Getting Virtual Teams Right | Keith Ferrazzi

“Virtual” teams—ones made up of people in different physical locations—are on the rise. As companies expand geographically and as telecommuting becomes more common, work groups often span far-flung offices, shared workspaces, private homes, and hotel rooms. When my firm, Ferrazzi Greenlight, recently surveyed 1,700 knowledge workers, 79% reported working always or frequently in dispersed teams. Armed with laptops, Wi-Fi, and mobile phones, most professionals can do their jobs from anywhere. KEEP READING

Making Virtual Teams Work - Ten Basic Principles | Michael D. Watkins

Virtual teams have become a fact of business life, so what does it take to make them work effectively? On June 10, 2013, I launched a discussion around this question on LinkedIn. The result was an outpouring of experience and advice for making virtual teams work. (I define “virtual teams” as work groups which (1) have some core members who interact primarily through electronic means, and (2) are engaged in interdependent tasks — i.e. are truly teams and not just groups of independent workers). I distilled the results and combined them with my own work, which focuses on how new leaders should assess and align their teams in their first 90 days. Because that’s really when it’s most important to lay the foundation for superior performance in teams — virtual or otherwise. Here are ten basic principles for making this happen. KEEP READING

Recommended Reading

• The Handbook of High Performance Virtual Teams: A Toolkit for Collaborating Across Boundaries by Jill Nemiro, Michael M. Beyerlein, Lori Bradley, and Susan Beyerlein

• Mastering Virtual Teams: Strategies, Tools, and Techniques That Succeed by Deborah L. Duarte and Nancy Tennant Snyder

• Managing Without Walls: Maximize Success with Virtual, Global, and Cross-cultural Teams by Colleen Garton and Kevin Wegryn

Success Factors of Top Performing Virtual Teams | OnPoint Consulting

Rising travel costs, global dispersion of talent, and advances in technology are some of the reasons organizations have migrated toward virtual teams whose members must collaborate from a distance. While numerous organizations have made significant investments in virtual teams (sometimes referred to as geographically dispersed teams) and the technology to support them, a surprising number of these teams are not reaching their full potential. While there are numerous books and articles about best practices in virtual teamwork, many are not research-based and there are opportunities to further develop targeted recommendations for virtual teams. To address this problem, a new study conducted by OnPoint surveyed 48 virtual teams across industries to identify specific practices associated with the most successful virtual teams. The focus of this study was to understand what factors differentiate high performing virtual teams so companies can implement high-impact strategies to make virtual teams more productive.