The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Virtual Teams

A virtual team is a group of people who work toward a common goal and are connected by technology though physically separated. Virtual teams scare a lot of people, who have visions of spending their time on all-night conference calls and not being able to trust team members they can’t see.

Nevertheless, the trend is coming at us like a full-speed train. A Google search of “virtual teams” revealed some interesting 2011 research published in Hypergrid Business, a magazine devoted to virtual teaming.

The study, “Virtual Work Environments in a Post-Recession Era,” conducted on behalf of Brandman University by Forrester Consulting, revealed strong adoption of virtual teams. Forty percent of survey respondents said that 40 percent or more of their company’s employees work in virtual teams today, and more than half expect virtual teaming to increase in the next one to three years.

Managerial concerns associated with virtual teaming are many. 57 percent cited earning trust, 49 percent cited communicating effectively, 43 percent cited managing projects and deadlines successfully and 43 percent cited creating consensus during decision making as among the top concerns.

Considering that virtual teams are so pervasive and so many managers are losing sleep over them, my Culture Beat column over at the AMEX OPEN Forum includes some virtual teaming best practices.  Hope you'll check them out!