Shawnee Love   •  
September 16, 2011

There is a lot of talk around management water coolers about virtual teams lately.  Supporters tout the reduced office space requirements, minimized commutes, and flexibility for the employees. Detractors cite gradual disengagement due to lack of communication and face to face contact, potential for abuse, limited creative and brainstorming potential, and the challenges of managing people who are all over the place.

There is no question that some of those challenges do exist for virtual teams, but they are not insurmountable and in my experience, the company that offers flexibility in working location and working hours to the extent possible, is far more likely to find and keep great people.

There are some situations where virtual doesn’t work.  For example, a virtual key holder is a non starter. I once had a receptionist whose most important responsibility (because no one else could consistently be counted on to do it) was to open the doors in the morning, and lock them again at the end of the day. His role could not be done virtually. Virtual cash counter or inventory counter don’t work either. Obviously, you can’t have a virtual manufacturing position unless the position is pounding out software code, and virtual gardeners don’t work either.

I am also not a fan of virtual brainstorming sessions. They can work, but there is something about people around a table bouncing ideas and feeding off of each others’ energy and offhand, crazy ideas that really gets the creative juices flowing.  If brainstorming and a creative team process are involved, hold those activities around a table, not in the cloud.

Where virtual works awesome is on teams of people with different responsibilities, tasks, and/or deliverables (whether they are linked together or related or not).  In this situation, each person is accountable for his own area and they link together virtually whenever other input, support or hand off is required. I have also seen virtual work fantastic when you want to operate 24-7, so you can rotate the work through teams across different time zones.  It requires a really good information sharing system to ensure the handoffs are seamless, but can be extremely efficient if done well.

Do you have any examples of jobs, teams or companies that work well virtually?

Come back next week when I will talk more about the critical success factors for virtual teams.