TAPUniversity Keynote slide deck for Effective Virtual Teams - 2008

1. Effective Virtual Teams
2008
David Kohrell, MA, MCRP, CISA® PMP®
President, Technology As Promised, LLC
elearning portal at www.tapuniversity.com
email: david.kohrell@tapuniversity.com
402-429-9805
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2. Workshop approach
• Lot’s of dialogue
• When you see the ‘group’ icon, it’s time to talk
• We learn more collectively, rather then if the
guy up front just keeps talking, talking and
talking
• But when the guy up front talks it will either be
profound or funny. Usually not both.
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3. Purpose
• Understand concepts associated with virtual
teams in project management
• Understand tools used to support virtual teams
• Learn about practical tips to improve your virtual
teams
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4. TAPUniversity's Virtual Team Data
comes from
• Academic and industry best practice articles
• A survey of virtual tools and attitudes developed
with St Louis University's John Cook School of
Business (Cindy LaRouge, PhD) in 2005 – the
sample sized is 132
• 219 participants in Effective Virtual Teams
workshops since 2006
• Questions and Answers posted and researched
at www.linkedin.com
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5. 3 things that really bug us...
about virtual teams
• Email
• Lack of, unclear,
reversed, unannounced
DECISIONS
• Endless Conference Calls
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6. Overview
• Underlying Concepts Explored
– Structure of Virtual Teams
– Swift Trust & Establishing Rapport
– Diverse Team Members
– Virtual Team Conflict
– Role Clarity and Reducing Ambiguity
– Generations
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7. Overview
• Tools and Techniques
– Email
– Forums / Boards
– Chat
– Instant Messaging
– Wiki’s/Blogs/Shared Glossaries
– Project Team Web Sites / Portals
– Video Conferencing
– Teleconferencing / Telephony
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8. Virtual Team Survey – Top 5
Past Experience Verbatim (n=132)
MOST successful
– Communication
– Common Goal / Objectives
– Trust
– Preparation
Leadership / Management (tie)
– Clarify responsibilities & roles
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9. Virtual Team Survey
Others (n=132)
MOST successful
– Good team work
– Motivated team
– Common sense
– Industry Experience
– Attitude
– Knowing each other
• Learning about cross cultural gaps
• Order
• Same personalities
• Same schedules
• Provide feedback
• Ability to use media / tools
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10. Virtual Team Survey
Past Experience Verbatim (n=132)
LEAST successful
– Unclear, misunderstood
communication
– No or lack of leader/management.
– Lack of goals/ objectives
– No trust
– Attitude
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11. Virtual Team Survey
Others (n=132)
LEAST successful
– Unmotivated team members
– Not being prepared
– Chaos
– No one on same page
– Different priorities
– Rewards for teamwork (lack)
– Management pressure
– Not learning about cross cultural gaps
– Inaccurate data provided by team member
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12. Structure of Virtual Teams
The structure of virtual teams varies in proportion to:
# of organizational
Virtual Team
Complexity
units
Rating 1, very
low to 10, very Group
high. x + = Interactions
to master
(i.e. 1 office to 1
office is = 1
outside
and
organizations in
a tapestry of
virtual teams, all
your global supply
members virtual, chain
castles checking
in = 10)
It’s exponential
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13. Structure of Virtual Teams
What's your score?
# of organizational
units _____
Group
Virtual Team Interactions
Complexity x + = to master
Rating 1, very ________
low to 10, very
high. outside
organizations in
__________ your global supply
chain ___
It’s exponential
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14. Structure of Virtual Teams
• What types of virtual teams are out there?
– All team members virtual
– Sub teams or groups collocated and communicating
with other teams virtually
• What types of teams are doing what?
– Entire Projects, Pieces or Partial/Complete tasks
• Team elements:
– Size, cultural diversity, autonomy, leadership
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15. Swift Trust & Establishing Rapport
• How do I trust someone I haven’t met in
person?
• Examples
– We trust air traffic controllers, pilots, TV and movie
actors, fire fighters, and several professions without
actually meeting them ‘in person’. We trust them to
do their job.
– Swift trust is the essence of building trust or
allowing one to trust another when the interaction
may never be ‘face to face’
• So what are some ways to build swift trust?
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16. Swift Trust & Establishing Rapport
• Ways to build swift trust
– Frequency of communication
– Integrity of communication
– Certainty of communication
– Predictability of communication
• What can be added?
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17. Diverse Team Members
• Virtual Teams tend to be more diverse
– Multiple locations implies it
– Global ensures it
• Leverage the strengths of people within and
outside your organization regardless of
geographic location.
– No longer bound to the local silversmith or
candlestick maker
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18. Virtual Team Conflict
• Virtual Teams introduce additional ingredients
to team conflict
– Time
– Distance
– Ownership
– Communication
– What’s other types of conflict
have you seen happen in
a virtual team?
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19. Virtual Team Conflict
• PRE-EMPT
– Prepare
– Risk Assessment
– Evaluate Team Pulse
– Environmental / Social IQ
– Monitor
– Prove
– Triumph
For more go to www.tapuniversity.com
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20. Role Clarity and Reducing Ambiguity
• Tends to focus on the skill of the leader and
individuals
– Comfort with technology and tools used
• Individual personality and behaviours
– Do I have an internal sense of control (locust of
control) and sense that I influence and shape the
team; not the other way around?
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21. Generations and Virtual Teams
• Baby Boomers (1945 to 1964)
• Generation X (1965 to 1979)
• Generation Next (Y & Millennial - 1980 to
present)
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22. Requirements and Project Basics
• Managing virtual projects
effectively involves and requires
the same amount of specification
and definition as ‘face to face’
projects
– What is distinctive is how much
information can be communicated
through various virtual mediums.
– For example, how would you
specify and manage the creation of
a ‘fish pond’ virtually?
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23. Technology & Tools - Media Richness
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24. Technology & Tools - Media Richness
. Various technologies have various
levels of media richness. Media
richness means communication
media have varying capacities for
resolving ambiguity, negotiating
varying interpretations, and
facilitating understanding
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25. Technology & Tools - Media Richness
Media is said to be very rich when it provides
(a) the availability of instant feedback;


(b) the capacity of the medium to transmit multiple cues such as
body language, voice tone, and inflection;
(c) the use of natural language; and

(d) the personal focus of the medium.


Face-to-face communication is the richest communication medium
in the hierarchy followed by telephone, electronic mail, letter, note,
memo, special report, and finally, flier and bulletin. Effective
managers make rational choices matching a particular
communication medium to a specific task or objective and to the
degree of richness required by that task
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26. Technology & Tools - List
Individual/Group/Text
• Email
• Forums / Boards
• Chat
• Instant Messaging
• Wiki’s /Blogs / Shared Glossaries
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27. Technology & Tools - Layers
Tools Participant Mode Time
range
Email Individual to Visual Synchronous to
Instant Messaging Group Asynchronous
Forums / Boards
Wiki’s/Blogs/Shared
Glossaries/ Forums
Chat
Project Team Web Group to Visual Asynchronous
Sites / Portals Individual
Teleconferencing / Group Auditory Synchronous
Telephony / Video
Conferencing Visual
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28. Picking the Right Tool at the Right Time
• We want
– to share our stuff
– to see where we are at.
– to see how our project is doing.
• What are the best tools and
technologies to use in different
circumstances?
– The Qsort exercise later in the
day will help us explore when is
best to use email versus video
conference or conference calls
versus discussion boards
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29. Technology & Tools
A deeper exploration of technologies
• Telephone/Conference Calls and Telephony
• Video conferencing
• Binary
• Wiki’s
• Project portals
– Heavy (project triple constraint – scope, time and
cost - is supported; PDM/critical path; multiple
projects and multiple resource assignments
– Light (coordinates some but not all of the project
triple constraint.)
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30. 7 best practices for virtual teams
• Ensure communication is transmitted, received
and understood
• Increase the frequency of interaction and
decrease the amount of information exchanged
• There are no silver bullet tools
Do become proficient in what you got though
• Limit the number of innocent bystanders
• Tame your electronic tigers – email, vmail, etc
• Span the generations from Gen Next (1980 to
2008) to Baby Boomer (1945-1964)
• Mix methods (e.g. phone and web conference)
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31. Take Care of those 3 things
Email - organize
• Use another method to confirm
– (assume 50% of your emails sent outside your
organization... are missed).
• Folders or Not (don't go ½ way)
– Folders – inbox is only temporary
• Archive (MS Outlook)
– Not – you better index (Google)
– Either way do you really need “ack's”, duplicates
inbox/sent and newsletter posts?
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32. Take Care of those 3 things
Email - style
• Communicate no more than 10 lines (500
characters) in a message
– If you need more – Link
– When you link, reinforce good behavior (find
something fun to reinforce an open, the equivalent of
donuts and coffee at meeting)
• Don't scold or reprimand with email
• What's missing?
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33. Take Care of those 3 things
Decisions
• Lack of
– Clarify what can and can not be decided on
a web conference, conference call, video
conference or email.
• Unclear
– Push in-depth discussions to a parking lot –
faster than in a face to face setting.
• Reversed
– If you do call for a decision and “vote”; then
stick with it
• Unannounced
– Ensure your virtual knows what the decisions
are – avoid wealth and poverty pockets
(Chicago and Madras are in the loop /
Phoenix is not) 33

34. Take Care of those 3 things
Conference Calls
• Think in a 30 seconds and 10 minute
mindset
– (keep conference calls < 45 minutes)
• Use a visual reference point – from most
engaging to least engaging
– video
– web conference,
– shared document / folder,
– email
• Remember – avoid innocent bystanders
• Forward action items within 15 minutes of
concluding the calls
– Better yet, scribe as you talk
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35. More tools after this event
• TAPUniversity – access additional
information at the TAPUniversity
Community.
www.tapuniversity.com
• Participate in an Effective Virtual
Teams online or 2 day workshop to
apply these skills
• Contribute your own best practice
ideas
• Look for the “Effective Virtual Team
Guide”, Quarter 3, 2008.
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