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Virtual Team Building

In: Business and Management

Submitted By deidrea
Words 1304
Pages 6
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When working with teams there are always advantages and disadvantages that a company can experience. Although there is a risk company’s may fail or experience challenges, many are taking advantage of the use of virtual teams. Working with teams has shown to improve customer satisfaction, product and service quality, speed, and efficiency in product development, employee job satisfaction, and decision making. The issue of communicating with colleagues from distant locations is no longer a problem and virtual teams are growing in use.
An article written for The Wall Street Journal “Working Together…When Apart” discusses a study of virtual teams at multinational companies. The teams studied ranged in size from four to 200, and found that these groups did encounter long distance challenges, however other were high performers. Some of the top companies include in the study were, BP, PLC, Nokia Corp. and Ogilvy and Mather. The research team from London Business School survey over 1,500 virtual team members and leaders from 55 teams across 15 European and U.S multinational companies. With the data collected they were able to identify traits and practices that can make a successful team. From the finding ten rules were put together for making a virtual team more productive.
1) Invest in an online resource where members can learn quickly about one another.
2) 2. Choose a few team members who already know each other.
3) Identify "boundary spanners" and ensure that they make up at least 15% of the team.
4) Cultivate boundary spanners as a regular part of companywide practices and processes.
5) Break the team's work up into modules so that progress in one location is not overly dependent on progress in another.
6) Create an online site where a team can collaborate, exchange ideas and inspire one another
7) Encourage frequent communication. But don't

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