The world is a challenging environment. There are possibilities everywhere for initiatives, either for improvements or to minimize unwelcome effects of existing situations, whether social, economic, political, and environmental or in dozens of other domains.
As all readers are well aware, the concept of a project has proven key to achieving these improvements that is "a temporary endeavor to create a unique ... result" (ref: glossary, PMBOK Guide 4th edition). This implies that the result must be defined, agreed and delivered and how this is done has been changing very rapidly, like everything else!
A more recent development is that it is now very unusual for all project team members to be collocated, that is to share just one working environment, such as a single office. This organizational style where the members are distributed geographically and rarely (if at all) meet face-to-face is called the Virtual Team.
There are plenty of business situations where Virtual Teams are normal. Some examples include:
- Clinical Trials for pharmaceutical companies.
- Company Mergers, together with their advisers such as consultancy firms and banks.
- New Business Consortia during the early stages of formation.
- Industry Sectoral Task Groups charged with assignments such as registration of the use of chemicals.
- Industry and Professional Associations involving members in different companies.
A dramatic example was the photo broadcast globally using an iPhone and Twitter during the recovery of passengers from a plane crash in the Hudson River.
It would be interesting to hear from readers of other situations where a Virtual Team approach is the norm.
It is reported for example that NO project within IBM globally has only collocated team members. Even lone around-the-world sailors have teams of supporters for navigation, supplies, technical support, publicity, sponsoring and so on with whom they are in constant touch. This also applies to the Swiss adventurers Bertrand Piccard and Yves Rossy featured in the spectacular linked videos:
- The first Around the World Solar Airplane Project, Solar Impulse
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Photo: 24 Heures, Geneva. Click the photo for more pictures of the maiden flight. There is a video of this project on YouTube.
- Preparing to fly across the English Channel with personal jet wings
Benefits of Virtual Project Teams The initial reaction to the Virtual Team of professionals who are used to collocated project teams is sometimes negative. They maintain that high performance cannot be achieved without the direct and continuous personal contact. Nevertheless as the variety and utility of collaboration tools continues to increase, so does their acceptance.
Just mention the word iPhone and the culture change is apparent.
The use of Virtual Teams brings several strategic advantages, some of them less obvious at first sight, and includes:
- The accessible skill resources are much greater than those of collocated teams. Projects need to recruit the best available expert, regardless of geographical location. This applies particularly but not only to knowledge work.
- Accelerated Project Team Recruitment. The spectacular growth of Lotus Connections (a product which shares many features with Facebook and runs on a company networks behind the firewall) underlines the immediate benefits achievable in this area. A colleague in a health care consultancy company in England reports using it to broadcast requests for expertise and information within the company as soon as a new project contract is signed. Typically there is an instantaneous response, either from experts or others suggesting who should be contacted. This compares with the long drawn out project initiation which was typical of older environments. As "time is money", the time savings of weeks show up in the bottom line.
- Members of virtual teams do not require additional workspace when they join the project because they already have it. This means both that they can be immediately productive and that the project manager is not responsible for office space.
- If the team is distributed globally, the project may be able to leverage from time zone differences. A common pattern involves the coding of software in Asia and review in America, while the others sleep.
- Recruiting a virtual project team also results in greatly increased networking because each member brings his or her network connections. This can be leveraged to support Stakeholder Management, which is a very important feature of project management. This is easier to address where the potential contact with strategically placed champions is greater.
Meeting the Human Challenges Of course there are also significant "challenges" (i.e., difficulties) for the Virtual Team approach and this article focuses on the Human Challenges. Many, if not most, of these arise from the fundamental nature of a project. As already mentioned, the vision of the unique project must be:
- Defined,
- Agreed, and
- Delivered.
In extreme examples, these individual differences coexist alongside significant organizational differences. As an example, the European Union uses multi-country proposals as the basis for assigning research project funding. Typical requirements include the selection of members who:
- Are in different countries
- Have different legal status such as public, private etc
- Operate in a multi-cultural environment
- Have different economic strengths, resulting in unbalanced teams.
Establish Trust
Most commentators seem to agree that Trust is the most important requirement for Virtual Project Teams. Without it, or even when there is a suspicion that it is absent, team achievement drops dramatically. According to John Spence, this is best achieved by the project leader demonstrating both genuine concern for the individual team members and competence for the work at hand. One of the most powerful ways of demonstrating concern is to listen actively to each person associated with the project, whether team members or stakeholders. This sounds simple but is very powerful.Encouraging individual responsibility in Virtual Teams is also essential because members need to manage their own environment. The old style boss, who pushes the workers, does not give good project results as Virtual Team members are far more autonomous. They expect to deliver what was agreed but how they do it will often be an individual professional decision. I suggest emphasizing agreement about deliverables, not the methods of achieving them.
The isolation of some team members, who may be located in unexpected or even remote places, increases the challenge for Virtual Teams. Traditional teams can compensate for this by meeting from time to time for non-project team building activities.
Agree the Operational Guidelines
When a virtual team is established, one of the immediate needs is to implement some basic rules of behavior. Collocated teams share an environment and probably also a local culture, but virtual teams cannot rely on this. This affects even basic issues that can make the project initiation harder such as:- How do we agree meeting times? How literally do we interpret the start and finish times? For face-to-face meetings at least, this is very culturally dependent.
- How quickly can we expect replies to e-mail? Can we always expect a reply?
- Should telephone contact be the preferred means of communication, or should written communications be given priority? This depends on issues such as time zone and competence in foreign languages, which is foreign from the point of view of the individual.
- How much should we respect local rest periods such as weekends, nights and holidays? It is easy to assume 24/7 access to everyone but this can be felt as a burden by many.
Check Assumptions
The variety of assumptions behind project decisions can be huge and easily lead to misunderstandings. This is important because decision making is based on assumptions, whether conscious or subconscious.For example, one person may assume that because a message was sent, that it was received and understood. However in some cultures, "no response" means everything is all right, while in others it means that the question has not even been read. Some team members may expect an immediate response to every message, while others assume that they will only get a response if there is a problem.
Where I grew up (in England) there was a bell in the bus to request a stop to get off. When I moved as a student (to Scotland), I once rang the bell and the bus drove past the stop. The driver explained to me that one ring of the bell there was a sign NOT to stop. I had made an assumption, but had not checked to see if it was valid.
A group brainstorm at the time of project initiation to identify the basic assumptions can help discover differences and give pointers for agreed norms. A very useful format for this type of discussion is a collaborative Mindmap to which all have access. An example application which is accessible to invited participants through a browser without having to install any application is Mind 42 of Vienna, Austria. This is exactly what is needed for teams in the early stages of formation. This also has a useful feature to simplify opening a real time Skype conference in parallel.
Be Aware of the People
Collocated teams can see when their colleagues are busy or if they need assistance. Virtual Teams cannot do this so easily. Here are my suggestions for the items of personal information which can be usefully shared:- Presence: available, do not disturb, away briefly etc. Related to this is Mood: working hard, ready for a break, etc. A simple way of communicating this is the "what are you doing now?" type messages. Remember that an indication of presence may only mean that the colleague's computer is switched on. Again some agreement on how to use these indicators can help.
- Current Local time and whether or not it is within normal business hours. This should also take account of weekends and local holidays: all the days between Thursday and Sunday are weekend days in different countries.
- Current Location. For many situations, just the country location is enough, for others it needs to be more specific. This can be generated by the IP address or the GPS in the mobile phone and displayed as a location on a map.
Another variable is business vs. non-business information. Sharing private information can help interaction with the team member who you may never meet. Possible examples include whether they have a pet animal or play music. If this information is not available in the company database, it can be supplemented by personal profile pages.
Scheduling time for non-business communication can help. Real examples which have been described to me by clients include:
- Cake Competition, where each project location buys cakes for the coffee. These are judged visually, using webcams.
- Virtual Day Out. All team members take the day off and go to some local point of interest or event. Their photographs are then uploaded and shared in a teleconference.
Exploit multiple Time Zones
Some large countries, such as China and India, have only a single time zone. Others, such as the Russian Federation and the USA, have several. This sets its own challenges, but not as acutely as for global projects. It can be impossible to talk to Asia, Europe and America at once without somebody having to communicate outside of normal working hours, or even during hours of sleep.One approach to this matter is to rethink the communications processes as follows:
1. Adjust processes to reduce the need for simultaneous availability of team members.
An example of how this might be done is by recording web meetings. A little effort invested in making sure that everybody knows how to do this and where to access the recorded material makes this possible.
Another technique for global projects is the splitting of meetings into sub-meetings. For example, a project manager in Europe can hold early morning conferences with Asia and later evening ones with America, while publishing combined meeting minutes.
2. Maximize the simultaneous business hours between the various project locations.
Simple measures may be enough, e.g. taking calls from home before travelling to work. Depending on commuting time, this can make a worthwhile difference.
3. Improve the simultaneous communications processes for maximum effectiveness.
A familiar situation is the teleconference, where one or other participant has connectivity problems or has a lot of background noise, e.g. in a taxi in traffic. Basic access training for teleconferencing can help reliability of use from any location: e.g. from the office, from home, from a foreign hotel, over the internet, using a mobile phone, how to mute, how to bring in an extra participant and so on.
Be Aware of Culture
As we all know, Culture varies from place to place. By this I mean all the social rules of behavior that allow us to live with each other. In a globalized environment, it is easy to forget that not everything is universal. For example the Deutsche Bahn (German Railway) erected "Kiss and Ride" notices (in English) and some passengers thought that this meant is was a "pick up spot" for the world's oldest profession. Others simply did not understand. The lesson is not to assume that "everyone speaks English".Language is closely related to culture. In using it, four competences are used of which two are passive (reading, listening) while two are active (writing, talking). Those using (what is for them) a foreign language have different skill levels for each of these areas. As a result some people may find it easier to communicate in writing, others by talking. Sometimes the team cannot understand each other's accents, as I experienced when delivering a training course in Spain with participants also from Poland.
To reduce potential problems, communicate using mixed media. For example: a written discussion paper followed by a teleconference, then circulation of minutes and a deadline for comments.
Another example I saw was a group discussion in a teambuilding workshop, where a shape was being discussed by blindfolded participants. One person referred several times to the "Star Wars badge" of the classic series. After the exercise was finished, another participant asked "what is Star Wars?" as he had never heard of this television series.
Like so much in life, Personal Name Conventions are not universal. Some countries use a first name/ surname convention but this is surprisingly recent in many places, for example Sweden and the Netherlands introduced this legally during the 19th century. English speakers use the order: first name, surname. In Hungarian the reverse is common. Chinese colleagues sometimes use an English-sounding name such as "Ocean" for their "international" identity. Spanish uses surnames of both parents and Russians have the patronymic, a "middle name" derived from the father's name.
It is a courtesy to ask team colleagues what they would like to be called.
A recommended approach to this matter is to remember that cross cultural communications have two sides of equal status and tradition. Do not assume that one culture "automatically" dominates.
Closing Comments Most of these ideas are not new, but taken together they decrease the risks for Virtual Teams. As time goes by, the familiarity with remote working methods will improve. In the meantime it makes sense to identify and agree details about how the team works at a level of detail that would be excessive for conventional project environments.
© 2010 allPM.com
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He is a seasoned Project & Program Manager, with over twenty five years of consultancy experience for scores of clients globally, including Nestlé, Ericsson, Volvo, Novartis and the European Commission etc.
His forthcoming book from Springer Verlag is entitled "Overview of the PMBOK® Guide". He can be contacted at deasun.oconchuir@scatterwork.com