Introduction A Virtual Team — also known as a Geographically Dispersed Team (GDT) — is a group of individuals who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication of communication technology. technology. They have complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose, have interdependent performance goals, and share an approach to work for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Geographically dispersed teams allow organizations to hire and retain the best people regardless of location. Members of virtual teams communicate electronically, so they may never meet face to face. However, most teams will meet at some point in time. A virtual team does not always mean tele worker . Tele workers are defined as individuals who work from home. Many virtual teams in today's organizations consist of employees both working at home and small groups in the office but in different geographic locations.
Summary of the Literature on Learning in Virtual Teams Background on Virtual Teams Virtual teams are utilized in multiple settings, including in cluding education (teams formed among students of distance learning classes), professional development, as well as corporate and community organizations. The use of virtual teams is growing in popularity especially in work-related and educational organizations. Research findings from a study conducted by Ceridian Employer Services, which focuses on whether a small business allows its employees to
work in virtual teams reveals that the ability to work in virtual teams has started to play a big role in the recruitment and retention of employees (de Lisser, 1999). According to the same authors, 50% of employees of large and small companies considered the th e ability to work in virtual teams a very attractive incentive to join a company. In addition, 66% indicated that the ability to use the Internet and work in virtual teams was an “excellent” reason to stay with a company. In educational settings, instructors use virtual teams to complete course assignments. According to (Anderson & Garrison, 1998) distance education courses provide access to education to students who are unable or willing to come to a traditional classroom. There are multiple learning advantages to working in virtual teams. One advantage is the creation of learning communities. The other benefit is in the opportunity to work collaboratively to generate new knowledge. The notion of learning communities has been contributed to the idea of a “learning organization. (Senge, C., Ross, Smith, & Kleiner, 1994) referred to a learning organization as a way to bring people together to learn and improve. (Grabener, 2000) defines the responsibilities of members of learning communities; “manage their own learning, and cooperate with others in theirs through processes of negotiation and discussion” (pg. 1). Thus people who come together in a continuous learning collaborative characterize learning communities. Working in virtual teams presents unexplored opportunities for peer interaction as teams create new knowledge to resolve their problem or project. (Anderson & Garrison, 1998) suggests that a growing literature base supports the use of peer interaction in formal face-toface educational settings. Damon (1984) asserts that the best conditions for intellectual accomplishment are environments that are motivated by discovery, the reciprocal feedback between mutually respected persons and the free exchange of ideas. In addition Lipman (1991) contends that the notion of “community” in education and
intellectual development is crucial. On the other hand, Turkle (1995) and Robey et al., (2000) supports the idea that communities can develop and thrive despite physical distance. Furthermore, learning community should not be absent in the virtual learning environments such as virtual teams (Anderson & Garrison, 1998). According to Kitchen, collaboration is a second advantage of working in virtual teams. (Kitchen & McDougall, 1999) explains; “To
collaborate (co-labor) means to work together, which implies a shared goals … to create something new or different through the collaboration, as opposed to simply exchanging information or passing on instructions” (Kaye, A., 1992 pg. 2 as cited by (Kitchen & McDougall, 1999). Collaborative learning is further defined as a technique that supports constructivist learning because it involves small groups of people working together to resolve problems (Yaverbaum & Ocker, 1998). Dede (1996) includes the notion of “communion” which is defined as the “psychological/spiritual support from people who share common joys and trials …” (pg. 17) among his components to create collaborative projects in online environments. Collaborative learning is distinguished from cooperative learning. Kitchen & McDougall (1999) suggests that cooperative learning also includes the option to divide up tasks and assign them to individuals based on specialized knowledge and skills of the members. However, Susman (1998) agrees but concludes that cooperative learning significantly increases student learning when the participants elaborate on the material with others. Kitchen & McDougall provides an example of cooperative learning as distinguished from collaborative learning, when asked about the perception of collaborative learning in a virtual team, one respondent stated, “ it was if four people were working separately; together”
(pg. 252). The results of a meta-analysis on collaborative learning revealed that using collaborative techniques can increase: student academic achievement, diversity awareness, high-level thinking, inter-group relations, and individual self-esteem (Slaving, R., 1999; Saran, S., 1990 as cited by Kitchen & McDougall, 1999). Educational theories are shifting toward collaborative constructive conceptions of learning ((Anderson & Garrison, 1998). One such notion is co-construction or the shared construction of knowledge in groups Chung (1999) maintains that learning is viewed as the process of knowledge construction, which is mediated, by social interaction and tool use (Vygotsky, 1962 as cited by (Chung, 1999). Chung goes on to assert that as a result of this change a new educational paradigm has shifted from classroom lectures to individual exploration, from individual work to team learning. One notion of constructivist learning focuses on the responsibility of the individual to construct meaning while rejecting the idea that knowledge can be transmitted in whole from the teacher to the learner. A second notion of constructivist learning more pertinent to this paper, focuses on the shared construction of knowledge. This shared construction of knowledge is present in socio-constructivism theory because it emphasizes the collaborative nature of knowledge construction. Socio-constructivist asserts that knowledge is a social construct that is the property of organized individuals. They reject idea that the locus of control of knowledge is in the individual (Prawatt, 1996). One of the positive assumptions of collaborative learning is that knowledge is socially constructed in teams (Kaye, 1990 as cited by Kitchen & McDougall, 1999). Gunawardena, Lowe, & Anderson (1997) and Robey et al. (2000) support the idea of socio-cultural constructivism at work within virtual teams.
Along with the above advantages of virtual teams, there exist a number of disadvantages as well. This paper will address three those disadvantages, the virtual reality of the team, trust, and communication. First, virtual teams, are challenged because they are virtual: they exist through computer mediated communication (CMC) technology rather than face-to-face; they often times report to different supervisors (Cohen & Mankin, 1999); they function as empowered students and professionals who are expected to use their initiative and resources to contribute to accomplishment of the team goal (Lipnack & Stamps, 2000); and they are expected to become interdependent, successfully negotiate cultural differences, and accomplish this through computer-mediated technology. Lipnack & Stamps (2000) assert that “one
of the reasons virtual teams fail is because they overlook the implications of the obvious differences in their working environments. People do not make accommodation for how different it really is when they and their colleagues no longer work face-to-face. Teams fail when they do not adjust to this new reality by closing the virtual gap” (pg. 19). Second, trust in virtual teams is a large issue that received a lot of attention in the literature (Jarvenpaa, 1998; Lipnack & Stamps, 2000; Robey et al., 2000). While the issue of trust is not insurmountable the ability to develop trust is a major factor of team success. One theory that has been used to examine trust in virtual teams is swift trust theory (Meyerson et. al., 1990 as cited by Jarvenpaa, 1998)). In a study that utilized 350 masters students from 28 universities, Jarvenpaa, (1998) offers that the swift trust theory suggests that virtual teams make categorical judgments of other members (whom they have never seen and had no information upon which to assume their trustworthiness) based on positive stereotypes. Jarvenpaa notes several factors that may negatively influence in fluence trust in
global virtual teams; time, distance, culturally diverse and globally spanning members, and the reliance on CMC technology. Although, researchers who examined trust in virtual teams conclude that trust can be established, they caution that the initial impressions of trust among team members is critical (Jarvenpaa, 1998; Lipnack & Stamps, 2000; Robey et al., 2000; Warkentin et al., 1999) making it difficult to establish trust in later stages of team development. Finally, communication is a challenge in virtual teams. The issues with communication include the lack of non-verbal cues, the inability to take advantage of incidental meetings and learning (discussions at the water cooler or copy machine); members experience difficulty engaging in spontaneous written communication; insufficient attention to the socio-emotional issues; and lack of trust between team members (Hron, Hesse, Cress, & Giovis, 2000; Jarvenpaa, 1998; Lipnack & Stamps, 2000; Warkentin et al., 1999). According to Warkentin et al. (1999) people rely on multiple modes of communication when conversing face-to-face, such as voice tone, inflection, volume, eye movement, facial expressions, hand gestures, and other body language. These cues provide for a methodical conversation process. They serve to facilitate turn taking, convey subtle meanings, provide feedback, and thus regulate the conversation flow. CMC precludes the normal give-and-take of discussion (Warkentin et al., 1999). Additionally, virtual team members may fail in their attention to the emotional aspects of these environments, which may serve to promote an eruption of a sequence of negative comments, which may prove difficult to resolve in a virtual environment (Jarvenpaa, 1998). In order to overcome some of the communication issues, researchers have suggested a number of tools, prompts or rules to guide the discussion (Chung, 1999; Jarvenpaa, 1998; Lipnack & Stamps, 2000). Others have recommended that the teams meet face to face when possible (Lipnack & Stamps, 2000;Robey et al., 2000).
Despite the growing popularity of virtual teams research in this area is still in its infancy. infancy. However, new rich online environment provides a new and exciting context in which we can add to our knowledge on the cognitive/rational as well as the more humanistic/meaning-making aspects of learning. Now, I examine learning in virtual teams.
Summary of literature A review of the literature on learning in virtual teams reveals three explicit themes learning communities, collaboration, communication and co-construction of knowledge as well as and two implicit characteristics. These implicit characteristics included, learning in virtual teams is hegemonic and the cognitive learning aspect is sufficient to explain all of the learning that occurs within these environments. The virtual teams created learning communities in which a shared or social construction of knowledge occurs. These characteristics seem a natural fit for learning in virtual teams. Close supervision, or a learning environment in which the learners did not have much of the control over the learning process would be prohibitive of team processes. Additionally, communication in these environments makes them unique learning opportunities for learners since the majority of it is text. Text based communication is missing non-verbal social cues that can prove to be problematic for the learners. Robey et al. (2000) concluded that learning is an ongoing and dynamic process thus what was learned about learning situated in the virtual team is that it continued to evolve. With this in mind our understanding of learning in virtual teams is continuously evolving. In conclusion additional research is needed in all aspects of learning in this environment. The research primarily consisted of preselected case studies. Few of the studies were conducted in naturally
occurring settings. There were few empirical empirical studies including a small number that utilize adult learning theories even though they were studying adults. More importantly, only a small segment of the studies attended to the emotional or affective aspects of learning. Finally, literature that highlights the differences of learning experiences between members in the workplace and the educational environment, as well as how learning experiences of virtual members add to the knowledge we have concerning traditional cross-functional teams can be the focus of future research efforts.
Why virtual teams? Best employees may be located anywhere in the world. Workers demand personal flexibility. Workers demand increasing technological sophistication. A flexible organization is more competitive and responsive to the marketplace. Workers tend to be more productive; i.e., they spend less time on commuting and travel The increasing globalization of trade and corporate activity. The global workday is 24 vs. 8 hours. The emergence of environments which require inter-organizational cooperation as well as competition. Changes in workers' expectations of organizational participation. A continued shift from production from production to service/knowledge work environments. Increasing horizontal organization structures characterized by structurally and geographically distributed human resources. resources. Proliferation of fiber optic technology has significantly increased the scope of off-site communication.
Benefits of virtual teams: Some members of virtual teams do not need to come in to the workplace, therefore the company will not need to offer those workers office or parking space. Reduces traveling expenses for employees. It allows more people to be included in the labor pool. It decreases both air pollution and congestion because there is less commuting. It allows workers in organizations to be more flexible.
By working in virtual teams, physical handicaps are not a concern. Allows companies to procure the best talent without geographical restrictions.
Problems with virtual teams: Difficulty in managing the performance of the team. Misunderstanding in communications is the leading complaint among members of virtual teams. This problem is magnified when working with teams across cultural borders because of nuances in the English language Working on a project over the virtual workspace causes lack of project visibility. Difficulty contacting other members. (i.e. email, instant messaging, etc.) Differences in time zones.
It can be difficult for team members to fully comprehend the meaning of text-based messages. Building trust may be challenging because mechanisms different from those used in face-to-face teams are required to build trust Distrust can also be incurred due to insecurities of job retention if the offshore team members are less expensive and more proficient at the task at hand. Members fail to take 'ownership' of project Specific nuances such as facial expressions and other subtle gestures can also be missed through virtual communication as opposed to meeting face to face.
Tips to ease communication problems for team members: Allow the team members to get to know each other by arranging occasional face to face meetings. This can also be accomplished using webcams and video conferencing which may or may not necessitate that all team members use the same hardware and/or software applications. Allow team members to get an idea of where the overall project is going. This way each member will know how they fit into the project. Create a code of conduct. This will avoid delays and will make sure that requests are answered in a timely fashion. Do not allow team members to disappear. Have a calendar for each team member so that everyone's schedule is available to view. Develop trust among the team. Incorporation of team member details such as family life and mutual hobbies are proven techniques for building trust.
Store charts, diagrams, etc. on the internet so that the whole team can see them. Create a 'face book' which includes information about background, interests and helps team members get to know each other better. Individuals choose the information to share. Connections and trust are built through relationships.
Who are the members of virtual teams? Members can either be stable or change on an ongoing basis. Members can be in the same company or from various companies. Members can live in the same community or in different countries.
Basic types of virtual teams Networked Teams consist of individuals who collaborate to achieve a common goal or purpose; membership is frequently diffuse and fluid. Parallel Teams work in the short term to develop recommendations for an improvement in a process or system; the team has a distinct membership. Project or Product-Development Teams conduct projects for users or customers for a defined period of time. Tasks are usually no routine, and the results are specific and measurable; the team has decision making authority. Work or Production Teams perform regular and ongoing work usually in one function; the team has clearly defined membership. Service Teams support customers or the internal organization in typically a service/technical support role around the clock.
Management Teams work collaboratively on a daily basis within a functional division of a corporation. Action Teams offer immediate responses activated in (typically) emergency situations. Offshore ISD Outsourcing Teams Setup in which a company subcontracts portions of work to an offshore independent service provider to be worked in conjunction with an onshore team.
Offshore ISD is commonly used for Software development as well as international R&D projects.
Reasons for virtual teams in the workplace: Allows for people in different parts of the world to come together to work on a project. Creates alliances and mergers between organizations. Extends the market to different geographical locations. Reduces costs for an organization.
Nine key steps to developing virtual teams: Secure a project-based idea conducive to collaboration collaboration.. Build a business plan to include the team vision, purpose and goal. Identify critical players to support the project. Select people who can contribute their core competencies to the project.
Enlist their service. Establish an initial meeting with members to lay down d own the groundwork, set guidelines and processes. Strategically align all members to the projects goal. Set a timeline. Monitor activities and progress.
Critical success factors of virtual teams The existence of availability standards. Ample resources to buy and support state-of-the-art reliable communication and collaboration tools for all team members. Increased success of such tools are highly dependent on proper proliferation of high speed fiber-optic transmission which best suits high density transmission. The existence of corporate memory systems such as lessons learned databases. The existence of written goals, objectives, project specifications, and performance metrics; results orientation. Managers and team members with a better-than-average ability to accurately estimate. A lower-than-normal ratio of pushed to pulled information. Team communication is prioritized by the sender. Human resource policies, reward/recognition systems as well as career development systems address the unique needs of virtual workers. Good access to technical training and information on how to work across cultures. Training methods accommodate continual and just-in-time learning.
There are standard and agreed-on technical and "soft" team processes. A "high trust" culture; teamwork and collaboration are the norm. Leaders set high performance expectations; model behaviors such as working across boundaries and using technology effectively. Team leaders and members exhibit competence in working in virtual environments. Effective division of work that plays to each team member's strengths. Facilitate effective dissemination of knowledge. Tacit knowledge possessed must be shared in a manner deemed explicit enough to be efficiently rendered and cross-referenced amongst team members.
Team-building Team-building key for virtual workplace Darleen DeRosa, Ph.D., a managing partner at On Point Consulting, focuses her research on virtual teams. DeRosa earned her PhD in organizational psychology and invested four years of graduate school at the masters and PhD levels obtaining her degree. She chose to focus on this area because she feels that even though organizations have invested so much time and money into virtual teams, organizations are missing the foundation for virtual workplaces; support. DeRosa’s study included surveying and interviewing 10 different major international firms; two thirds agreed that the performance of virtual teamwork is “important or very important” to the fundamental success of their business. Of 21 virtual teams, sixty-five percent claimed that they’d had never participated in an effective team building session, thirty-six percent said they had never met
their team members face to face. Teams that had been together for less than a year were more productive and performed substantially better than teams that had been together for more than a year. An overall observation is that productivity and performance decreases over time. A recent study by the Gartner Group; an American research company, stated that by 2008, 41 million corporate employees will operate in a virtual workplace at least one day per week. Having employees working in a virtual workplace poses some concerns and challenges, most of which would be eliminated by working in a physical office. Most of these challenges stem from the lack of face-to-face interactions among team members. Darleen DeRosa discovered seven key challenges that employees are faced with when working in teams in a virtual workplace. Here are the challenges that she has identified in her research: • Companies
must compensate for the lack of human contact, and find appropriate ways to support team spirit, trust and productivity.
• Leaders
must be especially sensitive to interpersonal, communication and cultural factors.
• No
trust, no team. Trust is a top factor in determining virtual team success. But interpersonal trust, compared to task-level trust (a faith that team members will do their job) is more difficult to achieve in a virtual environment. • Team
building pays off. Virtual teams that invest time in team building perform better than those that don't. • Team
performance tends to drop off after one year. Attention must be paid to interpersonal, communication and cultural factors to prevent a "peak-and-decline" syndrome.
• Technology
makes virtual teaming possible, but isn't a perfect substitute for human interaction. Teams must be careful to use the appropriate technology for various tasks.
• While
meeting in person requires time and expense, virtual teams that meet once or twice a year perform better overall than those that don't meet. To help make an easy transition from a physical office to virtual workplaces for employees, organizations have created “virtual water coolers” and chat rooms to encourage employee interaction and communication.
DeRosa has concluded that companies are not optimizing their virtual workplaces. There is an enormous potential for increased productivity and performance, however organizations have failed to build the foundation for making an easy move to virtual workplaces. People tend to be more receptive to face-to-face interactions. A virtual workplace eliminates this human contact. As a result, in order to build the foundations for a successful workplace, organizations have to find a way to replace human contact with an equivalent interaction. Increased productivity and performance should be the driving forces for finding that replacement and endorsing the movement to virtual workplaces.
Managing the Virtual Employee The Project Management industry is changing; we are moving away from the days of the boardroom meetings and group gatherings, to the virtual team world. Full and part time employees work each week from a home (Home office employees) or a remote office (corporate or remote office, in another town or state) 100% of the time. This is still a relatively new direction but more and more companies are starting to offer this kind of work arrangement for their employees. The question is; how effective is it?
How does a Project Manager (PM) handle a virtual team? What are the challenges and issues he/she faces on projects? Can a PM be effective with a team spread out across the country, and in some cases the world? Can they really bring a team together and be successful? Virtual Team Members present the following challenges: challeng es: Lack of Accountability Out of site, out of mind! When a team member does not have a PM around to make sure a task is completed, sometimes tasks do not get finished. Missed meetings/deadlines Sometimes team members don’t show up to meetings or miss deadlines on their assigned tasks. There are also times, due to other priorities, team members will miss multiple project meetings leaving the PM not knowing what is happening with their piece of the project. Lack of communication Sometimes team members do not communicate enough with the PM and/or the rest of the project team. This lack of dialog will become an issue when something goes wrong and you are unable to solicit any help from that team member. Training Issues How does a PM handle the situation where the virtual team member is not capable of handling the assigned task? This is not just a situation with virtual employees; it occurs with onsite staff as well, but the situation is more serious when the virtual team member is not
on site and cannot easily be helped or trained. Home Office Infrastructure Issues Hardware, power failures, phone or ISDN line down, all issues that are common to a home office, that hardly ever occur in a traditional business facility. Home Office Family and home Issues When virtual employees work from a home ho me office, sometimes family and home-related issues receive a higher priority than work issues. That is only human nature. These issues come in the middle of getting the project work completed. Issues such as: kids sick at school, doctor’s appointments, car-pooling all seem to take top priority when the employee is home and able to get away for a “couple minutes��? to do these chores.
All of these issues can be showstoppers for projects. They can literally stop a project in its tracks if a PM does not have established procedures in place to use to handle these issues when they do occur. What can a PM do?
Here are a series of tips to make managing a virtual employee or team-member more effective:
Virtual Office Rules and Guidelines Establish, document, approve, and adopt firm guidelines to set the virtual team member expectations for communication, infrastructure, work hours, interruptions, etc. Make virtual employee policies, not guidelines, and ensure that they are followed while the employee is
working an offsite work place. Each employee or team member is to sign and approve these polices before they start in this virtual work position. If they don’t sign the agreement, then that employee will not be eligible for any virtual positions and should not be allowed to work remotely. Virtual Employee Qualifications Not all employees fit the role of o f a virtual team member. There are three basic qualities that a person needs to have before they should be approved to work in a virtual position. 1. Great Communicator. 2. Very experienced in existing position or similar position. 3. Dedicated to project and a team player.
If the virtual team member has all three of the above qualities, the PM should have very few problems working while they are working together on their project(s). If any one of these is missing, it could lead to some serious issues for the PM and the project as a whole.
Communicate Communication with your virtual project team member has to be well documented and occur frequently throughout the project. When working with virtual team members, it is a good idea to establish communication guidelines. Those guidelines could include, maximum amount of communications per day, standard times to communicate…etc. However, a PM should not be afraid to call, email, or do whatever you have to do to understand what is happening on your project, if your virtual employee is able to provide that information. When team members are remote, quite often they tend to forget that they are accountable to your project. This is where good communication skills, established guidelines, all
play an important and critical role on projects. Team meetings The PM needs to have mandatory recurring team meetings (scheduled per project requirements), regardless of the size of the project. The PM must make sure there are open communications between all team members at those meetings. When the team is virtual, there are tools such as Net meeting or Video conferencing that could be used to help bring the team together. If that is not possible, try to schedule a meeting room and bring the team members who do sit onsite into the same room, to allow some “face��? ti time be between th the on onsite te team me members. Th This wi will go go a long way to team building on your project. One Team The PM has to treat their virtual team(s) as they treat a “oneloca locati tion on��? team team.. The The loca locati tion onss of your our team team membe embers rs cann cannot ot be a barrier to the success of the project. The PM has to do everything they would normally do with the th e project team as if they were all sitting one or two cubes away. If possible, if the entire team can be brought together at a single location, do so. It will be a great way to put a name, personality and face to each team member. This face to face will also go a long way in building a great project team. Follow-ups and hard deadlines The PM needs to do follow-ups and set hard deadlines for your project tasks. This is usually done in a scheduling tool such as Microsoft Project. When this is done initially for the project, the PM must do a team review of the project schedule and get individual buy off on the assigned tasks. Throughout the project, the PM must continue to follow-up with each team member and ensure that assigned deadlines are met.
When the team members are a couple cubes away, the follow-ups are very easy to do. When the teams are remote this becomes much harder and trickier to do for the PM. This is where the strong personal relationships that the PM has built up throughout the project will assist them in these follow-ups. Ownership All team members (on site and virtual) must have both ownership and accountability on a project to make it successful. If either of these qualities is missing, it is going to be very difficult to have a success in the project. If the team member commits to a date to have a task completed, then they must make those dates. If they miss the deadline, then that team member is accountable to the project team and needs to do whatever it takes to get the task done as soon as possible. When having virtual team members, it seems that it is much more difficult to get a handle on and put corrective action into play when deadlines are missed. The PM throughout the project needs to stay informed by each team member to ensure that dates are not missed whenever possible. Multi-Tasking As the PM of a virtual team member, you need to be aware of the multi-tasking that each of the team members will be involved in. The PM must try to make sure that those “other" tasks do not get in the way of completing the project. Multi-tasking is unfortunately a reality these days, but if the PM is aware of this, understands the impacts, factors it in, it should not affect the project deadlines.
In closing, managing virtual teams is not an easy task, but if the PM is prepared ahead of time and follows the tips above, this will go a long way toward being successful in your projects. The most important tool a PM can use is to communicate. This is nothing new,
and something that all successful PMs do anyway, but it is very important when your tester is 2000 miles away and you are shipping your product in the next 2 hours.
Aiding Software for Virtual Teams Virtual teams are often spread all over the globe, ranging from different offices to different cultures; so how is it that they can remain on track with objectives and come together to achieve goals to contribute to the organization? The answer is that they use collaborative technology--in particular they use software that allows virtual teams to be as efficient as same-location teams. Software that aids virtual team functioning can be separated into two main categories--software that provides ease of communication and software that provides task and document organization. Software that improves the ease of communication often includes features such as presence awareness, instant messaging, and web conferencing. These tools allow team member to be accessible to their teams 24 hours a day. Members can have real time conversations and do not have to follow lengthy correspondence as dispersed teams have had to in the past, which leads to greater efficiency. Software applications that organize team tasks and documents also improve their teams' efficiency. These programs consist of a central location where all members can access important documents docu ments to the team, track progress made, assign tasks, and even provide calendars with key dates and timelines to keep k eep all members current.
There are many software programs for virtual teams, such as Lotus software by IBM, NetMeeting by Microsoft, Facilitate.com by Facilitate.com, Think-tank by Group Systems, and many more. Software of this type is a fast-developing area, so organizations should look often for software programs that suit the size and functionality of their teams. Examples of Collaborative Software
Virtual World Software: Ongoing research is indicating that virtual worlds, such as Second Life, Life, can help with virtual team collaboration. However, virtual team leaders should think beyond mimicking reality to foster successful collaboration Other software titles, including MetaTeam MetaTeam,, provide a team framework that models group structures, interactions and processes in a way that enables dispersed team members to participate more fully
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