Virtual team

A Virtual Team — also known as a Geographically Dispersed Team (GDT) — is a group of individuals who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology. They have complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose, have interdependent performance goals, and share an approach to work for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Geographically dispersed teams allow organizations to hire and retain the best people regardless of location. Members of virtual teams communicate electronically, so they may never meet face to face. However, most teams will meet at some point in time. A virtual team does not always mean teleworker. Teleworkers are defined as individuals who work from home. Many virtual teams in today's organizations consist of employees both working at home and small groups in the office but in different geographic locations. Communication technologies that enable a high degree of media naturalness are particularly useful for virtual teams.

Why virtual teams?

* Best employees may be located anywhere in the world.
* Workers demand personal flexibility.
* Workers demand increasing technological sophistication.
* A flexible organization is more competitive and responsive to the marketplace.
* Workers tend to be more productive; i.e., they spend less time on commuting and travel
* The increasing globalization of trade and corporate activity.
* The global workday is 24 vs. 8 hours.
* The emergence of environments which require inter-organizational cooperation as well as competition.
* Changes in workers' expectations of organizational participation.
* A continued shift from production to service/knowledge work environments.
* Increasing horizontal organization structures characterized by structurally and geographically distributed human resources.

Benefits of virtual teams:

* Some members of virtual teams do not need to come in to the workplace, therefore the company will not need to offer those workers office or parking space.
* Reduces traveling expenses for employees.
* It allows more people to be included in the labor pool.
* It decreases both air pollution and congestion because there is less commuting.
* It allows workers in organizations to be more flexible.
* By working in virtual teams, physical handicaps are not a concern.

Problems with virtual teams:

* Difficulty in managing the performance of the team.
* Misunderstanding in communications is the leading complaint among members of virtual teams.
**This problem is magnified when working with teams across cultural borders because of nuances in the English language [http://leadingvirtually.com/?p=6/]
* Working on a project over the virtual workspace causes lack of project visibility.
* Difficulty contacting other members. (i.e. email, instant messaging, etc.)
* Differences in time zones.
* It can be difficult for team members to fully comprehend the meaning of text-based messages.
* Building trust may be challenging because mechanisms different from those used in face-to-face teams are required to build trust [http://leadingvirtually.com/?p=15]
* Members fail to take 'ownership' of project [http://leadingvirtually.com/?p=7]

Tips to ease communication problems for team members:

* Allow the team members to get to know each other by arranging occasional face to face meetings. This can also be accomplished using webcams and video conferencing which may or may not necessitate that all team members use the same hardware and/or software applications.
* Allow team members to get an idea of where the overall project is going. This way each member will know how they fit into the project.
* Create a code of conduct. This will avoid delays and will make sure that requests are answered in a timely fashion.
* Do not allow team members to disappear. Have a calendar for each team member so that everyone's schedule is available to view.
* Develop trust among the team.
* Store charts, diagrams, etc. on the internet so that the whole team can see them.
* Create a 'face book' which includes information about background, interests and helps team members get to know each other better. Individuals choose the information to share. Connections and trust are built through relationships

Who are the members of virtual teams?

* Members can either be stable or change on an ongoing basis.
* Members can be in the same company or from various companies.
* Members can live in the same community or in different countries.

Basic types of virtual teams

* Networked Teams consist of individuals who collaborate to achieve a common goal or purpose; membership is frequently diffuse and fluid.
* Parallel Teams work in the short term to develop recommendations for an improvement in a process or system; the team has a distinct membership.
* Project or Product-Development Teams conduct projects for users or customers for a defined period of time. Tasks are usually nonroutine, and the results are specific and measurable; the team has decisionmaking authority.
* Work or Production Teams perform regular and ongoing work usually in one function; the team has clearly defined membership.
* Service Teams support customers or the internal organization in typically a service/technical support role around the clock.
* Management Teams work collaboratively on a daily basis within a functional division of a corporation.
* Action Teams offer immediate responses activated in (typically) emergency situations.

Reasons for virtual teams in the workplace:

* Allows for people in different parts of the world to come together to work on a project.
* Creates alliances and mergers between organizations.
* Extends the market to different geographical locations.
* Reduces costs for an organization.

Nine key steps to developing virtual teams:

* Secure a project-based idea conducive to collaboration.
* Build a business plan to include the team vision, purpose and goal.
* Identify critical players to support the project.
* Select people who can contribute their core competencies to the project.
* Enlist their service.
* Establish an initial meeting with members to lay down the groundwork,set guidelines and processes.
* Strategically align all members to the projects goal.
* Set a timeline.
* Monitor activities and progress.

Critical success factors of virtual teams

* The existence of availability standards.
* Ample resources to buy and support state-of-the-art reliable communication and collaboration tools for all team members.
* The existence of corporate memory systems such as lessons learned databases.
* The existence of written goals, objectives, project specifications, and performance metrics; results orientation.
* Managers and team members with a better-than-average ability to accurately estimate.
* A lower-than-normal ratio of pushed to pulled information.
* Team communication is prioritized by the sender.
* Human resource policies, reward/recognition systems as well as career development systems address the unique needs of virtual workers.
* Good access to technical training and information on how to work across cultures.
* Training methods accommodate continual and just-in-time learning.
* There are standard and agreed-on technical and "soft" team processes.
* A "high trust" culture; teamwork and collaboration are the norm.
* Leaders set high performance expectations; model behaviors such as working across boundaries and using technology effectively.
* Team leaders and members exhibit competence in working in virtual environments.

Team-building key for virtual workplace

Darleen DeRosa, Ph.D., a managing partner at OnPoint Consulting, focuses her research on virtual teams. DeRosa earned her PhD in organizational psychology and invested four years of graduate school at the masters and PhD levels obtaining her degree. She chose to focus on this area because she feels that even though organizations have invested so much time and money into virtual teams, organizations are missing the foundation for virtual workplaces; support.

DeRosa’s study included surveying and interviewing 10 different major international firms; two thirds agreed that the performance of virtual teamwork is “important or very important” to the fundamental success of their business. Of 21 virtual teams, sixty-five percent claimed that they’d had never participated in an effective team building session, thirty-six percent said they had never met their team members face to face. Teams that had been together for less than a year were more productive and performed substantially better than teams that had been together for more than a year. An overall observation is that productivity and performance decreases over time.

A recent study by the Gartner Group; an American research company, stated that by 2008, 41 million corporate employees will operate in a virtual workplace at least one day per week.

Having employees working in a virtual workplace poses some concerns and challenges, most of which would be eliminated by working in a physical office. Most of these challenges stem from the lack of face-to-face interactions among team members. Darleen DeRosa discovered seven key challenges that employees are faced with when working in teams in a virtual workplace. Here are the challenges that she has identified in her research:

• Companies must compensate for the lack of human contact, and find appropriate ways to support team spirit, trust and productivity.

• Leaders must be especially sensitive to interpersonal, communication and cultural factors.

• No trust, no team. Trust is a top factor in determining virtual team success. But interpersonal trust, compared to task-level trust (a faith that team members will do their job) is more difficult to achieve in a virtual environment.

• Team building pays off. Virtual teams that invest time in team building perform better than those that don't.

• Team performance tends to drop off after one year. Attention must be paid to interpersonal, communication and cultural factors to prevent a "peak-and-decline" syndrome.

• Technology makes virtual teaming possible, but isn't a perfect substitute for human interaction. Teams must be careful to use the appropriate technology for various tasks.

• While meeting in person requires time and expense, virtual teams that meet once or twice a year perform better overall than those that don't meet.To help make an easy transition from a physical office to virtual workplaces for employees, organizations have created “virtual water coolers” and chat rooms to encourage employee interaction and communication.

DeRosa has concluded that companies are not optimizing their virtual workplaces. There is an enormous potential for increased productivity and performance, however organizations have failed to build the foundation for making an easy move to virtual workplaces. People tend to be more receptive to face-to-face interactions. A virtual workplace eliminates this human contact. As a result, in order to build the foundations for a successful workplace, organizations have to find a way to replace human contact with an equivalent interaction. Increased productivity and performance should be the driving forces for finding that replacement and endorsing the movement to virtual workplaces.

Aiding Software for Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are often spread all over the globe, ranging from different offices to different cultures; so how is it that they can remain on track with objectives and come together to achieve goals to contribute to the organization? The answer is that they use collaborative technology--in particular they use software that allows virtual teams to be as efficient as same-location teams.

Software that aids virtual team functioning can be separated into two main categories--software that provides ease of communication and software that provides task and document organization.

Software that improves the ease of communication often includes features such as presence awareness, instant messaging, and web conferencing. These tools allow team member to be accessible to their teams 24 hours a day. Members can have real time conversations and do not have to follow lengthy correspondence as dispersed teams have had to in the past, which leads to greater efficiency.

Software applications that organize team tasks and documents also improve their teams' efficiency. These programs consist of a central location where all members can access important documents to the team, track progress made, assign tasks, and even provide calendars with key dates and timelines to keep all members current.

There are many software programs for virtual teams, such as Lotus software by IBM, NetMeeting by Microsoft, Facilitate.com by Facilitate.com, Thinktank by GroupSystems, and many more. Software of this type is a fast-developing area, so organizations should look often for software programs that suit the size and functionality of their teams.

Examples of Collaborative Software

* Virtual World Software: Ongoing research is indicating that virtual worlds, such as Second Life, can help with virtual team collaboration. However, virtual team leaders should think beyond mimicking reality to foster successful collaboration [http://leadingvirtually.com/?p=13]
* Other software titles, including MetaTeam, provide a team framework that models group structures, interactions and processes in a way that enables dispersed team members to participate more fully

References

*Business Edge. (2006). Team-building key for virtual workplace. Retrieved June 20, 2006 from the World Wide Web: http://www.businessedge.ca/article.cfm/newsID/10076.cfm

*Geographically Dispersed Teams (1999). Valerie Sessa et al. ISBN 1-882197-54-2

* Duarte, D.L., & Snyder, N.T. (2006). Mastering Virtual Teams (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN-10: 0787982806

* Hertel, G., Geister, S., & Konradt, U. (2005). Managing virtual teams: A review of current empirical research. Human Resource Management Review, 15, 69-95. ISSN: 1053-4822

* Southers, C,.Parisi-Carew, E, Carew, D (2002). The Virtual Teams Handbook. San Diego, Ken Blanchard Companies.

External links

* Training for Virtual Teams [http://www.tmaworld.com/global_teams_virtual_teams/]
* [http://www.startwright.com/virtual.htm A list of links and articles on virtual teams and virtual team management] (StartWright)
* [http://www.chris-kimble.com/Courses/mis/Distributed_Team_Work.html Working in Virtual Teams: Overcoming Time and Geography?] (Chris Kimble, University of York)
* [http://ssrn.com/abstract=634645 Effective Virtual Teams through Communities of Practice] (Chris Kimble, Barlow Alexis, and Feng Li)
* [http://gadishamia.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/leading-a-global-team-the-starter-guide Leading a Global Team- The Starter Guide] (Gadi Shamia)
* [http://www.fb.cityu.edu.hk/is/research/ISWorld/virtualteams/index.htm Virtual Teams] (Robert Davison, ISWORLD)
* [http://vitaltool.tkk.fi A toolbox for Leading Virtual Teams] (Helsinki University of Technology / Humap Ltd)
* [http://leadingvirtually.com Blog About Effectively Leading Virtual Teams] (Surinder Kahai, State University of New York [SUNY] at Binghamton)

See also

* Virtual organization
* Virtual management
* Virtual Community of Practice
* Distributed Development