A Booster Shot for Virtual Team Collaboration and Telework Part 1: Getting the Tools Right
Author: Clark Shah-Nelson, MA, DBA Candidate
(Image credit: https://biz30.timedoctor.com/strategies-for-managing-virtual-teams/)
With the #COVID19 coronavirus global outbreak and pandemic threat, telework and virtual teams are possibly more important than ever to get right. While millions of people around the globe already work on a regular basis from home, millions more are about to get a whopping dollop of the sudden need to work remotely.
According to recent research, there are two major factor categories that affect virtual team knowledge sharing and productivity: technology tool match and human resources management (HRM) strategies. Nearly half of the workforce now reports some portion of their workforce as virtual or remote. It is essential for business leaders and practitioners to look to the scholarly literature so that these teams can be most effective. Much research has taken a deep dive into the importance of trust-building among teams. Another large chunk has focused on the importance of knowledge sharing for virtual team success. Our recent systematic review synthesized the findings of over twenty journal articles to see what key factors and practices are most important across over forty countries:
and in a cross-section of sectors, industries and workgroups:
This is the first in a series of posts presenting the key findings so that managers and leaders in organizations can implement new virtual teams or enhance their existing teams right away.
Technology: Synchronous or Asynchronous?
The biggest factor that virtual teams need to get right is technology. Virtual teams need to be able to collaborate and share knowledge using tools that overcome issues of time and geography. Two key theories that can help organizations get the technology right are media synchronicity and technology task fit. Synchronicity — (Synchronicity Media Theory) helps drive the choice of tools based on the purpose of the communication. Email, as an asynchronous tool, is most often best for broadcasting information, but far worse for decision-making or complex communications. Synchronous tools, like videoconferencing or instant messaging are typically better for discussing and gaining consensus. This is in large part because there is less time lag with synchronous tools — and that time lag can hinder decision-making. Teams need to carefully consider the work, the purposes of communication, and the tasks to make sure their chosen technology tools fit their tasks.
(Image credit: https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/25-virtual-companies-that-thrive-on-remote-work/)
Overcoming Geography
Geographical dispersion is actually fairly easy to overcome, thanks to both synchronous and asynchronous tools that are already in use in most organizations. Email has been widely used and is the predominant medium for asynchronous communication since the 1990’s. Most organizations and companies are actually at least partially virtual, even if nobody works off-site, because they use email, instant messaging and videoconferencing. Asynchronous tools for knowledge sharing, such as project management systems, knowledge bases, wikis, spreadsheets, databases, and related dashboards have sprung up over the last couple decades to help keep teams on the same page in terms of project status, current information, historical documentation and communications. Synchronous tools such as instant messaging (Slack, Microsoft Teams) and videoconferencing (Zoom, Webex) have become ubiquitous across most sectors. Synchronous tools continue to replace email in many companies (which adds transparency and overall knowledge sharing and transfer). They also facilitate live team meetings, water cooler chat and socialization, team- and trust-building, which is known to be a major factor of virtual team success. Together, all of these tools help break down the barriers of dispersion to facilitate decision-making, consensus building and knowledge sharing.
Tools Virtual Teams Use to overcome time/geography issues
Overcoming Time
When your team is separated by large distances that span many time zones, things get a little more complicated. If one team member is in Southeast Asia, another in North America, and others in Europe, it can be much more difficult to use synchronous technology tools. Unless folks are ok with working extremely odd hours to overcome such temporal dispersion — so that they are working at roughly the same time as others in order to have synchronous meetings, your team will need to rely heavily on asynchronous tools. Luckily, wikis, project management tools and even video-based asynchronous tools like Marco Polo or FlipGrid, or recordings that include screensharing, such as with Zoom or Loom can help organizations overcome issues of time and keep communication personal and even fun.
Summarized Tips
- When having meetings by videoconference, leave the room open at least 10 minutes prior to and also after the meeting for folks to chat and socialize.
- To build team connectedness, start meetings with a quick ice breaker that allows team members to show their personality, interests and other things they care about.
- Leave a videoconference room and/or instant message channel open all day so that people can drop in/out as needed for quick consensus building, idea sharing, water cooler chat or socialization.
- Share with the team how to use synchronous tools asynchronously (Zoom recordings, Slack practices).
- Make sure all team members have agreed upon standards for sharing knowledge in project management systems and communicating/updating one another, along with understanding of which tool to use when, how, and why.
With attention to details of technology tools, virtual teams can certainly overcome issues of time and distance and be at least as effective as collocated teams. Getting the right mix of technology tools that fit the team tasks, organizational culture, and team dispersion dynamics is the first, most important step. In the next post, we’ll look at research related to productive HRM practices for formation of virtual teams.
To close things out, here’s an obligatory somewhat related music video:
Synchronicity, by The Police: