Stumble It!

Using Far-Flung Virtual Teams for Managing Knowledge in Global Companies, reports on research into 54 far-flung teams in 31 different companies, including Intel, Textronic and Royal Dutch Shell

The research highlights a number of myths about virtual teams such as:

1. Myth: Far-flung teams are deployed to save money on travel
2. Myth: Far-flung teams require hands-off leadership
3. Myth: Far-flung team leaders don’t deal directly with diversity
4. Myth: Face-to-face meetings are required early in a far-flung team’s life cycle to build trust
5. Myth: Given the restrictions of time and space differences, far-flung teams are best served by allocating one task to every member
6. Myth: Face-to-face meetings are required for brainstorming
7. Myth: Far-flung teams only need weekly conference calls to stay connected

This is a good article and well worth reading.

A couple of these findings, such as the requirement or otherwise for face time and prior relationships, seem to be at odds with some other research I have commented on.

The reader will have to decide for themselves which research they choose to trust in these contentious areas.

Perhaps some more research is required!

Tags: virtual teams

Bioteams Books Reviews

Mobile business applications framework

February 28, 2006 | article by Ken Thompson in Book Reviews (37)

In a just published book Work Goes Mobile by Michael Lattanzi, Antti Korhonen and Vishy Gopalakrishnan, authors of Nokia’s mobility master plan, propose a very useful application profiling scheme to establish the degree to which a business could exploit mobile technologies in their broadest sense. This approach would also be very useful for establishing the support requirements for virtually networked teams.

Buy it now from:
Amazon.Com
Amazon.Co.UK

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Related Virtual Teams Articles

Virtual Teams and Communities Training Manual

December 23, 2009 | article by Ken Thompson in Virtual Teams (15)

As a festive treat I am making available, totally free to Bioteams readers, my Virtual Teams and Communities Training Manual (155 pages) which I have used on a number of occasions as a comprehensive full-day workshop on this very important topic.

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Group collaboration: lessons from conflict resolution

August 28, 2006 | article by Ken Thompson in Virtual Teams (15)

Some of the approaches applied to conflict resolution apply equally well to the development of on-line and virtual communities, teams and networks. One of the most interesting is "The Flight of the Flamingos" scenario.

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The secret of accelerated organisational learning

August 10, 2006 | article by Ken Thompson in Virtual Teams (15)

We can learn the secret of rapid evolution from the most evolved non-human species on the planet – but it is not who you think it is!

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