You're managing a virtual team. How can you build a cohesive and productive group?

I have found that one of the most important things is to actually ask your team members what they need. Never assume. If it comes from them, you will get better buying to whatever you decide to do going forward.

Aside from clear goal setting, communication of the said goals using the right tools: it is also important to clearly communicate your role as an individual contributor. Often times ambiguity as to what's expected from the leader, can create gaps impacting productivity.

I have found that communicating tasks and goals is key to a virtual team being successful. Many times in virtual teams you have members in different time zones and/or working on multiple projects so communication can be delayed. Using a tool such as an action board allows team members to understand their assigned tasks and move on to new tasks without having to wait for a response. I believe that team members come to work to be productive and a large part of dissatisfaction at work comes from feeling unproductive. So providing team members a way to control their productivity during their day increases satisfaction, and my experience has shown me that this is key to the success in a virtual workplace.

When building a cohesive and productive virtual team you need to set clear goals and expectations of this team. Since this team is virtual it’s important to understand that goals and expectations must be a priority. The reason for this is because of the environment being virtual it’s very easy to get the goals and expectations a bit off. This is because there is no one technically there to watch you on a day to day so the expectations will need to be clear,expected and followed.

Besonders wichtig ist hier die Vision. Diese sollte permanent pr?sent sein und jedem absolut klar sein, sie sollte klar kommuniziert werden und dazu eingesetzt werden, das gesamte Team, auch auf Distanz, in die gleiche Marschrichtung zu drehen. Ich empfehle dabei, die Vision immer wieder als Filter für Entscheidungen heranzuziehen und somit fest in den Alltag zu verankern, alles, was nicht der Vision dient, wird nicht umgesetzt. Erst wenn das so richtig im normalen Alltag vorkommt, wird die Vision jedem absolut klar sein und die Gesamtrichtung für das Team für jeden eindeutig sein.

We have found platforms like MS Teams to be extremely useful. Setting up a communication and resource hub make it easier for anyone in the group to get answers quickly and efficiently. It also encourages group participation. When participating in meetings, where possible keep the cameras on, it helps to build rapport and trust. Even when not as good as in person, it help with communication ques through body language, which are difficult to pick up on voice alone.

The key here is identifying a tool that will reduce or minimize the effort required by your team. In my experience redundancy is a contributing factor to team member frustration, so providing your team members a "one-stop-shop" tool will help to alleviate frustration. I have found some success using Trello for assigning project management tasks because I am able to assign attach documents and have two-way communication through Trello.

It can be unimaginably frustrating to not have the right tools for the job. While being in the fire service allowed me the opportunity to dig deep to find ways to improvise when needed, it was always crises that precipitated that need. In a regular job, this shouldn’t be the case. Ensure you are putting yourself in the same shoes your employees are walking in to understand what they’re dealing with - whether it’s longer call times because of slow systems or CRM platforms that aren’t collecting the right data. You should know what’s happening in the trenches and facilitate better practices for the benefit of the people who use those systems most often.

When building a cohesive and productive virtual team you need to most importantly have and sustain trust and rapport. Without trust and rapport you ultimately will have nothing as a team and a team that doesn’t produce. When you build trust in your team you know your team . You have a rapport so you can identify if something is off with any member of your team and they will come to you. Without having trust or rapport when the team encounters difficult situations there will be confusion, conflict and potential chaos.

In my experience, when managing a virtual team, trust and rapport are important, Team members must trust one another to do the right thing. The trust will be built over time. However, there must be ground rules and guidelines. It must be clear to the members of the team that there will be no micromanagement however, there will also be consequences for misconduct. Also, as a team lead, it is better to know your team members outside of this, this helps build better rapport. No matter how busy your schedule of work may be, create a virtual hangout.

I’ve recently found that demonstrating trust by encouragement and truly letting go and having others develop their own methods that work for them can really bring out sides that you, and even they may not have known they had and that seeing their confidence level rise because of what they achieve is rewarding on levels for all involved.

You need to deliberately create projects where they have to work together. For instance, instead of giving the whole project to one person, break it down and give it to different people to work on in such a way that they have to either email or call each other to move forward. That way, your prompt them to collaborate, which makes them start to know each other and learn how to work well together.

When building a cohesive and productive virtual team it is also really important to encourage collaboration and innovation. With a virtual team you will ned to think out the box when it comes to the team and build a cohesiveness . Having a complete virtual team is very different but having team members to collaborate as much as possible will help the cohesion on the team by weigh of having them to spend some time with each other on projects that requires multiple members to work on it. This will open the door for innovation but it has to start will collaboration .

When building a cohesive and productive virtual team it’s also really important to encourage collaboration and innovation. With a virtual team you will ned to think out the box when it comes to the team and build a cohesiveness . Having a complete virtual team is very different but having team members to collaborate as much as possible will help the cohesion on the team by weigh of having them to spend some time with each other on projects that requires multiple members to work on it. This will open the door for innovation but it has to start will collaboration .

Collaboration has shown fantastic results, allowing teams to collaborate breeds innovative and creative solutions. This leads to teams that are alot more productive and what we find is that projects are more easily completed and fairly distributed due to teams understanding each other's strengths and weaknesses.

I have found in any environment of change and development Equal and Appropriate Measures of Responsibility and Authority must be distributed to All, Based upon the readiness level of each of the individual contributors.

- Do a shadow day. Follow each member of your team once in a while in details on their daily routines. This will help to understand not just their gaps, but what to eliminate from their routine to be more productive. - create standards in work places to ensure the accountability and efficiency of work given. - make sure they understand what is priorities and explain the why’s behind it. - create a culture and environment for anyone to challenge the status quo’s.