How Virtual Teams Rock
Scenario: "Dude, you gotta meet each other in our offices to get things done. Yay!" 99.948739287432% of companies run their teams similarly:
- "Be on time at 9 a.m."
- "Do your work in your cubicles."
- "Take your lunch at 12 a.m."
- "We all meet at 2 p.m. to discuss!"
- Leave at 5 p.m."
- Yay!
Yet, what Worker Jeffy, Worker Jesse, and Worker Jacky really do throughout the day:
- Slacking off 70% of the time.
- Working the rest like a vicious slow-!@#$%^.
- Draining individual productivity like M.C. Hammer's buh-bling.
"Hey, we get paid based on fixed incomes," they tell themselves. "What's the incentive for working faster?" Result: $$$$$ lost in company productivity. If your team suffers from an production drainage, boost output/input like a villain by virtualizing them. We'll explain.
"Virtualizing?!"
"Virtualizing" teams mean:
- Deploying every team member to work solo.
- Collaborating when necessary.
That removes "junk/trash/down"-time, dramatically increasing output-per-input.
How?
Why Virtualizing Teams Boost Results
Virtualizing teams forces you to set clear destination points for them.
- Instead of compensating input, you start driving and rewarding productive output.
- Instead of paying "how many hours we've worked!," you start rewarding: "how much ass we've kicked!"
- Johnny Boy, now knowing his slack-off-time won't pay him diddly, accelerates his production-per-hour.
El Resulto: Ridiculously Sexio Resultos.
It's in The Research.
Researchers from USC and North Carolina, and a team of consultants researched the output generated by successful virtual teams in the Harvard Business Review's May 2004 issue -- finding:
- "Several team members...contributed much more during virtual meetings than...face-to-face settings."
- "[They] felt compelled to articulate their views more precisely than if they had depended on visual cues."
- "Although many did affirm the value, in theory, of meeting together in the same room, few in practice found it essential."
- "Holding such traditional meetings would have harmed the teams' work processes."
- "Everyone expects [meetings] to be where the real work will take place and avoids doing anything of value until the meeting occurs. Our [virtual team] leaders dealt with that problem by never holding one."
- "Decisions in a complex project have to be made continually. Postponing them until everyone assembles slows everything down - way, way down."
Indeed.
How to Virtualize Your Teams
Simple two-step process:
-
Set a clear objective + deadline.
For instance: Case #1: "Finish 5-page informational website for YoMama Associates, by April 5th, 2006 @ 5:00 p.m." works more rad-ass than: Case #2: "Work for 8 hours on the website, and see what you get done. Yay!" Then when you've set your objective + deadline, start setting compelling rewards if teams meet those objectives + deadlines -- e.g. bonuses, promotion, trips, etc. -
Step 2: Connect the team through collaborative tools.
Without tight collaboration, you'll generate a team with clashing interests/ideas/goals. [The researchers found the best teams communicated regularly (i.e. once/day).] Fortunately for your badass, you're living in a Web 2.0! world filled with collaborative tools, project management applications, and wikis to keep you connected. (Tip: Google "collaboration tool" -- and you'll find a host of solutions.) If you have the bling, consider a customized collaborative solution.
Sidebar: The Awesomeness of Virtualization
Once you get the hang of virtualizing your teams, you get your pick of: (1) The most amazingly awesome workers (2) from anywhere around the world (3) at the best possible prices. Instead of limiting yourself to Johnny Boy's abilities, you open a can of optimal ass-kicking. Your team sucks at design? Don't fret. Let's hire Efrain in Japan. Win.
Virtualize.
Read More Business Tips From Trizle »
9 Comments
on How Virtual Teams Rock
Hendy Irawan
2007-03-20 20:12:58 UTC
I'm not even really sure about my own comment, but I think doing this is a lot 'harder' than it sounds...
Collaboration tool, for a cent, is a central necessity here for virtualization. Without a good one, there simply no option. And yes, e-mail does NOT cut it. Well it may do but not much as you want it.
For rapid feedback, it's quite hard to visualize. Maybe we want to tweak the design a bit... We have to point at stuff. Draw things using pen and paper (well, pen and paper seriously got more productive nowadays than a mouse and LCD monitor). Even with the best of tools, it's still not very 'usable' even now.
Internet connection has to be damn good. Unless you only need chatting/IRC. In particular areas like Indonesia, this is a luxury.
Even though this article is backed by scientific results, I still have some doubts. Not because virtualization is good but because it implies (or I assume?) that virtualization is better than getting physical (wow).
I really think that virtualization and physical meetings have their own merits. In some companies (like IT/software/computing) I like being 'virtual' has much benefits. don't know how this fares for other types of companies. (gymnasts?)
Virtualization is fairly new in this world, considering that the birth of effective collaboration tools (besides e-mail) is also new. Being a 'early adopter' I think helps, because there's a lot of efficiency and productivity gains (I think, and backed up Andrew's scientific source) from doing this.
And businesses who can make the best out of it will be having an advantage.
And still, that doesn't mean physical meetings are 'bad'. It's just that we have new options, and we can leverage these new options in appropriate circumstances, like what Andrew has described above.
To me... it's about 'balance'. (duh) Getting physical in certain situations, and getting virtual in others, I think that's the best, depending on the situation.
The exact situations appropriate for each approach is still 'unknown' (at least to me) though... And it'd be to know.... although I'm not aware of yet any study about this 'which-is-best-for-what' topic.
Hendy Irawan
2007-03-20 20:24:31 UTC
As sort-of-complement (rather than counter) to this, is Kathy's fairly recent entry:
"SXSW Interactive had more attendees than ever before. A lot more. But here's the confusing part: the people attending are the same people who create and evangelize the tools that make attending totally unnecessary. I started my keynote by asking if anyone was live-blogging. Hands shot up across the room. Someone yelled "Twitter!" The whole thing was recorded on video and audio. So... if nobody needed to be there, why were they?"
"The most underrated benefit of the face-to-face effect of conferences is INSPIRATION."
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/sxsw_interactiv.html
( Face-to-Face Trumps Twitter, Blogs, Podcasts, Video... )
And these guys (cuz there were very few girls) are technically, literally, the techiest badasses ever born in this world.
I think it's because they're so used to working virtually over the years, they feel the need to meet.
But these are conferences, not work meetings. But I guess some things can be implied (or assumed (or learned)).
Hendy Irawan
2007-03-20 20:40:17 UTC
"The Need To Meet"
Wow, that sounds like some nice tag line, no?
(it rhymes quite well with 'Need for Speed', which is outrageously successful--the product, not just the title)
Appendix: For those stomach-challenged, you may prefer this other tagline from yours truly ;-) "The Need for Meat" :-)
Charlie
2007-03-21 02:39:27 UTC
That's a good way to get rid of laziness. It can't be much better with a punishment on hand. Worker's attitutes are getting tough once they've established a good working time for their company. They're slowly turning into rebels when not managed well.
CommerceCubes
2007-03-21 15:15:19 UTC
[...] What prompted me to write this was reading, Trizoko’s Article on “How Virtual Teams rock” which is definitely worth reading if you have a minute. Would you build a business that could be virtualized? [...]
Luc Arnold
2007-03-21 15:21:46 UTC
The idea of "Virtualization" when it comes to employees is a great idea but there has to be great cohesion in the team because it makes it easier to not work as a team in some cases.
A lot of companies still cannot function in this capacity but i see more of them attempting it in the future. Interesting posting!
Luc
Howie
2007-03-21 18:12:18 UTC
Great idea. I've suffered much from people who doesn't work well with team, wherein they are not responsible enough to do better for the good of the team, but rather like to do things on their own. I believe this will be good enough to straighten people like them.
CHRI News » Avoiding meetings with virtual teams
2007-03-22 09:22:06 UTC
[...] Trizle.com criticises traditional meetings and team organisation and covers the Why and How of virtual teams. “Virtual teams” rarely use meetings. Teammembers work individually or use collaborative tools (telephone, wikis, email) as needed. more [...]
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2007-06-18 18:52:31 UTC
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