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Virtual
Teams
Welcome to the world
of virtual teaming. We are all interconnected thus we can work with anyone
at any time. Whether your organization has 20 people or 5000, your people
will face the challenge of working virtually with people down the hall,
in the building next door, as well as across continents and oceans.
As a result, individuals
and work groups need to develop new and different practices and rules
of engagement. Togetherness, teamwork, and empowerment, concepts of conventional
wisdom are not enough when it comes to working virtually. It turns out
that virtual team performance requires adherence to a simple set of disciplined
behaviors that are called "team basics." When applied
to performance challenges, that discipline produces results that are clearly
superior to what small groups can produce working in a traditional hierarchy
under a command and control discipline.
The program includes:
- Developing a compelling
and commonly held performance challenge that is operationalized.
- Understanding the
six-part discipline whereby team members with complementary skills commit
to hold themselves mutually accountable to a common purpose, a set of
common goals, and agreed-upon ways of working together.
- Develop team leadership.
Leaders are taught how to focus on building mutual accountability and
performance focus while encouraging the team to delegate tasks, solve
problems and make decisions.
- Determining when
to use the:
- Traditional hierarchy
with a single leader (i.e. tasks and goals are best accomplished by
individuals working within a single leader’s direction
- "Team discipline"
format (i.e. tasks and goals require close collaboration among two
or more people working together in real time with access to multiple
leaders.)
- Determining when
temporary co-location is required.
- Understanding the
steps of integration so that various product components can work together.
Research is revealing
that technology, in the form of groupware is certainly important, yet
it is secondary to the basics of team discipline. When there are breakdowns,
people can become fixated on the technology, missing the real problem---undisciplined
behavior.
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