As a team leader, you need to understand the multi-culture paradigm of your team.
Trust and control are important topics. Regular conference calls (telephone is less expensive) allow to build the coh...
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P.E. Pernet
Consultant, France
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Do Tuckman's Norming Stage First @Nguyen Tri Hue: I think the specificity of virtual teams is that 'Norming' should not be the 3rd, but the 1st phase in the Team Development Stages of Tuckman, which is right for standard team at the ...
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D. Kerns
Student (Other), United States
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The Six Cs of Global Collaboration Greetings all, the financial services organization that I work in is a (global) virtual organization. When I work in the office, there is a small chance that I will see co-workers. The reading of Nemi...
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Cintia Rodriguez, Peru
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Web 2.0 and Virtual Teams I agree that leadership is a key to success. Nowadays Web 2.0 offers a variety of tools to help team leaders success in this task. I have personally have the opportunity to work in a project with peop...
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Peter Bond, United Kingdom
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Is a Virtual Team Really a Team? If not Can it Be Made So? Dalahn, (nice name). Virtual 'teams' are all the rage aren't they? Unfortunately, practice has got somewhat ahead of the theorising (or modelling) of such systems and, according to some people, includ...
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Samuell Yew
Project Manager, Malaysia
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My Experiences in a Geographically Dispersed Team Kudos to all contributors to highlight the correct pros and cons and the challenges faced. As a participant in a GDT project, I have come to experience first hand the intricacy of such practice.
On t...
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Cintia Rodriguez, Peru
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Google Plus, the Use of Hangouts and Team-working Online @Peter Bond: I recommend, from personal experience, the use of Google Hangouts. For me, it is even better than Skype. In my case, I start by building a strong relationship, many times ends in everlast...
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F. Krynauw
Project Manager, South Africa
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Success Case of Virtual Team in South Africa I have just completed a manual of 6 volumes and 1500 pages on operational procedures in SA Post Office in a record time of less than a year on a virtual team basis.
We used Skype and Netmeeting and p...
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Jack Van Den Heerik, Belgium
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Managing a Global GDT: The Need for Efficient and Effective Communication I certainly agree with most of you and would like to stress that the key element of success in managing a global GDT is efficient and effective communication. This can include a sharepoint website so ...
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hamidullah
Lecturer, Afghanistan
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Geographically Dispersed Teams don't Necessarily Underperform Normal Teams @Fernando de Diego I think in due time many people will attend in this kind of teams like also on 12manage. It is a good idea - in virtual teams we can share the ideas with each other.
Mr. Fernando d...
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Nguyen Tri Hue
Project Manager, France
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Multi-cultural Aspects & Control @P. E. Pernet : thank you for the clarification of the norming phase. From my understanding Tuckman's model details the various states a team will pass through and does not imply a process. The streng...
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Kathy Zandbergen
Director, Canada
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Simple Approach from Canada (besides Incorporating Those Above) I work in an international company but I'm lucky in that most of my team is national. So I only deal with 3 timezones. A couple of simple things we focus on:
1) Establish team norms - communication p...
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Francesco Cuoco, Italy
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Dispersed Teams a New Approach Management of such a team is the challenge today: we need to overcome all the communication issues and allow the team to have contextual discussions. Many tools are already mentioned: mails, conferenc...
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VENKATESWARAN
Teacher, India
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Virtual Team is Indeed a Boon! It is indeed a wonderful idea and with the hi-tech tools available now, if it is properly understood and implemented in good spirits, it would yield amazing results. All the members need to have the u...
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KATHRYN STEINER, MBA
Entrepreneur, United States
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Visual Contact and Trust When working together remotely it would be good to be able to see the people who one is communicating with, preferably meeting at some point before the communications begin.
I personally like to know...
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Dali Horeshka
Business Consultant, Albania
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Critical Concerns to Virtual Team Functioning Based on my experience there are three critical critical concerns to allow a virtual team to function properly:
- Creating the same terminology of speaking and discussing,
- Making things simple ins...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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Remote Teams can Become Hub Teams @Kathryn Pawley Steiner: Geographical disparity does create cross cultural and relational problems, per se, where it may not be possible to 'personally know' and/or 'personally trust' someone before t...
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Kurt Ludikovsky
Consultant, Austria
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It's All About the Goal I can second all what has been said here, and still don't see a solution.
I have run a virtual team with 23 country organisation across Europe and China as part of a global team. In another project I...
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Felix ahonzo, Ghana
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Things to Consider in Managing a Virtual Team In my view, these are the main things to consider in managing a virtual team
1. Allocation of tasks and time line
2. Coordination of tasks
3. Giving feedback
This approach will help maximize the e...
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dawson
Student (University), New Zealand
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GDT and Virtual Team Dynamics, Glass Half Full Much good and diverse opinions on this topic here!
There's Too much room for cultural faux pas in large virtual teams. Multicultural interpretations could dilute team dynamics. Think of the differenc...
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KATHRYN STEINER, MBA
Entrepreneur, United States
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Building Relationships and Establishing Trust in Virtual Teams @Arif Ur Rehman: I have become accustomed to communicating remotely. For almost 2 years I communicated remotely as an MBA student, never meeting colleagues and professors. Everyday we communicate with...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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The Virtual Trust in Virtual Teams @Kathryn Pawley Steiner: Contrasted to your 'low financial risk environment' mine is riddled with corruption. Yet professionally I've never compromised on honesty or ethical performance/integrity and ...
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Sim Poay See
Material Analysis, Malaysia
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We are discussing Virtual Teams in a Virtual Team! This is a great topic and I feel that we are having a virtual team right now to discuss the same topic about "virtual team". We are sharing our experience, culture from different countries, different ...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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Evolving a Practical Model for GDT's @Sim Poay See: Over the coming weeks, while scanning the rudimentary literature (from my perspective) that I may possibly be able to assess, I will labor on a working strategy for virtual teams/gdt's ...
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VENKATESWARAN
Teacher, India
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Exchanging Views on GDT and Virtual Teams Sans Personal Faiths I really appreciate the contribution of Mr. Arif Ur Rehman in these columns and submit that as professionals in the field of management, we should desist the temptation of bringing in the religion, th...
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KATHRYN STEINER, MBA
Entrepreneur, United States
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Standards for Global Cross Functional Teams Established by Organization @Arif Ur Rehman: Arif, this discussion with all participants contributions and perspectives is interesting. I've been employed in highly regulated industries and even when there are not cross function...
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John limpus
Australia
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Virtual Teams are the Way of the Future The reality is that virtual teams are the way of the future. It is not always possible or feasable to get people together to work on a project, particularly in remote areas.
The challenge therefore i...
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Francesco Cuoco, Italy
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Tools for Dispersed Virtual Teams Surely virtual teams are the feature. The question is what to do to improve them and again I think communication is the answer.
We need to have the appropriate tools available....
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Venkatesh
Teacher, India
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GDT as a Social Group and Network for Effective and Efficient Services Marketing GDT is a good and effective concept of getting connected with people across the globe and another way of social networking to share common interests and help grow the knowledge.
It certainly has a bi...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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Geographically Dispersed Teams and Global Marketing Efforts - Finding the Key @Venkatesh: GDT and global marketing win if efforts are directed in an open, free, ethical and, more importantly, understandable communication progression, at the right moment. Often, in a global cont...
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Dali Horeshka
Business Consultant, Albania
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Well-forged Objectives and Plan Make Geographically Dispersed Teams Functional I just discussed with one of my colleagues engaged in the management of local capacity building team within Albania. The most critical issues have been having the same understanding about the interven...
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KATHRYN STEINER, MBA
Entrepreneur, United States
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Geographically Dispersed Teams Must Involve Relationship Building This discussion certainly is interesting, with sevarl underlying complexities that can be simplified once relationships and trust are established...
Frequent and ongoing communication is essential an...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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12manage as a Global Platform for Debates Dear All: the on-going debates, dialogues and discussions on 12manage are fundamental to understanding relations and preferences in short appreciating cultural associations in a global context. Th...
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abraham garshong, Ghana
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Requirements for Virtual Teams / Geographical Dispersed Teams @Emad Adeeb Eskander: excellent summary! In my view a critical point for virtual teams to be successful is having occasional face-to-face interactions. This allows team members to put a face and conte...
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VENKATESWARAN
Teacher, India
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GDT and Views Thereon @Kurt Ludikovsky : your points are highly relevant in present day. But the team selection for any project of long term or short term is purely based on the skill-sets of the team members in sync. With...
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Irene Brunner Jucker, Switzerland
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Leading Dispersed Teams In my experience, coaching competencies (in the sense of listening carefully and asking the right questions) are key to leading a remote team successfully.
Virtual teams will always be a source of di...
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Connie Liu
Project Manager, China
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Best Practices in Managing Overseas Teams There are many areas that both sides need to consider:
- Communicate effectively and timely to which leave is effectively; how soon is deemed as timely
- Be responsive how soon is deemed to be r...
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Taylor
Consultant, United Kingdom
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The Importance of Small Talk in Virtual Teams Small talk is often a missing ingredient in virtual teams. In teams where all of the members share a common office space, a lot of sharing and relationship building happens in social areas such as the...
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Anneke Zwart
Student (University), Netherlands
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Best Practices to Managing and Developing Effective Virtual Teams Ferrazzi just published an interesting article on this subject in the Harvard Business Review. He writes that in a world in which globalization is increasing, the main advantages of building virtual t...
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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands
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Productivity of Telecommuters and Flexworkers See also the discussion Factors Determining the Productivity of Telecommuters and Flexworkers....
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Tendekai Dzinamarira
Manager, Zimbabwe
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Virtual Project Management In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, virtual project management (VPM) has emerged as a powerful tool for managers to efficiently oversee and coordinate projects remotely.
Definition of Vir...
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