How Can We Support Geographically Distributed Teams

Virtual teams are often less efficient & effective than collocated ones

But many can be successful

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Boeing-Rocketdyne team was successful

• Small distributed engineering team radically & successfully redesigned rocket engine• Reduced part count fm 1,200 to 6• Reduced first unit cost from $4.5m to $47K• Reduced design time from 6 years to 10 months• Increased quality three orders of magnitude

(from 6 sigma to 9 sigma)

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What Did the Boeing-Rocketdyne Team Do To Be Successful?

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What Did the Boeing-Rocketdyne Team Do To Be Successful?

• Recruiting: High quality team• Explicit contracts

• At organizational level – level of effort, intellectual property, autonomy, budget

• At group level – ways of using technology, amount of & place for communication, role of leader (all modified with experience)

• Technology• Voice communication• Data repository• Real-time drawing• Technology facilitator • Modifications of technology & SOP to deal with problems

• Frequent communication• 2.5 virtual meetings per week• Data repository

• Combination of documented conceptual sketches + verbal annotation

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Communication Intensity

• Compare 3 global teams within a single company• 2 effective:

• 1 ineffective

• Effective teams • Matched type & duration of

communication sessions with function/topic & complexity

• Used periodic, face-to-face meetings to drive function

• Maznevski, M., & Chudoba, C. (2000). Bridging space over time: Global virtual team dynamics and effectiveness. Organization Science, 11(5), 473-492.

Effective

Effective

In effective

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What coordination techniques help?Cummings & Kiesler, 2007, Distributed scientists

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Appropriate launch activities

• Often helps to start the work with face-to-face meeting, with food, time for leisure, etc.

• Goal is to build rapport & short-circuit the us/them social categorization.

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Smooze or loose

• Analogous to having a ‘get-to-know-each-other phone chat’ before email negotiation

• In email negotiation vs face-to-face negotiation, partner • Less likely to ask questions abt preferences• Less likely to reveal non-negotiable issues• Threats, ultimatums and references to obligations were more

likely to result in impass

• But the preliminary phone chat reduced these effects• Increased rapport• Reduced likelihood of an impasse

Morris, M., Nadler, J., Kurtzberg, T., & Thompson, L. (2002). Schmooze or lose: Social friction and lubrication in e-mail negotiations. Group Dynamics, 6(1), 89-100.

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Reduce Needs for CommunicationStealth Bomber/Boeing 777

• Digitally designed and tested aircraft• Database of component specifications & designs (CAD)• Simulations and modeling to test the integration of

independently designed components• Visualizations to help identify alternative design

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Consequences

• Digital models increased model precision increased the “first fit ratio” from ~50% for conventional aerospace manufacture to ~90%

• Makes the tacit explicit reduces need for communication• Reduces likelihood of misunderstanding• Reduces need for shared knowledge among engineers, typically

developed within-firms

• “Technical grammar” allows coordination without hierarchy through social convention• Reduces likelihood of honest mistakes and agency allows

vertical disintegration• Reduces lobbying the central authority

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Agency problems

• The principal–agent problem •  One person (the "agent") is able to make

decisions on behalf of another (the "principal“)• Agent is motivated to act in his own best interests

rather than those of the principal.

• Occurs when the two parties have different interests and asymmetric information (the agent having more information Principal cannot guarantee that the agent is

always acting in its (the principal's) best interests, particularly when activities that are useful to the principal are costly to the agent

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Generic Methods for Countering Agency Problems

• Aligning incentives• Clan control• Liking• Pay for performance

• Control• Monitoring

• Trust

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Hudson’s Bay Company1670-1826

• The challenge• Owners & headquarters in London• Local management & work in North America• Communication restricted to annual ship runsNorth American operations had substantial autonomy

• Agency problem• How to align interests of owners and operators?

• Agency costs definition• Costs associated with self-interest• Costs resulting from monitoring & preventing self-interest

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Map

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Techniques• Clan control:

• Selection to get right type of people • Socialization to develop a company-centric value system

• Transition rite of passages on leaving England & arrive in new world• Total institutions

• Onboard ship• In posts

• Promotion from within

• Communication• Annual letters

• Detailed daily journals (like ship logs), with more detail after post fire• Lists to make important information more salient: supplies, personnel, salaries,

movements, expentitures, disciplinary actions,

• Active management by senior managers (governor) in Canada• Longevity• Wandering around

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Surveillance Reduces Agency Conflicts

• Both knowledge that actions are visible & self-monitoring can increase compliance to norms Guard tour patrol system

Body-worn police camera

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Police & body-worn cameras

• Police wearing body-worn cameras reduces frequency of police use of force against public

• Year experiment with Rialto CA Police reduced use of force by 50% (17 to 8 incidents)

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•Portholes

•Ms Fields: Point of sales terminal connected to central office; Monitoring & detailed feedback tight reign

Alternate: Use Technology to Increase Monitoring

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Summary: Improve Success of Distributed Work By

• Reducing needs for direct communication• Using appropriate launch activities• Increasing communication intensity• Developing tools for Awareness

• Task state• Participant state

• Increase quality of communication sessions• Develop contracts with clear expectations