Participating in or managing a virtual team presents special communications challenges. Here are some guidelines for communicating with members of virtual teams.
atrina picked up the pencil and punched Ed's number. The circuit completed and she could hear the line ring. It rang again. She started tapping the pencil on her desk. The line rang again. 'Still not there,' she thought, tapping the pencil. 'Where is he?'
Then Ed's voice came on the line, but it was his outgoing message. Katrina thought for a moment, and hung up. "Damn," she said out loud, to nobody.
Frustrated as she might be, Katrina has just done something smart — rather than leave Ed yet another message, she decided to just hang up, saving both Ed and herself some time.
Virtual teams depend on effective telephone and email communications, and that effectiveness has both individual and team components. Here's Part I of some guidelines for virtual team communications. See "Virtual Communications: Part II," Point Lookout for February 2, 2005, for more.
Have regular check-ins
If you lead or manage the team, check in with each team member regularly. Depending on the nature of the work, you might check in daily, or two or three times a week — less often than that risks disconnection.
Make appointments
Communicating within a virtual team as if you were co-located almost never works
Making appointments minimizes phone tag, which is expensive in terms of stress, frustration and time spent. When you want to talk with someone, make an appointment, possibly by email or by text message.
Keep your appointments
Running a little late when someone is waiting outside your office does hurt, but not nearly as much as running late for a phone conversation. When you're late for a phone appointment, the caller often has less idea what's happening or when you'll be available.
If you're running late, take time out in advance — if you can — to advise your next appointment that you're late. Rescheduling is best.
Agree on message response times
Adopt a standard of reasonableness for the elapsed time to respond to email or phone messages. A rough rule of thumb: respond in about half the time you thought was reasonable outside of the remote management context.
Use meta-responses
If you can't return a message promptly, send a message saying so. If you can explain why, all the better, but at least let your partner know that you're aware of the delay, and estimate when you can respond.
Define a three-level priority scale for messages
Green messages (good news or bad) are non-urgent, yellow is possibly urgent, and red messages are urgent. Use this scale for email and voicemail, taking care never to inflate a priority just to get attention.
Agree that non-response is a performance issue
Agree that failure to respond to (or at least to acknowledge) a message within a "reasonable" time could be a serious performance issue. Clearly define the kinds of circumstances that could excuse the failure to respond.
I'd like to continue, but we're out of time for this week. Let's continue at the same time next week. TopNext Issue
Your advice is generally non-technological, but I thought I'd mention something that was a great help in improving the efficiency of a virtual team I managed in the past: webcams.
We already had a network backbone, and I spent a few bucks to buy a webcam for each location. Using only Microsoft's NetMeeting, it gave me a chance to see the folks who were many miles away, and that was an opportunity to notice a new hair cut, or see a smile, or share a picture of the dog. It made us feel much more in touch than the telephone alone. I was famous for drawing ideas on my white board, so this also let me communicate in the way I like to, even if the white board was pretty hard to see with a webcam.
Is your organization a participant in one or more global teams? Are you the owner/sponsor of a global team? Are you managing a global team? Is everything going well, or at least as well as any project goes? Probably not. Many of the troubles people encounter are traceable to the obstacles global teams face when building working professional relationships from afar. Read 303 Tips for Virtual and Global Teams to learn how to make your global and distributed teams sing. Order Now!
You probably commute to work. On a good day, you spend anywhere from ten minutes to an hour or two — each way — commuting. What kind of experience are you having? Taking control of this part of your life can make a real difference.
When an important item remains on our To-Do list for a long time, it's possible that we've found ways to avoid facing it. Some of the ways we do this are so clever that we may be unaware of them. Here's a collection of techniques we use to avoid engaging difficult problems.
When we're flooded with problems, and the rowboat is taking on water, we tend to bail with buckets, rather than take time out to plug the leaks. Here are some tips for dealing with floods of problems.
Age discrimination runs deep, well beyond the hiring decision. When we value each other on the basis of age, we can deprive ourselves and our companies of the treasures we all have to offer.
Here's part one of a list of films and videos about project teams that weren't necessarily meant to be about project teams. Most are available to borrow from the public library, and all are great fun.
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Public seminars
Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results
Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:
Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics
Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:
The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics
There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:
Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers
When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:
Ever wonder if there isn't a better way to travel? Travel is essential, but the hassles of travel aren't. Read 202 Tips for Business Travel to learn how to convert business travel from a time-wasting hassle to a breeze. Revised and updated for 2008 with 101 new tips! Check it out!
Projects never go quite as planned. We expect that, but we don't expect disaster. How can we get better at spotting disaster when there's still time to prevent it? How to Spot a Troubled Project Before the Trouble Starts is filled with tips for executives, senior managers, managers of project managers, and sponsors of projects in project-oriented organizations. Check it out!
Are you doing work you love? Are you less in love with the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run to learn what we can do when we love the work but not the job. It helps you get moving again!
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague targets of a bully? Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict. Check it out!
Are you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or maybe even outright revolt? Read 101 Tips for Managing Change to learn how to plan and execute your change efforts to inspire real, passionate support. Check it out!
A Tip a Day arrives by email each business day. It's 20 to 30 words at most, and gives you a new perspective on the hassles and rewards of work life. Most tips also contain links to related articles. Free!
Do you ever wonder if all these meetings are really necessary? (They aren't) Or whether there isn't some better way to get this work done? (There is) Read 101 Tips for Effective Meetings to learn how to make meetings more productive — and more rare. Check it out!
Exchange your "personal trade secrets" — the tips, tricks and techniques that make you an ace — with other aces, anonymously. Visit the Library of Personal Trade Secrets.
atrina picked up the pencil and punched Ed's number. The circuit completed and she could hear the line ring. It rang again. She started tapping the pencil on her desk. The line rang again. 'Still not there,' she thought, tapping the pencil. 'Where is he?'
Then Ed's voice came on the line, but it was his outgoing message. Katrina thought for a moment, and hung up. "Damn," she said out loud, to nobody.
Top 
Next IssueIs your organization a participant in one or more global teams? Are you the owner/sponsor of a global team? Are you managing a global team? Is everything going well, or at least as well as any project goes? Probably not. Many of the troubles people encounter are traceable to the obstacles global teams face when building working professional relationships from afar. Read 303 Tips for Virtual and Global Teams to learn how to make your global and distributed teams sing. Order Now!
Enjoy Your Commute
How We Avoid Making Decisions
Should I Keep Bailing or Start Plugging the Leaks?
Enjoy Every Part of the Clam
Films Not About Project Teams: Part I
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Ever wonder if there isn't a better way to travel? Travel is essential, but the hassles of travel aren't. Read 202 Tips for Business Travel to learn how to convert business travel from a time-wasting hassle to a breeze. Revised and updated for 2008 with 101 new tips! Check it out!
Projects never go quite as planned. We expect that, but we don't expect disaster. How can we get better at spotting disaster when there's still time to prevent it? How to Spot a Troubled Project Before the Trouble Starts is filled with tips for executives, senior managers, managers of project managers, and sponsors of projects in project-oriented organizations. Check it out!
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Are you doing work you love? Are you less in love with the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run to learn what we can do when we love the work but not the job. It helps you get moving again!
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague targets of a bully? Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict. Check it out!
Are you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or maybe even outright revolt? Read 101 Tips for Managing Change to learn how to plan and execute your change efforts to inspire real, passionate support. Check it out!
A Tip a Day arrives by email each business day. It's 20 to 30 words at most, and gives you a new perspective on the hassles and rewards of work life. Most tips also contain links to related articles. Free!
Do you ever wonder if all these meetings are really necessary? (They aren't) Or whether there isn't some better way to get this work done? (There is) Read 101 Tips for Effective Meetings to learn how to make meetings more productive — and more rare. Check it out!
