WELCOME TO

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

WITH VIRTUAL TEAMS

Created by Aly Anliker and Rachelle Jacover

Agenda

• Welcome and Introductions

• Virtual Teams Overview

• Challenges

• Solutions

• Wrap-Up

Objectives

At the end of this session you will:

• Identify your virtual team challenges

• Implement a strategy for conducting virtual meetings

• Use resources to explore next steps for virtual communications

Virtual Team Definition

Individuals pulled together from various locations to serve on a group to achieve some important, urgent and specific objective such as:

• planning and/or launching event

• designing and/or running new program or initiative

• developing and/or testing new product

• running major campaign

• designing and/or implementing improved business processes

• planning and/or executing change management

• regular team meetings

Virtual Team Characteristics

What are some of the characteristics of virtual teams?

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Virtual Team Characteristics

• A collection of geographically distributed, functionally and/or culturally diverse entities

• Linked by electronic forms of communication

• Assembled and disassembled according to need

• Different work shifts or time zones

• Collaborative network of people working together, regardless of location or who "owns" them

Virtual Teams – Observations

• 41 million corporate employees worldwide work virtually one day per week and are likely to be part of a virtual team – Gartner Group

• 36% of virtual team members have never met their team members face to face

• 65% of virtual team members report they have never had an effective team-building session

• Productivity drops over time - virtual teams operating 1- 3 years are much less likely to be high performing teams compared to teams that had been together 6 to 12 months.

• In general, management still has an “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” mentality when it comes to paying attention to virtual teams and giving them the support and resources they need to be successful.

Virtual Communication Challenges

• Leadership

• Team Development

• Technology

Leadership Challenges

• Underestimating impact leaders have on success of virtual team

• Manage expectations by clearly establishing and maintaining ground rules and assumptions

• Establishing and aligning team and corporate goals/objectives

• Importance of using tools to communicate effectively in a virtual meeting environment

Leadership Challenges

• Recruiting, introducing and including new members

• Assigning personnel with skills necessary to lead or participate on virtual teams

• Recognizing the importance of preparing and training people to be part of virtual teams

• Measuring, motivating and tracking progress of team

• Performance Evaluation - Developing performance objectives and expectations for team members

Team Challenges - Stages of Teams

Tuckman (1965) discovered that teams normally go through five stages of growth:

•Forming

•Storming

•Norming

•Performing

•Adjourning

Team Challenges• Retaining productivity, peak performance and

enthusiasm over time

• Establishing and developing a foundation for collaboration and relationship building

• On-going team building

• Accountability issues where the team find it much easier to break virtual commitments than verbal ones

Team Challenges

• Dealing with communication issues like culture, language, learning styles

• Not being face to face creates unique challenges and difficulties in managing the involvement, commitment and trust building of a team

Technology Challenges

Rapidly accelerating business environment with the “do it now” business culture

+Complexities in Virtually Networked Teams (Virtual, Network and Technology Factors)

=Getting things done is all that more difficult

Learning how to use technology to foster collaboration and effective meeting processes

Technology Challenges

Technology Challenges

• Introducing and using new technology –making it work for the team – can be difficult to adopt

• Accurately confirming and recording meeting agreements, next steps and ownership

• Technology problems can derail or distract meetings

Leadership Solutions

• Conduct initial meetings to establish team process

• Learn about new team members, share their information or ask them to share their background with team

• Virtual meeting to focus on how team work aligns with corporate goals and objectives

• Onboarding employee to virtual environment – find buddy or mentor

• Ask team members to lead a meeting or take a topic of the meeting

• Share copies of presentation, agenda

• Decide on roles, note taker, time keeper, etc.

Team Solutions• Set guidelines\meeting protocols with teams participation

• Create team notes – disband with action items and persons responsible, share with team

• Rules when team member can’t meet commitment, ask “how can team help”

• Round Robin – Make sure you have heard from everyone at least once during meeting

• May need to coach a member offline

Technology Solutions

• Provide different ways participants can use tools, raise hand, type on slide, chat

• Initial meeting to teach tools and application. Provide tutorial, training or mentor

• Ask team member with technical challenges to just listen in. Troubleshoot later. Provide a copy of the presentation beforehand

• Manager\Facilitator use tools, games, polls, visuals

• Keep virtual meetings to an hour or less

Meeting Tools

• Webex

• Microsoft Live Meeting

• Elluminate

• Adobe Connect

• GoTo Meeting

Interactive Meetings

• Raise Hand Feature

• Chat Feature

• Use Annotation Tools

• Allow team to see who is attending, gives sense of team

• Participation is key!

Sample Team Meeting Guidelines

• Quick check in

• Contribute 1 idea per meeting

• Assume positive intent

• Identify problems and focus on solutions

• Make sure objectives are realistic in scope

• Keep to timelines

• Leave with next steps and task assignments

• Expect work outside meeting via sub groups and task forces

Summary

• Most teams are virtual in some way in our world today

• There are some similarities in team dynamics and challenges between virtual and face to face teams

• Skills needed for virtual teaming are different than face to face teams

• Focus on People first: Continue to “learn” about others and how they learn

• Focus on Technology second: Continue to embrace technology as a resource

• Focus on accountability and team engagement

Resources• The Gartner Group

http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp

• Quality Digest – Leading Virtual Teams

http://www.qualitydigest.com/sept00/html/teams.html

• Information & Management Best Practices Study on Virtual Teams – PDF

• Tuckman, Bruce (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups

• Handbook of High Performance Virtual Teams, Nemiro, et al

Thank You!

503-891-1108Strategies for Success and Working Creatively