Offshoring or outsourcing started with significant cost benefits. With time it transformed into a formidable way to address talent deficiency in the united states. Countries like India led the IT out-sourcing industry be setting a quality bar and adopting quality standards like CMM and ISO. However, outsourcing is not the only reason for virtual teams. As organizations and their products become global, virtual teams are becoming a norm rather than an exception. Often, the burn and challenges of managing virtual teams are ignored in these scenarios. I have some experience in this area. At Stryker, I managed large offshore teams in India and France, and also played a role in setting up Stryker India. I have enough friends who manage teams in India and I see they work hours which transcend personal life. There are also several other issues like communication, motivation, team morale, intellectual property, etc. which face new challenges when managing virtual teams. So what are some ways to effectively manage virtual teams? I am going suggest a few, so please feel free to add more of yours :-
1. Use Rich Media, such as live video streams or virtual meetings, to make virtual interactions feel more realistic. Cisco Telepresence is great example of that on the high-end. On the other end consider technologies like Apple Facetime. The key is face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and voice-to-voice.
2. Frequent contacts, keep connections alive and fresh. Using a company blog or Wiki, have people update status and share documents. Consider using an enterprise Twitter like product. Where different members can effortlessly follow each other. The key is to ensure frequent communication, so that everyone feels involved.
3. Face to face meet-ups: Ensuring regular face to face meet-ups and rolling that into your budget. If budget is a bigger constraint then try creative solutions such as local meet-ups and conferencing.
4. Phone calls: this is a tough one, we need tools that can look at persons calender and decode how overloaded they are. One suggestion is to discover time slots which are a bit sane to both parties and then reserve them exclusively for meetings. The other principal to follow is put a hard time limit to these meetings and ensure that one does not run over. Often running over would mean late nights for one party. To prevent running over, ensure that agenda is crisp and participants are prepared apriori. Use blogs and wiki's for brainstorming ideas. This one is a combination of tools and discipline.
5. Project Management: use Scrum and Agile Project Management, first to keep meetings short and next to ensure regular and frequent sync-ups.
6. Motivation: pay particular emphasis to motivating employees. Ensure that product and project success is attributed. Ensure frequent celebrations. Bring in Rewards and set clear criteria for success. Keep in mind the culture of the location when defining these processes. For e.g. in India, family plays a big role in ones life, so have that in mind.
Please feel free to add and share more suggestions to make managing virtual teams more effective.
1. Use Rich Media, such as live video streams or virtual meetings, to make virtual interactions feel more realistic. Cisco Telepresence is great example of that on the high-end. On the other end consider technologies like Apple Facetime. The key is face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and voice-to-voice.
2. Frequent contacts, keep connections alive and fresh. Using a company blog or Wiki, have people update status and share documents. Consider using an enterprise Twitter like product. Where different members can effortlessly follow each other. The key is to ensure frequent communication, so that everyone feels involved.
3. Face to face meet-ups: Ensuring regular face to face meet-ups and rolling that into your budget. If budget is a bigger constraint then try creative solutions such as local meet-ups and conferencing.
4. Phone calls: this is a tough one, we need tools that can look at persons calender and decode how overloaded they are. One suggestion is to discover time slots which are a bit sane to both parties and then reserve them exclusively for meetings. The other principal to follow is put a hard time limit to these meetings and ensure that one does not run over. Often running over would mean late nights for one party. To prevent running over, ensure that agenda is crisp and participants are prepared apriori. Use blogs and wiki's for brainstorming ideas. This one is a combination of tools and discipline.
5. Project Management: use Scrum and Agile Project Management, first to keep meetings short and next to ensure regular and frequent sync-ups.
6. Motivation: pay particular emphasis to motivating employees. Ensure that product and project success is attributed. Ensure frequent celebrations. Bring in Rewards and set clear criteria for success. Keep in mind the culture of the location when defining these processes. For e.g. in India, family plays a big role in ones life, so have that in mind.
Please feel free to add and share more suggestions to make managing virtual teams more effective.
