Customer Reviews

Working Virtually: Challenges Of Virtual Teams

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In case you are wondering, this book is no puff piece for Hewlett Packard, though all three authors hail from it. Instead, they present cogent explanations of why and how you might have a virtual team in your company. A common reason is to reduce expenses. As offshoring continues, it might make sense to have some members be from and in a country like India or China. Plus, having a project being worked on 24 hours a day can mean a quicker time to market. And that can be more important than the salary savings.

The authors point out many practical problems that can arise when you try having a virtual team. All these might be resolvable. But that is by no means guaranteed. The book's suggestions do offer aid, that may be germane to your company.

Working Virtually: Challenges of Virtual Teams
Editor: Robert Jones et al.

As I read this book, I became aware of the need for the federal government (I work for the U.S. Department of State) to get behind the ideas espoused here. The federal government, with its 2.7 million employees worldwide, could achieve cost savings in the billions of dollars by adopting and implementing the virtual work concepts described in Working Virtually. It is time that the feds. came to realize what many corporate entities
already know: that with a phone, fax and computer, many thousands of federal employees are able to do their job anywhere. Calamities such as 9/11 and natural and health disasters such as Katrina and avian flu and the rapidly growing cost of gasoline make being able to work virtually a critical issue. And as baby-boomers retire, it will be essential for federal agencies to offer working virtually as a recruitment tool or risk losing the best candidates to the private sector.

I read with special interest Chapter XIV about where an organization lies on the virtual team continuum. The problem in most federal agencies is that the managers are not comfortable with the concept of working virtually or are concerned that employees who work at home may be less productive. But if management is to address its other considerations: productive and satisfied workers, environmental issues such as reduced traffic congestion and improved air quality, and quality of life considerations such as accommodating the short- or long-term health needs of employees, it is essential that virtual work programs be made available to the majority of government workers.

Currently, there is a federal mandate requiring several of the largest fed agencies to demonstrate a greater commitment to expanding telecommuting options for their workers or risk losing a percentage of their operating budget. Working Virtually should be used as a primer for all government officials looking for ways to reduce their organization's operating costs. There have been many studies done that show the benefits of working virtually, including happier and more productive employees, reduced traffic, environmental savings and business continuity-related benefits. The government should be leading the way when it comes to working virtually, since there would be a payoff to all of us in the form of reduced operating budget costs of running the government.

Like it or not, working in virtual teams or organizations is becoming increasingly common for knowledge workers throughout the global economy. This book offers ideas, examples, and practical techniques for making virtual work more productive and more enjoyable for everyone.

It should be especially valuable for team leaders and managers who find themselves working increasingly, and perhaps somewhat reluctantly, with geographically distributed groups of people. The authors fill the book with practical examples from their own virtual work experiences. While recognizing the value of technological enablers, they also emphasize the critical importance of such intangible factors as building trust and operating within a supportive corporate culture.

It is obvious that the authors had pretty sound experience managing and working in virtual teams, but the book would benefit immensely if at least some arguments were based on scientific research.

For example, one of the major points the authors are trying to make is that face-to-face meetings are not critical for virtual team's performance--they actually claim that the book itself was written virtually, with three authors never meeting face-to-face. It tells: the argument is delivered by the authors lacking both credibility and consistency.

Authors start off the introduction expressing a strong opinion--merely an opinion, no research to support it--that face-to-face meetings are needless waste of time and money. Then, nearer to the middle of the book, they express some reservations and limitations to that claim. And then in the second half of the book they provide a transcript of an interview with another virtual team manager that expresses an opinion to the contrary, with a list of things he would only do face-to-face! Only in the last sentences of the book the authors finally refer to one piece of research dealing with face-to-face interaction, which would be much better placed in the introduction.

Only if you are really keen, you will dig up the truly reasonable thought on the subject, hidden deep in the discussion, away from the highlights and summaries: "If it is new and we haven't done it before and it requires creative thinking and needs full engagement, you need face-to-face. If you are already up and running, you can get as much out of the remote team." (Page 154 of the hardcover edition.)

In the beginning of the book, the authors describe the concept of "divide and conquer" as an approach to managing the virtual work. It seems the authors did exactly the same with the book. They approached writing it as a pre-defined project as opposed to exploring uncharted waters, which writing a good book should be. They assumed they had all the knowledge they needed when they embarked on the project--a very immodest assumption.

It is good that the book is based on experience--I did pick up some interesting ideas for my virtual team. In particular, team building exercises run in virtual environment, feel like a fresh one. Most observations are valid, but lack of bibliography does not exactly make them original. Truly original observations, even though they are there, are not given enough attention (face-to-face brainstorming, some may argue) to be developed into solid arguments.

Index of terms in harcover edition is useless: the terms just aren't on the page quoted in the Index.