A recent MIT Sloan Management Review has published a research article on How to Manage Virtual Teams (registration is required). The research highlights the fact that virtual teams, despite their challenges, can deliver significant performance and outperform their colocated counterparts. The article also points out that any distance can be a challenge when it comes to collaboration.

Don’t underestimate the significance of small distances. Our research shows that performance is noticeably lower for teams with people located in the same building but on different floors when compared with teams where all members are on the same floor.

Their research was focused on two areas: (1) When do virtual teams outperform colocated ones? and (2) how should companies manage dispersed teams? They identified that task-related team processes, including those that help coordinate work and ensure that each member is contributing fully, are most critical for the performance of dispersed teams. In addition, their research highlights the importance of promoting and emphasizing:

• Teamwork skills
• Self-leadership across the team
• Face-to-face meetings
• Global culture

In the past I wrote about my experiences in managing virtual teams, and best practices that worked for me when building high-performance teams regardless of spatial (geographical location), temporal (spanning different time zones), configurationally uneven (number of members differ) and culturally diverse separations. Below are the articles. Enjoy!

• 8 Rules for Building Globally Dispersed High Performance Teams
• Wisdom from the trenches: Managing geographically dispersed teams

Technorati Tags: managing virtual teams, MIT Sloan Management Review

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