We will look at the 9 most critical success factors for the success of a virtual team.

1. Clear Definition of Success – The first requirement is that the objective, why virtual team is formed should be clearly defined. The measures of success have to be realistic and outlined in a succinct manner. The team leader should develop a project charter complete with the end goal and milestones with realistic timelines which should be easily understood by all the members. This would provide a sense of direction to all the members and guide them in times of uncertainty.

2. Availability of Technology – Organizations should invest to buy and support good electronic and collaboration technological tools. All the team members should have easy access and skills to work with these tools. Both asynchronous tools like emails and synchronous technological tools like videoconferencing, instant messaging should be provided. The technical support should be easily available for members located in different time zones.

3. Selection of Team Members – Individual competencies necessary to perform in a virtual environment should be emphasized while selecting the team members for virtual team. Since the virtual team involves unique challenges and risks, the members require specific knowledge, skills and abilities to work productively and effectively in it. This includes but is not limited to intercultural sensitivity, trustworthiness, self motivation and expertise in using various electronic and collaborative technology tools.

4. Principles of Engagement – One of the biggest drivers to ensure virtual team members are engaged and committed to shared goal is giving them regular feedback. Asking each one of the members to share their opinion will make them feel part of the decision making. Team leaders should regularly send the team progress updates this would ensure all the members are aware of the project status. When every member of the team feels engaged, they will work on their assigned task with the best of their ability.

5. Strong Trust & Social Ties – The knowledge exchange and collaboration required to deliver project tasks are build on the strong foundation of trust and social ties among the virtual team members. When people feel comfortable and confident about each other, they demonstrate constructive individual behavior which positively contributes to the success of virtual teams.

6. Supportive Top Management – The top management of the organization should support the virtual team by giving them the flexibility and freedom. Virtual teams work best in non-bureaucratic and flatter organization structure where decisions are taken faster.

7. Encouraging HR Policies – The HR policies applicable for virtual team should take into account the complexity and challenges associated with the work environment as well as members’ competencies. Fair promotion and career development opportunities should be extended as well as reward and recognition program should appreciate collaborative efforts along with the pre-defined performance metric. Training & Development programs should be made accessible to virtual team members by making use of the ICT tools such as web-based trainings as well as designing training databases.

8. Hand-on & Networked Leadership Style – Leader is the binding force in a virtual team environment. Team members look up to him in any situation. Virtual team leaders should have prior expertise in handling virtual team or at least be provided extensive training to understand its dynamics. He should be adept in providing resources for efficient working by team members, managing conflicts, cross cultural issues as well as keeping the enthusiasm levels high. He should use variety of communication channels to monitor the performance as well as provide prompt feedback and solutions to problems.

9. Positive Internal Branding – Though it is true that organizations recognize virtual teams as a boost to their competitive advantage, but still many employees perceive that working in a virtual environment will hinder their career progression because infrequent face-to-face interactions with supervisors will lower their chances for promotions etc. It is important to design a strong internal communication strategy that changes this perception and presents working in a virtual team environment as a chance to showcase the versatility of the workforce.

Here individual competencies are defined as the knowledge, skills and abilities possessed by an individual to perform his tasks effectively as well as to aid team building.

1. Independent, Self-Motivated and Disciplined – In the global virtual work environment, managers and team members are located at different places, sometimes even in opposite time zones. There is no one to monitor the members on day-to-day basis. To ensure strict adherence to project timelines, the member should be able to create his own daily goals and plans and should be able to stick to his set timelines. The person should have the requisite level of expertise to complete assigned tasks without minimal support.

2. Intercultural Sensitivity – The global virtual teams are spread across cultural boundaries. The person should be aware of the nuances of other cultural traits and should be able to show respect towards them. This would ensure successful interactions as well as formation of trust among the members.

3. Manage Complexity and Uncertainty – Differences in time zones, languages, cultures, nature of tasks and technology-mediated interactions increases the complexity of the work environment. There is also certain level of uncertainty about the roles within the teams, which technology tools to use, delegation of tasks and career growth. All this uncertainty and complexity acts as barrier to trust. One should be able to break the task into milestones, have long-term vision and total compliance to the pre-defined workflow and processes to stay productive in the complex virtual environment.

4. Proactive and Cooperative – The day-to-day monitoring is not an option in the virtual work environment. Like in traditional work teams, in virtual teams one cannot walk over to the adjacent cubicle of the colleague to seek help. The virtual team member should be proactive enough to reach out to the other members to resolve any problem. On the other side, the members should collaborate with other members when they face similar situations. The virtual setting also calls for being proactive in informing virtual team leader about any possible delays and changes.

5. Networking – Virtual work environment leads to social isolation because most of the team interactions are centered on the tasks. Members should build networks within the team by interacting on areas other than work. These would deepen relationships, understand the personalities and make meaningful connections. Social networking tools are best to facilitate such interactions.

6. Competence to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Tools – The person should be able to effectively use variety of ICT to communicate and collaborate with the team members. Various ICT tools are emails, web conferencing, instant messaging etc. The person should be adept at using these tools, present written and verbal information in a logical and coherent manner which should be easily understood by others as well as ability to understand the expressions when communicating with other members.

7. Trustworthiness, Openness and Honesty – In addition to the above mentioned six individual competencies the virtual team member should also be trustworthy and honest in his dealing with others. He should be able to deliver on his promises and should be open about any problems. He should be able to perform his assigned tasks with high levels of integrity such as not sharing the confidential data and using correct information and methods to work.

The understanding of these critical competencies of virtual team members is essential for hiring the right candidates for the job as well as for designing the training programs for the virtual team members. This would ensure virtual teams to be successful and effective in meeting their project milestones.

When members of the team present different viewpoints about a task and positively contribute to decision making, it leads to constructive conflict. Destructive conflict results when group members doubt each other’s intentions behind difference in opinions.

Virtual teams present a very paradoxical situation because on one hand virtual team members are more task-oriented and therefore do not get into any interpersonal issues, while on the other hand, due to the lack of face-to-face interactions, task related conflict transpires into interpersonal/relationship conflicts. This impacts collaborative efforts, hinders productivity and decrease morale.

It is the key responsibility of a virtual team leader to prevent task-related disagreement to devolve into interpersonal conflict. A strong leader who can anticipate team members’ expectations and disagreements acts as the lifeguard when any problem arises.

The first and foremost task is to ensure a strong and well-planned orientation at the time of project initiation. This is the time when ground rules are set, expectation clarified and responsibilities delegated. Good team building activities and icebreakers should also form part of the virtual team orientation session. Members should be encouraged to share their backgrounds, past experiences and other informal information about themselves. This would help members to relate to each other.

Constant flow of communication should be encouraged. Different media can be used to share information and knowledge. Online discussion board in a shared virtual workspace is a great platform for virtual team members to discuss their opinions openly, voice their concerns and connect with each other in a relaxed and casual way. This generates transparency and builds trust among the members. Thus people do not attribute any hidden agenda behind a task related disagreement.

During the course of project, virtual team leader should promote team bonding activities outside work such as a 5 minute small talk session before project meetings etc. Such actions keep the members engaged as well as committed to the common goal. A daily updates from all the members about the four things – work completed, issues/challenges faced, assistance required and next day agenda – goes a long way in avoiding any seeping conflicts.

Virtual team leaders are mainly responsible for dealing with conflicts but a lot of time, effort and energy that goes in resolving the conflicts, can be saved if utmost care is taken during hiring & selection of virtual team members. Hiring people with right attitude along with their technical skills and knowledge is necessary. Right attitude in the context of virtual teams means intercultural competence, tolerance and understanding. This would reduce the situations of interpersonal conflicts among the members.

Another cause of conflicts in virtual teams is lack of non-verbal features of communication including gestures, body language and facial expressions, especially when communication is done through emails. For example, many a times a simple question/query sounds interrogatory and reproachful resulting in negative feelings and misunderstandings. Therefore, as much as possible the problem discussions should be done via videoconferencing and other rich synchronous media.

Thus we see by keeping in mind such simple and inexpensive action steps, virtual team leaders can increase the productivity and commitment of their dispersed work teams.

A typical challenge for working professionals, especially women, is to maintain work life balance with regards to ensuring that neither their family life nor their career suffers because of the other.

In this context, a trend that has been noticeable in the last decade or so has been the aspect of working from home wherein professionals connect through remote access and by using virtual teams by working from home. This gives them the time to devote to their families and take care of kids and other familial matters.

Research has shown that employees are more productive when they work from home as the relative peace with which they work ensures that they devote their best efforts to work. Further, as there are no disturbances in the form of workplace buzz, professionals can focus on work when needed and spend the rest of the time attending to their families.

However, many organizations are yet to evolve a coherent and cohesive working from home policy, which is surprising given the rather obvious benefits of the practice. Apart from that, in recent months, the internet giant Yahoo! has sent out a clear policy that working from home would not be tolerated. Not all these developments augur well for the future of professionals as they seek to maintain the work life balance and ensure that they give their best to their organizations.

The Disadvantages of Working from Home: The Employers’ Perspective

Many organizations point to the fact that employees when they work from home miss important meetings and appointments with other employees as well as other employees being unable to contact them for assistance and help. The point that employers make is that when working in teams, physical presence is as important as employment and hence, the organizations cannot take chances on this front.

Further, many HR professionals point to the fact that when employees work from home, it imposes additional costs on the organizations in terms of home connectivity and other infrastructural aspects, which the organizations have to pay for the employees.

Apart from this, many managers also point to the fact that when employees work from home, there is a knock on effect wherein other employees want to follow suit and this creates a situation that is undesirable from the organizations’ perspective. Finally, many employers also point to the fact that there is no way to keep tabs on the employees’ working hours when they work from home and hence, there is no way of knowing whether the employee is being extra productive or merely postponing work to be done once they return to the workplace.

A Mutually Beneficial Arrangement

Given these advantages and disadvantages, it would be worthwhile to note that it is high time the organizations came up with set policies regarding this practice and ensure that it is a win-win situation for all parties. For instance, employers can permit women to work from home in case of legitimate reasons and at the same time, it can permit all employees to work from home for certain duration every month.

By coordinating the times when the physical presence of employees is not needed at the workplace and letting them work from home during those times, employers can make everyone’s life a lot easier. On their part, employees must understand that by working from home, they are compensating and making up for the lack of physical presence at the workplace by attending all calls (conference calls, virtual meetings, and bridge calls) and by also being available for assistance and help to other employees.

Concluding Thoughts

In this respect, newer technologies offer a way out for the dilemma being faced by employers as the concept of virtual teams and the technologies used to actualize it can work to the benefit of all parties. Finally, both employees and employers have to realize that the employment contract that they are bound to is not violated in any way when the employees work from home.

Members of virtual teams adopt different influence tactics to impact team decisions. Influence tactics adopted by virtual team members affect:

• How decisions are being made
• Execution of strategies and policies
• Team members’ motivation and commitment
• Cooperation and collaboration levels among team members

All this have direct impact on the productivity and effectiveness of global virtual team. Therefore, it is one of the most important responsibilities of virtual team leader to understand as well as manage politics in the virtual workspace.

There are different types of influence tactics such as assertiveness, rational persuasion, consultation, pressure, blocking, upward appeal etc. exhibited by the members during their interactions with others. Following four factors largely determine the intensity and choice of influence tactics by the virtual team members:

1. Limited Familiarity: Since in global virtual teams, members come from different cultures and backgrounds, they experience difficulty in understanding the behavioral norms as well as communication patterns of the members of other cultures. In order to avoid any undesirable situations and misunderstandings, people resort to softer, socially acceptable and more effective influence tactics such as persuasion and consultation.

2. More Task Focus: Unlike collocated teams, using communication technologies members of virtual teams interact in a limited time with discussion more centered on tasks and milestones. This leaves very little time to talk about the social aspects. Due to the lack of informal interactions, members get no time to indulge in any kind of workplace politics.

3. Less Team Involvement: The members of virtual teams are less involved at emotional level. Therefore, they do not put in much effort to influence each other and find internal politics unattractive.

Thus we see virtual teams witness less intense and interpersonal means of influencing rather than unhealthy competitive ones. An exception to this rule occurs when members of same geographical area form coalition and hold discussion outside the formal group interactions.

Though virtual team members experience politics but in a comparatively subtle way. In fact, virtual team leaders can minimize any signs of politics by establishing flatter hierarchy and promoting cultural sensitivity. Thus we see the basic characteristics of global virtual teams like multicultural, physical distance and constrained communication keep the emergence of team politics under control.

For the success of virtual team, it is vital to burst these myths and present an actual picture to the managers.

In this article we will look in greater details at what these myths are, what is the reality and what needs to be done to bridge the gap or bring about the change in the mindset of the managers.

• Myth 1 – Virtual Teams are just like Traditional Teams

  Many organizations put managers who were earlier managing traditional or co-located teams in charge of virtual teams. Considering their past success no formal training is provided. These managers continue to act in the same manner with their new team without understanding the demands of the new role.

  Reality – The challenges posed by virtual teams are very different from that of the traditional teams. Considering the differences in physical space, culture and time zone, the dynamics of virtual teams are unique. Thus managing virtual teams is an altogether different ball game. For example, if you are sitting in the same office it is easier to monitor the activities of your team members, but think about how you would do it if he is sitting in another continent.

• Myth 2 – The success of virtual teams is solely dependent on how skilled your members are

  Many managers go little over-board in their desire to hire best global talent when selecting members for a virtual team. For them virtual team members are like machines or robots who would only be task-focused. Hence the better their skill sets, they will show better performance – this is the underlying hiring philosophy of the virtual team managers.

  Reality – Lot of those who have managed virtual teams would have experienced the inability of a best skilled member to deliver expected results. This is direct evidence to the fact that for an effective performance, an individual requires more than functional skills. Many highly skilled people succumb to the pressure of social isolation while some average skilled people are better off. Thus it is important to balance the two set of requirements – functional skills and attitude to work in virtual environment.

• Myth 3 – The Success of Virtual Team is driven by Technology

  Large number of managers gives very high weight age to the technology for the success of virtual teams. For them driving a virtual team is all about using technological tools like web-conferencing to communicate and collaborate. The more advanced the tool, the more confident they will be about managing their virtual teams

  Reality – In reality, technology is only to assist the functioning of the virtual teams. How a virtual team functions is largely dependent on the human side of the coin – the amount of trust, collaboration and knowledge sharing members enjoy has far greater impact on the success of virtual team.

• Myth 4 – There is no need to pay Attention to the Career Progression of a virtual member

  This is a prevalent side effect of being a virtual team member, experienced by many. Generally managers find it difficult to use the same lens to appraise the performance of a virtual team member as that of the co-located one. Still, visibility to the leaders is considered as a plus when it comes to promotions, appraisal ratings etc.

  Reality – Focus on the career development of virtual team members is vital to the current and future success of virtual teams. It keeps the members motivated as well as sets right example for others to perform. By sidelining the career growth of those working in virtual setting, you send a wrong message to others that you do not value virtual teams. And, they would, in all possibility avoid any opportunity to work in virtual team.

• Myth 5 – Laissez-Faire Leadership Style works best for Virtual Teams

  Many managers feel that virtual teams are independent and self-reliant. They function best when left on their own. Hence they adopt a laissez-faire or hands-off leadership style. Managers would assign the roles and responsibilities to each member and leave them to deliver on expectations.

  Reality – This is one situation where laissez-faire leadership style will cause more harm than benefits. Managing virtual team demands lot of communicating, expectation-setting and problem solving to ensure the project does not miss the deadlines.

• Myth 6 – Creativity is not possible in Virtual Team Environment

  Managers find it difficult to get all the virtual team members to brainstorm at one place and time. This creates a mindset that virtual team members should focus only on the task at hand and cannot contribute much in the new idea generation sessions

  Reality – This is the biggest paradoxical notion of a virtual team manager that can discourage him to build on the strength of his virtual team. The first virtual teams ever formed were actually for new product development. The virtual environment brings together the diversity in opinions and thoughts, which is an important cornerstone of innovation. The fact that members are not present at one place let them put forth their ideas much freely.

• Myth 7 – Networking is not important in Virtual Team Environment

  Networking especially social networking is not given due importance. Since the gestures and expressions cannot be read in a virtual environment, managers as well as team members keep their discussions largely task-focused and no informal talks are done. The usual over-the-coffee chat sessions cannot be replicated; it leaves very little room for building out-of-work relationships among virtual team members.

  Reality – But in reality, it is important to form strong ties among virtual team members to build trust, which is crucial to the virtual team success. In order to meet expectations and collaborate, it is necessary to understand the culture and personalities of other members. This can only be done through informal interactions.

Conclusion

Thus we distil how some of the widespread notions about the virtual teams actually do not hold any ground in reality. To ensure success of virtual teams two things are required.

1. First managers should change the lens through which they look at the virtual teams and accept that they are different from traditional teams.

2. Second, appropriate training has to be imparted to provide managers with necessary tools to achieve desired results.

With the growing sophistication in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), many organizations are exploring the virtual platform to bring together the diverse talents and expertise, available across the globe to build world-class teams.

Quite simply, a team is a group of individuals working together to achieve a common pre-defined goal. While the traditional teams, also known as conventional or co-located or collocated teams, consist of individuals working in physical proximity, the virtual teams refers to a group of individuals who are separated by physical distance but are united by a shared goal.

Generally, the virtual teams consist of talent across geographies, cultures and time zones. The interactions among the members of a virtual team are mediated by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools.

Though both traditional and virtual teams go through the five stages of Bruce Tuckman’s model of team development but the dynamics experienced by the members of virtual teams are more complex. This is largely due to the fact that members of virtual team rely solely on electronic communication and collaboration technology to facilitate interactions among them. Also the cultural boundaries and time zones differences add to its complex nature.

For a virtual team the challenges experienced by a traditional team increases manifold. Some of the key differences between traditional and virtual teams are as following;

• Selection of Team Members – In case of traditional teams, members are largely selected based on their functional skills. But performing in a virtual team environment is not easy for everyone.

  Lack of face-to-face interactions and social focus in a virtual setting might lead to isolation and loneliness. It calls for managing ambiguity, proactive networking, exceptional time management and work discipline, ability to learn new technologies, and the ability to collaborate across functional and cultural boundaries. So, in the selection of a virtual team member, there is a need to look into these core competencies in addition to the basic functional skills.

• Organization Structure – Compared to the traditional teams, virtual teams support flatter organization structure with dim lines of authorities and hierarchies. This is required to survive in hypercompetitive market, deliver results faster and encourage creativity – which are actually the primary objectives for forming a virtual team.

• Leadership Style – In virtual team setting, managers cannot physically control the day-to-day activities and monitor each team members’ activities, therefore they need to delegate little more as compared to traditional teams. The command and control leadership style of yester years is giving way to the more democratic and coaching style of today.

• Knowledge Exchange & Decision-taking – Many a times in traditional teams, information is being exchanged during informal discussions. But in case of virtual teams, members have a very limited or no informal access to the information. Hence there is a need for more frequent updates on project status and building a shared database to provide all the important information to the team.

  Considering the time zone differences in global virtual teams, it becomes difficult to schedule meetings. Thus in case of virtual teams many a times delay occurs in fixing a problem or reaching a consensus, whereas in traditional teams a meeting can be called at any time of the day when all the members are present together in the office, resulting quick decisions and problem solving.

• Relationship Building – When traditional team members meet in the workplace every day they tend to develop close social ties with each other. They strike rapport with each other when they interact face-to-face.

  In the virtual team the interactions are tend to be more task-focused. Further, lack of verbal cues and gestures in virtual setting does not allow any scope for personal touch in the communication.

• Psychological Contract – The foundation of psychological contract is more fragile in the virtual environment. Smaller instances of misunderstanding or gaps in communication result in violation of the psychological contract which has negative effects on the team’s effectiveness.

  Virtual teams also experience difficulties in building trust, cohesion and commitment among its members.

Considering the challenges posed by the virtual teams, it is necessary to pay special attention to the communication, collaboration and cultural issues.

Organizations should follow a distinct management approach which focuses on building trust and cohesion amongst the virtual team members to harness the advantages of a successful virtual team.

Advantages of Virtual Teams

• Cost savings – The biggest advantage of virtual team enjoyed by an organization is the associated cost savings. The organization can do away with huge expenses on real estate, office spaces, utilities bills such as gas, electricity, water etc. and executives’ travel. Many organizations outsource their operations to the low-cost regions. Thus production cost also decreases with the reduced raw material cost, operational costs and lower wages of the employees in these geographic locations.

• Leverage Global Talent – Virtual Teams allows organizations to look for talent beyond their country of origin. This brings together the experts and specialists from across the globe to work together on the project. Increased knowledge sharing and greater innovation happens as organization’s human capital share their understanding of global and local markets as well as best business practices.

• Increased Productivity & Higher Profits – Members of virtual teams tend to have higher focus on the task at hand. As a practice virtual team supports flatter organization structure. The members do not have to deal with unnecessary bureaucracy which slows down the decision making. This enhances the productivity which shows as higher profits.

• Reduced Time to Market – Since the members span the time zones, there could be different team working on the same project 24*7, so when one member sleeps there will be another one somewhere else who would start work where the former had left. This shortens the product development time as well as faster response time to demands in both global and local markets.

• Newer Opportunities – If we see at larger societal level, virtual teams have created newer opportunities for people who are less mobile and hesitant to relocate due to either family requirement or physical challenge. Now any task that does not require the physical presence of a person and which can be supported by communication technology throws an opportunity for many deserving candidates.

Disadvantages of Virtual Teams

• Cost of Technology – The successful working of virtual team is supported by the efficient use of multiple communication technologies such as instant messaging, emails and video-conferencing, among others. No one tool can provide the complete support. The cost associated with these installation and maintenance tools is little on the higher side.

• Conflicts, Lack of Trust & Collaboration – The cultural differences between the members of virtual teams gives rise to number of conflicts. For example, while an American would write a straightforward email describing a bad situation, this would be perceived as impolite by a South Asian (say Japanese) member of the team. This would lead to conflicts, mistrust and difficulties in fruitful collaboration which is so vital for the success of virtual team functioning. These challenges are also precipitated by the absence of non-verbal cues so intrinsic to face-to-face interactions.

• Social Isolation – Many members of virtual teams are adversely affected by the lack of physical interactions. Most of the communications in virtual environment is task-oriented. In today’s society where job is an important social force for most of us because many of our workplace colleagues also constitute our close friends, this gives a not-so-good feeling of social isolation. This in turn counter-effects productivity as well as leads to stress.

All these disadvantages can be overcome by following a different leadership/managerial approach, trainings, greater role clarity and effective communication strategies. Organization both big ones such as IBM, Microsoft, Whirlpool as well as SMEs are reaping the benefits of virtual teams for some time now. It has been a well-recognized fact that Virtual Team is not a passing tide but it is here to stay.

For an effective virtual team, role coordination is very important. Role coordination is defined as managing the interdependent tasks of virtual team members. Role coordination among the members of a virtual team is a challenge because of the following three main reasons:

• Virtual teams support flatter organization structure. Due to this lack of traditional hierarchies, it becomes difficult for reinforce the reporting levels.
• Virtual project teams are formed for a short duration of time and the membership is also fluid. The resultant evolving structure of virtual teams leads to role ambiguity among its members.
• Difficulty in managing interdependent tasks due to time zone differences and cultural influences.

Role Theory as its focal point, this article aims to look at the different roles played by virtual team members and how virtual teams should achieve effective role coordination among its members.

Role in the context of a team is defined as the part played or expected to be played by an individual member. According to the Role Theory, the actions of each individual are guided by his place in social structure. Every member expects a set of behaviors from themselves and others in this social setting. Here we need to realize that in a group, each individual exhibits two types of behaviors – task-related as well as socio-emotional behaviors.

In a virtual team, members play three types of roles:

• Task-oriented or Functional Roles are the ones which enable a team to achieve its project objectives, the reason why it was formed in first place. This is generally related to their expertise in a field such as a product design engineer, business analyst, project manager etc.

• Socio-emotional roles are the ones which help the team to build trust, collaborate and work effectively towards it common goal. These are generally taken up by members informally owing to their preferences and personalities. For example some members are able to motivate others, resolve conflicts or help release tension.

• Individual roles are the ones that are related to the personal needs of a team member such as desire for recognition or control. These are considered to have adverse effects on trust and collaboration.

Global virtual teams rely on ICT tools for any form of interactions among its members. The members can use various ICT tools for three levels of communication.

• Impersonal communication involves minimal level of interactions and is concerned with pre-determined tasks or actions which each member has to perform. This is usually done through pre-established formal action plans and procedures.

• Personal communication involves one-on-one dialogue between two members of the team. This is accomplished using vertical and horizontal communication channels.

• Group communication involves interactions among all the members of the team. This makes use of the team meetings using webinars, videoconferencing etc.

Thus we see that in order to ensure successful collaboration and knowledge sharing among virtual team members, it is important for every member to efficiently perform the task-oriented and socio-emotional roles and avoid negative individual roles. The virtual team leader should reduce role ambiguity by clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of each member as well as improve role coordination by providing effective communication mechanisms in place and encouraging communication at all the three levels.

1. Networked Teams are generally geographically dispersed and may have members from outside the organization. Many a times these are composed of cross-functional members who are brought together to share their expertise and knowledge on a specific issue or topic. Membership is fluid that is to say, new members are added as and when necessary and existing members are removed whenever their role is completed.

   The lifespan of a networked virtual team depends on how much time it takes to resolve the issue. The networked teams dissolve with the completion of assigned task. Networked teams are widely used in consulting firms and technology companies. However large a consulting firm may be it cannot have adequate resources to meet all its clients need. Therefore most of the consulting firms depend on other external networks to provide quality services to their clients.

   For example, Richard Maclean & Associates, an environmental, health and safety (EHS) management consulting firm located in Arizona serving both domestic and international clients relies on other academic and government research organizations like Center for Environmental Innovation, Air and Waste Management Association, Meridian Institute, to name a few to stay competitive at a low cost.

2. Parallel Teams are generally formed by members of the same organization. While delivering on their primary assigned role in the organization, they take added parallel responsibility, hence the term parallel team. Generally this team is formed to review a process or a problem at hand and make recommendations.

   Unlike networked teams, these have constant membership which remains intact till the desired objective is achieved. These are generally formed for short span of time. These are very effective in multinational organizations where a global perspective is needed.

   For example, many consumer goods companies team up their sales, marketing, manufacturing and R&D professionals working at different locations into parallel virtual teams to make recommendations for the local adaptation of their product specifications.

3. Project or Product Development Teams are the classic virtual teams which were developed as early as 1990s. These were actually the pioneer in the development of virtual teams.

   The project or product development virtual teams are composed of subject matter experts brought together from different parts of the globe to perform a clearly outlined task involving development of a new product, information system or organizational process, with specific and measurable deliverables.

   For example Whirlpool brought together a team of experts from United States, Brazil and Italy for a period of 2 years to develop a chlorofluorocarbon-free refrigerator. Like network teams their membership is also fluid but unlike parallel teams, these can take decisions and not just recommendations. These are typically found in R&D division of the product-based companies.

4. Work, Production or Functional Teams are formed when members of one role come together to perform single type of ongoing day-to-day work. Here members have clearly defined role and work independently. All of the members’ work combine together to give the end solution. For example, in order to reduce cost many organizations are outsourcing their backend HR operations or even for that matter the recruitment agencies form functional virtual teams for their clients.

5. Service Teams – Have you ever wondered how organizations like Vodafone, Make My Trip etc are able to provide customer support 24*7? This has been made possible by the service virtual teams.

   Service virtual teams have members across difference time zones therefore when one member in Asia goes to sleep, the other member in America wakes up to answer your queries. This is the basic model of service teams which are formed of members spread across widely distinct geographic locations and though each member works independently but they together perform work in continuation. It is like relay race where one takes baton from the other and run the race. These are effective as technical and customer support teams.

6. Action Teams are actually ad-hoc teams formed for a very short duration of time. Members of action team are brought together to provide immediate response to a problem and they disperse as soon s the problem is resolved.

   NASA forms a virtual action team consisting of leaders sitting in NASA headquarters in Houston, astronauts in space shuttle, engineers & scientists in different locations across the globe for a successful space mission.

7. Management Teams are formed by managers of an organization who works from different cities or countries. These members largely get together to discuss corporate level strategies and activities. These are applicable to almost organizations which has office in more than one location.

8. Offshore ISD Teams – Many companies subcontract or outsource portions of their software development work to a low-cost global location like India, Philippines etc. The team based out of this low-cost location is called offshore team which coordinates and collaborates with onshore team i.e. the main team of the company to deliver results. This model is applicable to software development and outsourcing organizations.