Critical Success Factors for Virtual Teams
February 12, 2025
Is it easier to drive through change in family owned businesses or professionally run companies? This is a question that is uppermost on most management experts’ minds as change in any organization is hard to achieve and if there are barriers that are institutional or structural then it becomes harder to drive through change. For […]
Communication is a process of exchanging verbal and non verbal messages. It is a continuous process. Pre-requisite of communication is a message. This message must be conveyed through some medium to the recipient. It is essential that this message must be understood by the recipient in same terms as intended by the sender. He must […]
Crisis refer to unplanned events which cause harm to the organization and lead to disturbances and major unrest amongst the employees. Crisis gives rise to a feeling of fear and threat in the individuals who eventually lose interest and trust in the organization. Crisis Management Model Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt proposed a Crisis Management Model which […]
Communication is neither the transmission of a message nor the message itself. It is the mutual exchange of understanding, originating with the receiver. Communication needs to be effective in business. Communication is the essence of management. The basic functions of management (Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing and Controlling) cannot be performed well without effective communication. Business […]
Group of individuals working together for a common objective form a team. Teams are generally formed to accomplish complicated and difficult tasks. All individuals come together on a common platform and strive hard to achieve the set objective. When individuals work as a single unit towards a common predefined goal, a team is formed. Not […]
The early phase of development of a virtual team is crucial for its success. Just like the foundation defines the strength of the building, the steps involved in establishing a virtual team goes a long way in contributing to its successful functioning in later stages. The two basic questions give skeleton to this phase - ‘what does the team stands for’ and ‘how will the team achieve its goal’. This article aims to evaluate this in greater details and provide practical insights to the team leaders who have been given the task to set up a virtual team.
So we start with first finding answer to the question of ‘what does the team stands for’. This involves creating a unique identity for the team with which all the team members can relate to.
The second phase involves answering the question of ‘how will the team achieve its goal’. This involves action planning to align the team on how to meet their assigned tasks effectively. A well-defined and understood action plan sets the team in motion guiding them in right direction.
Once both the phases are complete it is best to launch the virtual team with a kick-off or introductory meeting. All the team members should be involved and the use of real-time media is most suitable for this purpose. All the documents such as team directory, process flow, task interdependencies, media plan etc should be made available to all the members. This meeting should involve a brief introduction of each member and their background, an ice-breaker or team building session, explaining the context of the team in the organization and setting the ground rules with the help of above documents. Before closing the kick-off meeting, do a quick review of expectations, make sure that all members can access the project web portal and meet IT security requirements, if any, and set up the tentative schedule for next meeting.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *