Managing Virtual Teams: Five Triggers
Dominic M. Thomas at Emory University suggests five key triggers which can be used to intervene with a virtual team which is heading for a problem before it is too late to do anything to fix it.

"The bullfrogs seem to have an early-warning radar that makes them hide when people are near.”
Picture Source: Regional Municipality of Niagra
The five triggers cover:
- External Interference
- Internal interference
- ICT Inadequacy
- Relationship Inaqequacy
- ICT Knowledge/Skills Inadequacy
I like this thinking because it mirrors my own ideas on the need for teams to have effective early warning systems which use the collective intelligence of the whole team to detect important changes in ‘leading indicators’ which can be intervened on rather than tracking ‘lagging indicators’ after the damage is already done.
For example see: Team Transformation Rule 2: Cultivate Team Intelligence.
More details on the 5 triggers can be found at “Five Triggers to Watch For When Managing Virtual Teams” on the Emory website.
Many Thanks to Richard Cross for spotting this for me!
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Glad you liked the link. - It seemed to me it further underpinned the rationale for swarm teams and the different and challenging requirements of how to operate in the hybrid virtual and physical world.
Richard