How Do You Manage Global Virtual Teams?

Introduction

The rise of the Internet, the creation of a global fiber-optic network, and the rapid development of long distance communication technologies has made it very easy for people all over the world to work together. It created a global platform that has allowed more people to plug and play, collaborate and compete, share knowledge and share work, than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world (Friedman, 2005). The new communication technology gives teams a great advantage by providing many options that didn’t exist before, such as allowing employees to work from their homes locally or by working together in teams across the continents.

The nature of work has begun to shift from a production-based to service related business spawning a new generation of knowledge worker no longer bound to a physical work location. Taken together, these factors suggest that firms are faced with increasing challenges to coordinate tasks across time zones, physical boundaries, cultures, and organizational contexts. The increasing globalization of trade and corporate activity increases the pressure to innovate and provide quality services to worldwide markets. Over time, this has led organizations to choose the most qualified people, a “dream-team,” regardless of their physical location (Kerber, 2004:4). These remotely connected dream teams are known as global virtual teams (GVTs).

Global virtual teams are different from intra-national virtual teams in that they are “not only separated by time and space, but differ in national, cultural, and linguistic attributes (Zakaria, 2004:17).” According to Wheatley and Wilemon (1999), global team members “differ in their functionality, which adds complexity to group dynamics.” Global virtual teams can be formed quickly and are agile by their nature. They can help organizations decrease their response time to changes in today’s hyper-competitive markets by taking advantage of round the clock work by team members dispersed around the world.

A global virtual team possesses some similarities to traditional teams who are collocated. The same fundamental ideas, as stated in Chapter 6.1 of this Wikibook, that are necessary for the success of a traditional team still apply to global virtual team. The approach however, requires modification to focus extra effort to exploit the benefits that global virtual teams bring while minimizing the disadvantages that exist from communication difficulties and a lack of physical contact. This paper investigates the benefits, challenges, and best practices of managing global virtual teams while keeping in mind the fact that global virtual teams are still teams requiring the same ideals to ensure success.

Building Virtual Teams

Introduction

Because of the unique challenges confronting virtual teams, it is especially important at their formation that they build upon a strong foundation. Some of the ideas in this chapter are expanded and explored in the following chapter. Among others, building blocks for successful virtual teams include the following:

Creating a mission, goals, and ground rules Identifying stakeholders and their expectations Complimentary roles and responsibilities Building relationships, trust, and rewarding experiences

Creating a mission, goals, and ground rules

An often overlooked exercise in any team situation is the discussion of processes and rules which should govern team meetings and projects. Virtual teams are no exception. In reality, establishing and adhering to goals and ground rules is more complicated in virtual teams than in those where members have the frequent opportunity to meet face-to-face. The inability to have face time with one another makes it difficult for team members to "touch base" and maintain a unified purpose. The need to do this, however, is clear. If the individuals of a team do not have a clear and shared understanding of where they are going, they will never get there. Virtual teams should hold an orientation meeting (face-to-face if possible) where team members acknowledge not only the purpose of the team, but the significance of their team's purpose for the organization in which it operates. Understanding their purpose, members of the team should then set goals and assign tasks toward the fulfilling of that purpose. Each team member should come away from the orientation meeting with a clear understanding of the team's purpose as well as their individual role.

Identifying stakeholders and their expectations

The purpose of a virtual team should be very closely tied to the expectations of stakeholders. Therefore, stakeholders or stakeholder representatives should be actively involved in the formation of the virtual team. Clarifying the needs and expectations of stakeholders in the beginning will help the team to avoid unnecessary work, confusion, and conflict. A documentation of stakeholder's expectations should be made for reference throughout the project. Future communication between stakeholders and team representatives will further ensure that the team's purpose is on track and being fulfilled.

Complimentary roles and responsibilities

It is important that every member of a virtual team has a full understanding of the capabilities and roles of individual team members. Each must know his or her role, the role of others, and to who they may look for resources and support. Without this knowledge, the team will not achieve its performance potential. If the responsibilities of team members are clearly defined and documented, each team member will be accountable to each other and to the group for the fulfilling of their responsibilities. The ground rules established in the formation of the group should address responsibilities and tasks and likewise identify remedies and protocol when individual and group responsibilities are not fulfilled. In order for team members to "own" their role and responsibilities, they should document their perceptions of their role within the team. Only when team members have fully bought into the team's purpose and their role within it can they be held fully accountable.

Naturally, it is important that the roles and responsibilities of team members compliment one another and represent a unique and useful asset to the team. Selecting individuals to take part in a virtual team requires thoughtful consideration. Depending on the size of the team and scope of its purpose, teams may include a core group which is fully accountable for the results, as well as extended or ancillary members who bring unique knowledge to the team. Flexibility and adaptability are necessary in new virtual teams as their purpose and needs evolve.

Building relationships, trust, and rewarding experiences

The ideal way of building relationships with team members is to spend time together face-to-face. As mentioned earlier, this can be difficult in virtual teams whose members may reside continents away. LaFasto and Larson suggest that it is even more important for virtual teams to connect in person on a regular basis: "For a group of regional managers spread across the country or around the world, ensuring adequate face time might mean meeting together every quarter to calibrate major activities, explore common challenges, and confirm relationships" (181).

When relationships between team members are built and confirmed on an ongoing basis, a culture of trust will exist even when members are working virtually with one another. The way a group behaves and performs affects individual members. When trust is present and group behavior is positive, so too will be team member's evaluation of the experience. An individual's positive evaluation of the team leads to greater trust and ongoing participation. The collaborative participation of team's members translates into group behavior in a cyclical pattern as shown below.

Opportunities

There are many benefits of using global virtual teams due to the increased number of options and resources they provide. Jarvenpaa and Leidner explain that "Virtual teams promise the flexibility, responsiveness, lower costs, and improved resource utilization necessary to meet ever-changing task requirements in highly turbulent and dynamic global business environments (1999:791)." Moreover, the use of global virtual teams provides an opportunity to coordinate complex business tasks across a potentially far-flung confederation of organizations. This allows companies to better communicate and coordinate even though vast distances separate the different team members, making it easier to expand internationally and removing other location and distance-based restrictions.

Flexibility The required expertise for a given task or project can be dispersed by multiple locations throughout the world. However, a global virtual team may facilitate the pooling of this talent to provide focused attention to a particular problem without having to physically relocate individuals. “Virtual teams allow organizations to bring together critical contributors who might not otherwise be able to work together due to time, travel, and cost restrictions (Kerber, 2004: 4).” This allows workers to be located anywhere and allows companies the opportunity to work virtually with team members in geographic areas that were previously considered too distant to be considered a viable work location

Responsiveness Companies can be more responsive to their customers through diversity. “Virtual teams may allow organizations to unify the varying perspectives of different cultures and business customs to avoid counterproductive ethno-centric biases (Kayworth, 2000:184).” Global virtual teams composed of members with different cultural visions may be less likely to experience “groupthink” and are more likely to develop innovative solutions to problems. In addition, the ability to respond to the specific and varied needs of a global audience can be addressed quickly and effectively with a global virtual team. Members of a global virtual team can immediately respond to specific geographic and cultural requirements previously ignored or missed by collocated teams.

Lower costs Global virtual teams can help corporations lower their labor and overhead costs. There are pools of inexpensive, highly skilled labor forces in various locations around the world who can’t or do not want to be relocated. Access by communication to these labor forces leads many organizations to offshore certain functions traditionally performed in-house or by contractors. This is an appealing option to many organizations looking to reduce

overall project and maintenance costs. By outsourcing the development of an application to India, for example, an organization can reduce the cost of a project. This is because India, in addition to many other countries, has a large population of highly educated people who can be accessed with today’s advanced communications technology. This allows the company to pay someone in India much less to do the same work compared to someone working locally in the U.S. Global virtual teams also reduce travel, accommodations, and other miscellaneous expenses for team members.

Improved resource utilization Global virtual teams can improve resource utilization by leveraging time to their advantage. Performing work asynchronously helps global organizations effectively bridge different time zones so that teams can be more productive during a work period. “For example, London team members of a global virtual team of software developers at Tandem Services Corporation initially coded the project and transmitted their code each evening to U.S. team members for testing. U.S. members forwarded the code they tested to Tokyo for debugging. London team members started their next day with the code debugged by their Japanese colleagues, and another cycle was initiated. This is only one example of how GVTs can increase team-member productivity and reduce development time (Saunders, 2004:19).”

Pitfalls

The pitfalls that virtual teams face in their early stages stem simply from the antitheses of the building blocks described above. As with water, teams tend to follow the "path of least resistance." This is because the pitfalls of virtual team building are due to omissions and inactivity. A common pitfall is setting out without a clear goal or purpose. If team members understand little more than the routine tasks they are to perform day-to-day, a lack of common understanding will lead to misdirected work and wasted time and resources. A related pitfall is misaligning the purpose of the team with the needs and expectations of stakeholders and the organization as a whole. Virtual teams further damage themselves when they neglect to take opportunities for building strong communication and trust in their relationships.

Solutions

Hold an orientation meeting where team members participate in team building activities and document the team's purpose. Each team member should document his or her understanding of the team's purpose and their perceived role. These descriptions should be circulated within the group.

Prepare a questionnaire for each stakeholder to complete and return to the group. The questions should illicit a response which helps the team in the formation of goals and confirmation of the team's purpose.

Whenever possible, team members should meet face-to-face to confirm relationships and participate in activities which build trust and encourage communication.