Abstract

This paper discusses some of the key requirements that facilitate successful virtual teams and identifies some of the behaviors/actions of team members and managers of successful teams. The material is based on a recent study by the researchers (publication in progress), researchers’ personal experience and on insights from the available literature. While successful teaming has many components, the researchers identified the following four clusters as key requirements for successful virtual teams:

· Good communication
· Avoiding communication breakdowns

· Effective reporting procedures
· A Solid work structure

· Strict assessment processes to determine suitability of team members

· Effective team leaders
· Team hierarchy

Recommendations for best practices are made and the presentation concludes with perceptions of differences between traditional and virtual teams.

Introduction:

Today’s organizations experience ever-greater pressures to increase productivity and profit. Global markets, ever more competitive, can be characterized by “complexity and extreme performance pressures“ (Quinn, Faerman, Thompson, and McGrath (1996). The ubiquitous emergence of team cultures in organizations, large and small, is a response to these challenges. Lipnack and Stamps (1999) agree that today’s organization “is made up of virtual teams and network of teams and the network, not the pyramid, becomes the conceptual model of how people work together to achieve goals.”

The current team culture gained currency because teams became seen as cost-effective ways to organize the work process, offering flexibility and “enabling quick, low-cost, high-quality performance while responding to a highly dynamic environment that calls for ongoing change” (Quinn, Faerman, Thompson, and McGrath; 1996). Recent advances in technology have facilitated extending the team concept to virtual teams, defined as teams “with a common purpose that uses technology to cross time zones, distance, and the boundaries of organizations” (Lipnack and Stamp, 1999). While virtual teams are one of the latest organizational forms, frequently subject to similar dynamics and pressures as on-site teams, they also exhibit crucial factors absent or not as important to on-site teams. “Distance, boundaries, and reliance on communication technology add levels of complexity that ordinary teams just do not have,” states Platt (1999). While virtual teams, like on-site teams, share common goals and must rely on each other, “they may also cross psychological and physical boundaries, including culture, time zones, countries, and disciplines (Platt, 1999). Virtual teams are impacted much more than on-site teams by a wide range of technical and interpersonal dynamics, able to impact team effectiveness

While technology is the key driving force facilitating virtual teaming, most researchers agree that the human element is still key fo

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