Stakeholder

Efforts by:
Akshay Sharma (PT100116)
Naveen CG (PT101416)

Management
Vaibhav Bhat (PT102316)

Issues and Solutions in

managing virtual teams
Issues and solutions in managing virtual teams

The right team:

Team composition should be your starting point. You wont get anywhere
without hiring (or developing) people suited to virtual teamwork, putting
them into groups of the right size, and dividing the labor appropriately.

Weve found that successful virtual team players all have a few things in
common:

Good communication skills

High emotional intelligence
An ability to work independently (act on their own if needed)
The resilience to recover from the snafus that inevitably arise.

If you inherit a team, use the same tools to take stock of your people and
assess their weaknesses; then train them in the skills theyre lacking,
encourage them to coach one another, and consider reassignment for those
who dont make progress.

Issues:

Problem 1 - People fail to deliver

Solution -

Make sure the results are well defined

Emphasise that you are uncompromising on expecting people to

deliver results. If they are struggling they must ask for support before the
finaldeadline

Get very tough on people who fail to deliver analyse the reasons,
extract the learning, and make it clear that delivery is crucial. (see
our Tackling Poor Performance Course)

Make it clear that your job as team leader is to define results and develop
the capabilities of your team members not to tell them how to do their job.
Problem 2 - You can't see what the person's up to until they deliver or fail

Solution

Ensure that each team member is clear how success is measured, and
what information must be gathered to demonstrate success. As far as
possible, make them responsible for gathering this information and
presenting it to you and/or the rest of the team

Use appropriate technologies to share team and individual progress

Co-ordinate team updates and include information on how individuals

are contributing towards progress to the overall team goals. Make sure
this information is shared in more than one channel eg teleconferences
(TCs), email, online.

Put the onus on team members to demonstrate that they are on course
to deliver results

Problem 3 - It's hard to tell if people are really committed if you can't see
them

Solution -

Be very explicit about what you expect of people. Be flexible

and understanding about resources, timescales etc, but let it be known that
you are uncompromising about delivering on promised results - Ask people to
declare their commitment to a course of action: on a 0 10 scale how
committed are you to doing this?

At the end of a TC, ask each participant to say what they are going to
do (rather than summarising yourself)

Make it clear what the person has committed to and check that
they understand the consequences

Use some kind of online scoreboard to record commitment and progress

Develop a team charter that explains how the team members will work
with each other
 Autonomy, mastery and purpose are the three key motivators for creative
and other intrinsically satisfying tasks. Make sure you explicitly use
these motivators in an appropriate way for each individual (See
our Essential Skills for Managing People and Teams course)

Generally pay much more attention to learning what motivates and

engages individual team members. For example, after a task has gone well,
ask the person, what was it about that task that made it so satisfying for you?
And vice versa.

Problem 4 - Conflict goes unresolved because it's harder to disagree in a

conference call or an email than it is in a physical meeting.

Solution -

Make it easy for people to disagree

Role model disagreement yourself

In a conference call ask: Who would like to express the opposite point
of view? What are the pros and cons of this proposal?

Ask people by name to express support or reservations for the proposal

Breed confidence in your team members to disagree

Give people positive feedback for honestly expressing their views,

and challenge people who don't disagree enough!

Never complain about a team member to anyone else. Give that person
your honest and constructive feedback (See the E2C2 Feedback Model)

Problem 5 - It's harder to build trust when you can't meet someone face to
face. Interacting by phone and email is less intense than face to face, and
can be less frequent. Hence the lack of trust in many remote teams

Solution -

Have frequent teleconferences (TCs) virtual teams that have weekly

or more frequent TCs are generally more effective than those that
communicate less frequently
 Consider having short quick TC virtual huddles

Build in occasional social' calls to get to know your team members.

Especially important with people you know less well or don't naturally warm
to

Make yourself accessible have some well understood team protocols

for how the team can get in touch with you easily and quickly. For example,
if they make an email high importance you will always respond that day: if
they call you between 0800 and 0900 they will get an immediate response
etc

Have face to face meetings if possible at the launch of a project team

or occasionally with an on going team. Develop a team charter

Use TCs to share successes and talk about how the team is working as well
as dealing with current business items

Provide unexpected, after the event, reward and recognition

Trust your team let them know that you are giving them the freedom
to deliver results

Stimulate peerpeer relationships in your team with joint projects,

buddying, mentoring etc.

Accept that you have to do more work behind the scenes' to understand
your team members and their motivations.