Team Challenge - Virtual Teaming

Virtual teams work with digital space across time and physical boundaries and are linked by webs of communication technologies. Virtual teams are real people working together using the Internet and intranets. Independent virtual team members have significant autonomy and leadership is shared and evolves with the development of the team. Among high-performance technology teams, members are leaders or become leaders. Emerging technologies have allowed teams to virtually work without having to meet face-to-face and have provided the means for teams to reach higher levels of performance through multiple modes of communication.

Developing a shared purpose is different with virtual teams than with collocated teams. Schools can extend their performance levels with virtual teams that share a common purpose. The word "purpose" in the context of teams is used to indicate and involve everything from vision and mission to producing products. According to Lipnack and Stamps (1997), purpose evolves naturally from the abstract visions and missions to the tasks and products that teams produce. Goals appear to be a midpoint between purpose, vision, and mission, and the actual work that produces results.

With technologies new modes of communications have provided the means for interactions leading to the development of relationships in virtual teams. Schools districts that use teams that are geographically dispersed in different schools need to create networks using high-speed high-bandwidth audio, video and data links that are continuously available to team members. These high-speed powerful networks make it possible for members of virtual teams to meet by simply connecting on the network (Lipnack and Stamps, 1997).

Relationships are formed as the result of the cumulative effects of interactions. Virtual relationships are as real as face-to-face relationships and encompass all the same emotions that face-to-face relationships contain such as feelings of belonging to a prestigious group or trusting fellow team members (Lipnack and Stamps, 1997). As with other teaming processes, members of virtual teams must retain their individuality while being an interdependent member of a team (

The Nature of Teams). Virtual teams are by default self-managing because of the nature of connecting online that requires more independence than what is typically required in face-to-face environments. A high level of independence among individuals merged with high levels of interdependence is facilitated with a strong underlying purpose and commitment among the team. Virtual teams require higher levels of interdependence and autonomy than teams that meet face-to-face (Lipnack and Stamps, 1997).

A characteristic among high-performance technology teams is a strong element of shared leadership. Successful virtual teams require more than one strong leader because of the high levels of interdependence. Often there is a need for task leadership that requires expertise in specific activities and processes. Social leadership emerges in discussion or activities that involve interactions centered on feelings, status, and satisfaction.

Teaming is a process and not an end in itself. The development cycle of virtual teams tends to be longer than conventional teams. Different teams might follow different developmental paths to reach the same outcome. Some models suggests that teams develop in stages rather than phases, but stages of development are informal, indistinct, and overlapping because characteristics of the dynamic situations in which operational teams work and develop are usually experiential and uncertain. It has been postulated that different teams begin a given period of development at different stages and spend different amounts of time in the various stages (Morgan, Salas, and Glickman, 1993). Differences in development depend on the characteristics of the team and team members. Teams develop through stages of initial ineptness and exploratory interactions to levels of skilled performance as team members learn to cooperate and coordinate their efforts effectively (Morgan et al., 1993).

According to Morgan et al. (1993), stages of team development usually begin with formation (forming) and then move to an exploration stage (storming). From team efforts toward accommodation and the formation and acceptance of roles (norming), they began initial performance functions (performing-I). A transition of re-evaluation and transition (reforming) then leads to refocusing to produce effective performance (performing-II). Finally, the team is said to be in a stage of completing assignments (conforming). The development of a team might be recycled from any of the final stages to an earlier stage as adjustments to demands requires (Morgan et al., 1993).

While many organizations and school systems practice conventional processes in attempting to build teams in a linear fashion through a sequence of phases, high-performance technology teams develop through a variety of alternative paths. The individual skills that are generally exploited in committees may be relatively ineffective without team skills of cooperation and coordination (Morgan et al., 1993).

The things that attract members to be on a team begin with personal identity and the team's notoriety. New members of high-performance technology teams have access to all of the team's work and processes that have been captured electronically through technologies. According to Lipnack and Stamps (1997) virtual teams must construct virtual places in order to be successful, and the contention is that these new workspaces allow people to collaborate in new and original ways.

As discussed earlier in this guide, technology teaming leads to developing organizational memory through processes of learning and capturing the learning electronically (

Organizational memory). In the same way that organizational memory is created and captured, team memory and team intelligence is captured and stored for later use. The value created among high-performance technology teams can be categorized in several levels. One level that is most obvious is the product, or task result of team activities, while another level is the value of team relationships developed through processes of technology teaming. Other value is less apparent because some changes such as efficient communication mechanisms are subtle. Another less apparent value of technology teaming is the readily available knowledge that is stored electronically from the processes of learning. In systems and processes where the consequences (either positive or negative) are far removed from the activities, the resulting benefits of the process are difficult to recognize. Unrecognized value that is the result of teaming and group processes is not new to schools and organizations. Through processes of alignment with teams and technologies, the added value of technology teaming becomes more apparent to schools. Through technology teaming the distance between activities and consequences of the activities are narrowed by eliminating boundaries of time and space.

Telepresence requires collaborative technologies that eliminate the requirements of face-to-face communication in order to collaborate. With collaborative technologies, people may still work together while separated by large geographical distances. The pardigmic shift required for telepresence activities is getting accustomed to communicating and collaborating with people through the use of technologies. It will be difficult for some to shift their mindset toward sensing the presence of human beings at the other end of their technological tools.

Basically the two types of telepresence supported by collaborative technologies are group and environmental telepresence. Group presence is one that is related to the quality of communications use by group members and supported by the technology. The better the quality of the technology and the more fluent the communications the more spontaneous the interactions among the team members. The goal of many collaborative technologies is to simulate the level of interaction that occurs in "real time and space" face-to-face communications. These types of technologies require using high bandwidth communications mechanisms such as video teleconferencing.

Environmental telepresence attempts to engage participants in the environment of the task or operation. Environmental technologies simulate the context of the work and may include a single individual or a team of participants. The goal may include gaining familiarity of a computer-mediated form of the activity or actually accomplishing the work through simulated activities designed for multiple users and sources of input (Kling, 1991).

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) represents products such as groupware, but more importantly an indicator of the move toward providing technologies that enhance collaboration. The earliest groupware focussed on products which were expanded forms of electronic mail or calendar programs that help schedule meetings more efficiently by having access to each others' calendars (Kling, 1991).

CSCW has recently moved toward more advanced new technological visions. In most meetings computers are not available, therefore, team members use paper pads and sometimes whiteboards and overhead projectors. In the past it has been necessary for two or more team members to have face-to-face meetings with one computer if they were to use computer tools. Until recently, computer tools were designed for one person's work at a time, and this included the early groupware programs such as electronic mail and calendar programs.

The notion behind technology teaming is that the speed and ease of teamwork would be enhanced if computerized systems could provide seamless platforms for people to use their computerized tools regardless of their locations. Applications designed for technology teaming enable people to have the electronic equivalents of shared whiteboards and notepads in addition to the capabilities of computer storage, retrieval, and manipulation anywhere and anytime (Schrage, 1990). Some system designs now have addressed the limitations of low bandwidth by enhancing shared computer systems with two-way interactive video channels so that participants can see each other and/or documents on multiple computers (Kling, 1991).

New CSCW programs are leaning toward making meetings more effective with special systems to help brainstorm, organize agendas, and provide computational support for group decision making strategies (Kling, 1991). Technologies designed for collaboration enhance cooperative work and provide seamless systems that are different than technology development of the past that focused on one user at a time.

$ The shifting of power structures involving different people in an organization sometimes has unanticipated effects. People can bypass old processes of accessing information with network technology. This can have undesirable effects on the people who used to control the information and lead to feelings of being devalued.

$ One problem brought about by the capability to communicate instantly is an expectancy of instant response. Because the technology exists to allow rapid retrieval of information, people come to expect that they will be able to get information they need almost immediately.

$ Many physical and social cues that people rely upon to communicate are absent when using collaborative technologies. Eye contact, tone of voice, hand gestures, and head nods to name a few may not be supported by some forms of CMC.

$ Regardless of the CMC mechanism, the level of social interaction as most people are accustomed to is often reduced. Fewer physical cues identified with status or position may lead to more equitable collaboration as well as facilitate more open and honest team dialogue.