Virtual Teaming

1
Virtual Teaming

• Managing Virtual Teams
• Martha Haywood

2
Definitions

• Distributed (Virtual) Team Team members are
• Geographically separated
• Have skewed working hours
• Members of multi-organizational teams
• Key factor
• One or more of the team members is geographically
  separated from the others

3
Types of Distributed Team Members

• Individuals at other corporate sites
• Joint venture partners
• Telecommuters
• Consultants
• Third-party developers
• Vendors/Suppliers
• Offshore develop and manufacturing groups
• Customers
• Clients

4
Factors Driving Distributed Teams

• Mergers
• Acquisitions
• Downsizing
• Outsourcing
• Offshore Development and manufacturing
• New Communications Technologies

Becoming more and more common
5
Advantages

• Increased productivity (more structured, fewer
  interruptions)
• Reduced office space requirements
• Closer proximity to customers
• Increased flexibility
• Greater access to experts
• Larger pool of potential job candidates
• Environmental benefits (taking commuters off
  roads)
• Increased employee satisfaction and retention
• Improved disaster recovery capabilities

6
Challenges

• Managers Perspective
• Monitoring performance
• Communication problems
• More difficult to manage
• Team Members Perspective
• Communication problems
• Technical support
• Recognition for work done
• Inclusion vs. isolation
• Management resistance

7
Our Challenge

• Introduction to working in virtual teams new to
  everybody
• Manage short-term (ad hoc) teams
• Accelerate team building

8
Virtual Team Communications

• What is different about communicating at a
  distance?

9
Scenario

• Bob (design engineer) leaving for airport
• Martha (support engineer) I need error code
• Bob Im leaving, talk to engineering dept.
• Martha Ive been there. They said to talk to
  you.
• Bob I have to go, send me an e-mail.
• Martha You never return my e-mails! Im not
  letting you leave until you look at this
  printout.
• Bob Ok, 2 minutes.

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Fundamental Difference
Receiver Controlled
Transmitter Controlled
Face-to-Face Communication
Receiver Controlled
Transmitter Controlled
Distance Communication
Who has control of the communication?!?
11
In a distributed team, you cant go down to
somebodys desk and insist that they respond to
you
12
Communication Completed When

1. Transmitted
2. Received
3. Acknowledged
4. Understood
5. Acted upon

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Four Key Principles for Effective Distance
Communication
Team Members

1. publish standards for availability and
   acknowledgement
2. replace lost context in communication
3. regularly use synchronous communication
4. prioritize communication when sending

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Availability AcknowledgmentPerson Page

• Availability standards
• When/how available to teammates
• Work hours
• When check e-mail, etc.
• Acknowledgement
• How quickly will respond or acknowledge each type
  of communication

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2. Replace Lost Context

• Understanding requires understanding senders
  frame of reference
• Physical context what is in physical view
• E.g., diagrams require more explanation when
  receiver cant see it.
• Social context understanding the type of person
  youre communicating with
• Situational context understanding the events
  surrounding the person or issue.

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3. Use Synchronous Communication

• Types
• Face-to-face meetings
• Phone calls
• Video conferences
• Chats
• Why important
• Builds relationships and trust more quickly
• More likely to be responsive when have better
  relationships
• High frequency important at early stages

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4. Prioritizing Communication

• Different people view priorities differently with
  various types of media
• E-mail Med?
• Voice mail High?
• Face-to-Face High?
• Inter-office junk e-mail Low?
• Team needs to reach agreement on priorities
• Which will be the highest priority media?
• Send low importance messages on lower priority
  media

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Push vs. Pull Media

• Push pushing information out to people
• Face-to-face meetings
• Phone calls
• Pagers
• Unprioritized e-mail
• Unprioritized voice mail
• Pull allowing people to seek out information
• Electronic bulletin boards
• Intranets

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Sender ResponsibilityPrioritize Messages for
Receivers

• Use agreed upon high priority media for high
  priority messages
• Use agreed upon low priority media for low
  priority messages
• Use message conventions to permit filtering

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Sample Convention HeadingE-mail Subject Line

• Date Sender
  Subject Heading
• 1/Jan/04 jsmith_at_aol.com km-3 comments
  on your documents

Indicate the person or team the message is
directed to. This convention allows you to
determine whether the message is directed to you
or you are just being copied

1. Read NOW
2. Read today
3. Read this week
4. Read at your leisure

Include R after priority level if a reply is
needed.
Haywood, p. 39
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Avoiding Garbled E-Mail

• Courier font (not proportionally spaced ones)
• Use carriage return rather than auto wrap (not
  all e-mail has it)
• Use spaces instead of tabs
• Avoid bold, italics, underlining, graphics, colors

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Effective Telephone/Chat Meetings

• Send out agenda before meeting
• Include titles of documents to be discussed in
  the agenda.
• Make sure all documents have
• page numbers
• other ways to identify areas of documents under
  discussion (e.g., paragraph numbers)
• Identify yourself before speaking
• If comment directed to one person, identify that
  person before speaking.

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Our Plan for Virtual Teaming Success

• Class video teleconference
• Introductory phone calls about 1 hour
• Led by facilitator
• Getting to Know You only, no pressure
• Develop/exchange Person Page
• Daily chats for 5-10 days
• Team video teleconferences 1 hour each

Key Frequent, early communications
24
References

• Haywood, Martha (1998). Managing Virtual Teams
  Practical Techniques for High-Technology Project
  Managers.