Just as the widespread availability of air travel made it possible for someone from Philly to be at a meeting in San Francisco, technology now makes it so that guy from Philly can be at the meeting in San Francisco without ever leaving his house. Technology is both a requirement of a high performance virtual team and the very thing that makes virtual teams even possible.
While there are definite technological challenges that virtual teams must overcome, there are significant opportunities and advantages for both the individual and the organizations, such as…
- Working from home allows the employee to eliminate commute time, affording him/her more time with family.
- Not being bound to a physical location and/or work hours allows the teams to tap the gifts, abilities and skills of workers that have traditionally been unavailable due to the time and spatial separation.
- There is less need to relocate, a tremendous expense for the organization and a tremendous source of stress to the individual.
- When a worker telecommutes, less office space is needed, potentially saving the organization money in office leasing, furniture and other expenses.
Those compelling advantages are the reasons for the rapidly increasing deployment of virtual technologies. Paul Glen, in his excellently titled essay, Leading Geeks: Technology and Leadership, sums it up by saying that once upon a time, geeks were kept in the basement with the temperature-controlled room that housed the corporate mainframes, but that “Today geeks are everywhere.” Technologically-savvy people must and do exist at every level of most organizations precisely because of how drastically technology has reshaped job design.
For the virtual team, technology is about facilitating collaboration: sharing information and drawing people together. Simply stated, technology is a tool in the hands of a high performance team. The technologies available to virtual teams are many, but can be placed into three main categories.
Synchronous Communication
Synchronous communication involves real-time communication between the team members. Examples include:
- Telephone
- Video Conferencing
- Chat Room
Asynchronous Communication
Asynchronous communication are what allow virtual teams to be separated not only by space but also by time. Examples include:
- Email
- Discussion forums
- Blogs
- Instant messaging
- TXT messaging
- Websites / Intranets
Collaboration Tools
While both asynchronous and synchronous technologies facilitate communication among team members, they are just that: communication tools. There are several other tools that facilitate the workflow among team members. Examples include:
- Database systems - store information for quick retrieval.
- Electronic whiteboard - digital equivalent of a notepad for team brainstorming online.
- Presentation packages - services such as Microsoft LiveMeeting, GoToMeeting or WebEx are services designed to facilitate online presentations.
- Project management software - applications such as Microsoft Project are designed to help teams stay on course during a project.
- Document sharing - Microsoft Office and Google Apps software includes collaboration modes that allow commenting, merging and change tracking.
