Supervising a virtual team is still all about basics

Who knew the Rochester NY paper would publish such a useful article?

They recommend:

1. "Communicate, communicate, communicate." I agree. Traditional teams - just communicate squared. But virtual teams you have to communicate cubed. Really, I am serious. Communication is an order of magnitude more complicated - and more important.

2. Keep the distant people involved in the little things. Be aware of the decision making (and knowledge transfer) that happens in kitchen cabinet meetings and either cut it out - or recognize you are disenfranchising your virtual team members.

3. Celebrate! This is important as the virtual team members don't pick up on the subtle non-verbal celebrations of accomplishment. Make them explicit.

Comments

[Kathy Meus]

I would venture to say that the third recommendation, that of celebration, is perhaps the most difficult to put into practice when working with a virtual team. When a group of people are near to each other, excitement and motivation tends to be contagious. It's a very emotional experience. Emotion doesn't translate well over technology, and when teams are spread across time and distance, it becomes even more difficult to communicate such things. Celebration and feeling a sense of achievement are an important part of any project, and making sure every member of the project, near or far, feels it is highly important to keeping people engaged and motivated. Nobody wants to come to work to work on a project, and then watch his teammates on the other side of the world celebrate a success while he sits in his cube just like any other day.

[Thursday, May 08, 2008: Posted by Eric from the Multi_National Multi_Cultural Collaboration Blog Gro]

Thursday, May 08, 2008: Posted by Eric from the Multi_National Multi_Cultural Collaboration Blog Group:

Celebrate is critical in managing any team , especially when in charge of managing a virtual team:

1. in a traditional team located physically in the same georgraphical location, it is easier to celebrate. An example woul;d be as follows: when a team distinguishes himself or hersel in accomplishing a particularly difficult or cumbersome task, the manager could just walk down the corridor to his or desk or office and invite the person to lunch to celebrate such an accomplishment.
Furthermore, organizing a small"party" at the office for happy events in personal and professional lives( such as birthday, birth of a child, recovery from an illness, etc) would reinforce the sense of recognition that must be provided to the workforce. Such "celebrations" would ehnance, in the eyes of employees, a better sense of belonging and loyalty to the company, and hopefully increase their productivity.

As we all remind ouselves everyday, the human resources are or should be the first and most precious resource for a company's sucess!

the most precious company to deserving praise

[Himansu Mayani]

I agree that celebrating with a virtual team is a challenge. But on a smaller scale in a similar category is making every member of the virtual team feel connected. If video is not an option exchanging pictures helps as do icebreaker surveys e.g. hobbies, interests, blogs or wikis they contribute to. By everyone getting to know each other better they feel connected and are more responsive and feel more comfortable to speak up rather than multi-task. The quiet members are not as hard to draw out as they are w/o these types of attempts. Cultural exchange presentations to each other if applicable can be fun and interesting too.

[Maria Morales]

I can see how the second one is basic but very important. Members need to feel valued for who they are, not just what they bring to the table. By keeping the people involved, they can develop enthusiasm and optimism. If team members feel engaged and connected, they will collaborate.

[Janie Cisneros]

I agree that doing whatever possible to get some interconnection among virtual team members is important. I am actually surprised at how much a picture and knowing hobbies of team members can do! Even within my current PM440 team, I only knew one team member because we had previous classes together. The rest of the members were just a name to an email address (esp since a lot of people didn't post pics of themselves on the wiki's!!!.. I am guilty of it too!). One team member posted a pic of herself via Skype and I have to admit that it helped a great deal to put a name with a face. I had physically spoken to another person from class about a week ago and only until today did she realize that we were team members because I decided to also post a pic of myself on Skype!

In terms of how to celebrate with virtual team members, I have never had this type of experience since I am not yet a working professional. But I am curious to know what PM do to help the celebration process. I wonder if any companies out that use Second Life to all "go out together" for lunch or something :)

[Tiera Williams]

I agree that it is important to celebrate as a project team. In my experience working with domestic and international project team members travel expense is included in the budget. Which allows team members to travel when needed. Typically this is done during the beginning stages of the project or the end prior to deployment.

[Mike Niebling]

I think it's important for "celebrating" to also include overt positive reinforcement for good contributions to the group, since in virtual collaboration many subtle affirming cues can be lost. Although I think this is a good thing for all group members to be aware of, I think it's especially critical for a virtual team leader to focus on this to help build a rapport among his group.