Another crack at managing virtual teams

The best ways to do this are finally catching on. Excellent article here from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, "Ways to manage virtual teams." Hits many of the high points. Nice work, Vanessa   C. Villaluz and Marites   A. Khanser (reporters) and The Ateneo Center for Organization Research and Development, which sponsored the research. I've said before that I don't like the off-the-top-of-the-head lists for this but this article manages to capture most of the important points, which I'm excerpting/rewriting here if you're feeling too lazy to click (for shame):

• Ensure clarity of objectives and accountability of team members
• Find the right mix of people for the team
• Support ... sharing and storing information
• Be "culture sensitive"
• Build virtual working capacity through training in conference calls and the like
• If team is permanent one, consider face-to-face; otherwise, augment all calls with presentations and/or videos

Comments

[Rob]

Hmm. Let me tweak that a little:

* Ensure clarity of objectives and accountability of team members (Check)
* Find the right mix of people for the team (Check)
* Support ... sharing and storing information (Check)
* Be "culture sensitive" (Make it "context sensitive)
* Build virtual working capacity through training in conference calls and the like (remove the word "virtual" and add "face to face)
* If team is permanent one, consider face-to-face; otherwise, augment all calls with presentations and/or videos (Can be reduced to "show what you mean")

Huh. Kinda not so bad rules for any team, no? Communication. Empathy. More than one channel for learning and feedback. Nice. Really nice. It works for anyone. :)