The team must develop a system for sharing information so that nothing relevant to solving the problem is lost" (p. 360). This level of collaboration can be challenging even with traditional teams, though, but Roebuck et al. emphasize that what may appear irrelevant to one team member may be the key to achieving the team's goals. Therefore, it is important for team members to become accustomed to sharing as much information with each other as possible so that a cohesive whole can be created from the disparate pieces. While this level of knowledge sharing may appear to be unnecessary, Roebuck et al. suggest that this is one of the most important elements in creating an effective virtual team. (Roebuck et al., 2004).
Addressing the Challenges of Virtual Team
While the challenges are significant, they can be resolved in part through the use of the tools and technology that characterize most virtual teams today. For example, most virtual teams depend on communication and information technologies, including organizational intranets, team conference calls, e-mail exchanges, video conferencing, and groupware applications to provide the collaborative forum for information sharing (Kerber & Buono, 2004). In addition, many virtual team members still meet on a face-to-face basis from time to help iron out any problems they may be experiencing and to help forge improved relationships and levels of trust ( (Kerber & Buono, 2004).
Other ways that can be used to help overcome the challenges associated with virtual teams include the following:
1. Teams need to establish ground rules to help the team members interact and determine what kind of behavior is expected. These ground rules will assist in preventing misunderstandings and disagreements.
2. Team members should determine some criteria for virtual dialogue, such as when to check e-mail and how often to respond to e-mail messages. The team should also set up how to exchange documents from meetings and when to hold mandatory meetings.
3. Standing behind the team and all of its members is vital to the trust relationship. Responses need to be given to all members of the team in the same amount of time. This builds integrity within the team by ensuring that no one believes that he or she is being left out or ignored by other team members. This also allows everyone to check and correspond with each other if any controversial items come up.
4. It is important to know other team members on a personal as well as professional level to understand...
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