Simon Barratt

Effective Virtual Teams

Lisa Kimball - Group Jazz

How complex is your team?

Teams are changing - more often teams now include people from outside the organisation.

Nowadays, most people are only partially members of teams (20% v 100%)

Teams form and reform repeatedly.

Collaboration happens in an ongoing boundryless way.

Yet again, hearing that the rewards system needs to reward team activity.  This is something we have never done.

Reasons teams fail:
1.        Lack of identity.
2.        Fuzzy deliverables
3.        No pulse - Care and feeding
4.        Weak role definitions - someone who drives other team members, someone who
5.        Boring meetings - starting at minute 61 of a conf call, the value really, really drops off.  Apparently, research show that, even on a conf call people can tell when another member is not concentrating on the call (mute & email checking!!!)
6.        No real interdependance - If some members are not really involved, that tends to rub off on the rest of the team.
7.        Missing social life - How can you party with a virtual team?  Food=celebation>  Distribute certificates so remote team members can purchase the food appropriate for the timezone they are in.  Create a virtual birthday party.  Place on the net, that team members were able to mimic a 'Roast' type environment, leaving all type of messages, and then asked the project leader to check out the space at midnight of the anniversary.
8.        Shadow members - differentiate between core members and others.
9.        Poor lines of site - How can we create virtual hallways?  How to share the tone of a team
10.        Invisibility - Virtual teams tend to dissapear.  The organisation does not see the team.


Good Point!!!.  Creating virtual places that look just the same as the last virtual place is boring and less likely to generate any ownership or identity.  Virtual Teams need to take the time to add some individuality to their place!

•         Team Picture is a simple example, even igf you can't get everyone together, just make a digital collage
•         Create a map that shows where everyone is
•         Showing everyone sitting around a table - much more effective than showing a list of names.

Dinner telephone conference - meant to be a more casual type call, like conversations at dinner. Not sure about this idea!!!!!

Amplify Energy of the team

• Find ways to spotlight individuals

Posters on the walls at the various locations showing the project details on the corridor walls, to keep awareness.

Paper plane templates or cube for the team, to try to create a physical momento of the team for them members

Try to avoid conference calls, where the is a physical grouping of some memebers, versus some dialing in.  This will level the playing field for all members.

Talk show style for a meeting, rather than a standard presentation.