Global Teaming - An Insight

 Anand Kumar, Regional IT Lead, Monsanto

There is an increasing trend around the world, where a wide ranging set of tasks are being performed by teams of employees who rarely if ever meet in person and live/communicate in electronic space managed by technology.

The rise of these virtual teams is hardly surprising, given the vast investments companies are making in internal communications and networks and the belief around global workforce strategies. Technically, it's no longer a challenge to work closely with colleagues in distant locations or to hold meetings with participants scattered around the globe since there are a variety of technology options for this.

That said, in practical terms, a whole range of challenges exist. Among them: time-zone differences that make instantaneous conversations impractical and cultural/workplace styles that can cause misunderstandings. Examples range from: certain types of cultures keep silent in a conference call and do not ask questions unless it is pertinent, Other work cultures perceive that as lack of interest or comprehension.

Teams that don't have a face to face interaction often are considered less likely to develop the kind of camaraderie seen in teams that do which is an element that's often seen as a key factor in making teams productive.

I believe that it has been found that many of the organizations which have virtual teams have been facing similar kinds of long-distance challenges, some to the point of being in continuous danger of breaking up while on the other end of the spectrum you had high performing teams where innovation, agility and energy were standard traits exhibited.

Why does one virtual team thrive while another stumbles? What are the factors that differentiate the two?

It's an important issue, as companies tighten up their communications and travel expenses and increasingly resent overseas travel and so finding a way to make virtual teams work is crucial if the theme around globalization and “boundary less” operations needs to work.

We have been doing virtual teaming for the last 5 years and we have been able to identify some key trends which may help alleviate the problems companies typically face in this space.

A. Communication channels are key to success – creating people connections and informal social networks is key, Encouraging frequent telephone use

Because of physical separation, one of the biggest challenges virtual-team members face is an inability to easily learn about one another and what each person brings to the table.

Usage of team spaces and encouraging picking up the phone and talking is something which is time consuming but we have seen that the results of team bonding far outweigh the costs. Such capabilities help ensure that even virtual-team members can rapidly get to know something about one another.

Using simple IM tools like  messengers really helps in building partnerships during projects across virtual teams.

B. Play On The Interpersonal Traits For Team Members

Virtual teams are much more likely to be productive and innovative if they include some people who already know each other. It also helps if you have individuals who are high on the “EQ” levels since they will be able to better manage virtual dynamics.

It's often through the unexpected insights of new colleagues that innovation is sparked.

C. Ensure that “Marketing” individuals are part of the team

Marketing individuals are people who, as a result of their personality, skills or experience, have lots of connections to useful people outside the team.  The only watchout is that we need to make sure that there are not too many such types since then focus of the team will be lost due to the myriad connections enabled by the team.

D. Break the team's work up into discrete modules so that progress in one location is not overly dependent on progress in another.

Coordinating work across distant time zones can is very challenging. Many teams struggle if the work allocated is a collaborative effort since teams work at different speeds, the wiser approach would be for discrete modular work to be provided so that the work done by one team is not overly dependent on the other. Depending on the type of work, try designing the work flow so that contributions from different locations can be assembled into a whole toward the end of the process.

E. Assign work that is challenging and interesting over a period of time and provide tasks that ensure ownership and a larger meaning is conveyed to the work they do.

Because the work of virtual teams is often unsupervised, their tasks should be stimulating and challenging. One of the biggest reasons virtual teams fail is because the members don't find the work interesting. They simply fade away, with fewer and fewer dialing into the weekly conference calls or discussing new ideas or initiatives. It's not that the members don't like one another. It's simply that the atmosphere becomes more like a informal club than a dynamic collection of creative people. Ideally, a virtual team's mission should resonate with each member's values -- both as individuals and as professionals who want to develop their skills -- and be of clear importance to the company.

The importance of meaningful work and inspiring visions is clear in the widely known results of many initiatives like the GNU project or any of the numerous initiatives one comes across in the open source space.