Laura’s Winning Ideas

When you work virtually, you must create a team without the option of going out for a beer after work with the gang.

Long distance teams struggle to maintain focus. It is easier for on-site projects to get preferential treatment because the team members for on-site projects are close at hand.

For global teams, cultural and language barriers can make it difficult to establish a personal relationship.

The goal is to create a team that accomplishes more than the sum of its parts.

I work virtually every day. Here are a few tips:

1. Make it safe. New players are reluctant to let down their guard until you make it safe for them. I spend some time up-front outlining the project and that seems to help make it safe for new team members because they know what will be expected and happening.
2. Have fun, especially at your own expense. Breaking the ice with humor can help put team members at ease. Luckily, I routinely flub up things so I can keep them rolling in the aisles with my misunderstood messages and hilarious technical questions.
3. Make them a priority and they’ll make you a priority. My team members know that I’ll schedule a meeting at 11:00 p.m. to make it easier for a global team to meet. I get the same consideration in return.
4. Be grateful. I have a contractor who inspired this post. He is in the Philippines. Several months ago a hurricane swept away their Internet connection to the US. He was unavailable a good deal. Then he explained that the government had placed a low priority on re-establishing the Internet connection and he was struggling to get and stay on-line. At one point he was emailing files with his cell phone. Try keeping up a productive pace doing that!
   Yesterday he disappeared again. Turned out that thieves stole the copper phone lines from outside his building, so he had no way to get a dial-up connection. (they still don’t have cable re-established in his city).

Most of us have an incredibly easy technology setup compared to our teammates abroad.