E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

One of my former students asked me to tell her about the dynamics of a virtual team, I figured I will share my answers with all of you as well:

How do you accommodate the time difference while working with an overseers member of your team?

We pick times that work best for everyone. We also limit synchronous communication by relying on asynchronous tools such as Yammer or shared documents such as Google Docs.

What is the greatest challenge of working in a virtual team?

Team members have many competing priorities that lay outside the team. There is a degree of cohesion that is impossible to create without having some face time.

What types of technology or devices do you and the members of your team use to communicate with your colleagues overseas?

Skype, Gchat, phones for conference calls, Gotomeeting for remote presentations, Google docs for shared documents, Yammer and sms for team interactions, e-mail to communicate with the colleagues who are still stuck in the past.

Who heads your virtual team? how does the individual manager your team?

Depends on which team. I am one of the co-leaders for www.Mindbounce.com and lead www.bucketb.com, but majority of the teams in which I am involved do not have an explicit leader and are managed on peer led basis. For example, www.startupaccelerator.org  lacks explicit leaders and the leadership of www.posipair.com is wise enough to act collaboratively. Typically, even in teams I actively manage, I let the project list document do the management function, only handling exceptions and insuring that communication that needs to happen happens.

What advantages, if any, do you see in working as a virtual team?

Thousands of dollars and hours saved to fly the people back and forth. Access to a widest possible pool of talent. Ability to utilize people as needed, while allowing them to work on other projects.

What disadvantages, if any, do you see in working as a virtual team?

Communication is more clinical and it is harder to build comradeship. When things break, they REALLY break. Having heart to heart conversations is even tougher than in person. People can drop off the face of the earth without notice much more easily then if they had to come and grub their stuff off the desk.

What are your recommendations for a virtual team to be successful?

Have someone financing the project. Make sure you have a customer who is not shy about telling your team to deliver what was promised. It is good to have people who have worked with each other on prior projects and crucial to have people who can be professionals without being babysat.

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