Discussion: View Thread

Virtual teams are a useful method for conducting projects.

For initial start-up and final wrap-up, however, face-to-face
meetings of the participants have definite value.

Extended, in-person conversations with a counterpart reveal things
about this "other" which you simply miss on video conference or
conference call.

JPO
--------------------------
John P. Orr, Ph.D. (Management)
Dept. of Business, Rm. 314
Cameron University
2800 W. Gore Blvd.
Lawton, OK 73505
Phone: 580-581-2367

I have served on a number of virtual teams. The product-focused teams
performed the best. For example, two of the teams never met in person, but
were able to deliver high-quality products (websites) on schedule. The
process-focused teams were another matter. Reengineering a process
electronically is tough. Free-wheeling brainstorming, breakouts, sidebar
discussions, and the other hallmarks of process reengineering are difficult
and distracting during virtual team meetings. In the end, the reengineering
virtual reality teams became reality teams.

In many cases, however, the decision on whether to go virtual or not is
becoming one of economics. I recently did a cost comparison for a four-hour
meeting involving 10 project team members at two facilities located 1,500
miles apart. Total cost for a face-to-face meeting at one of the facilities
was $5,700 (and that was using deeply discounted tickets and corporate
rates).
In contrast, the cost for a teleconference was $70. With the economy
stumbling and business travel costs continuing to rise, virtual teams look
more and more attractive to corporate America.

Bill Keeley
Business Transformation Project Manager
Westinghouse TRU Solutions
Carlsbad, New Mexico 88221
keeleyb@wipp.carlsbad.nm.us

I would agree with you that a real-time contact ... eg a teleconference ...
can help the storming phase of developing the virtual team to move more
quickly. However, this is solely due to the speed of synchronous
communication, not from visual clues.

I strongly disagree that in-person contact is required or desireable. I
have now been empowering virtual teams successfully with no physical contact
for over 5 years. They work in practice.

When you require physical presence without a justifiable reason for physical
presence along with the visual clues of the person's communications you also
bring along your visual biases of the person. That's a hefty price to pay.

Learning to intereact virtually is a skill that does require development.
However, to indicate that visual is required is to indicate that the blind
community is incapable of or hindered in teaming. This simply is not true.
They have developed communications skills that the sight dependent have not
developed. Virtual teamers develop these same skills.

Warning.... you can't dupe a really good virtual teamer with a pretty face.

Conna Condon
gandolf@cyberverse.com

Dear Conna,

What you said is really intriguing! Could you please elaborate
on the kind of skills that are needed for a virtual team? Thanks.

Lichia Yiu
saneryiu@csend.org