Sponsor Support, Early Communication Critical to Virtual Project Teams

Researchers followed six virtual project teams from start to finish. A major food-service firm created the teams to help with various aspects of its effort to merge with several recently acquired companies, and the researchers were allowed to survey and interview members throughout the teams' entire eight-month life cycles. Though primarily virtual, the teams met face-to-face at four times roughly corresponding to the oft-quoted stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. At the end, team performance was judged by a panel of the company's top executives and the teams' program administrators on the quality of the teams' analyses, recommendations, and final presentations.

In the Forming stage, the teams reported no differences in their commitment to and availability for the project, or in their confidence the goals could be met. One typical comment was, "'I believe we have a great team and will work well together. We all understand the importance of the project and intend to take it seriously.'"

Two months later some of the teams were Storming. Problem issues included "establishing leadership roles, setting direction, coordinating work, and building commitment to the task." Lack of support from team project sponsors and the failure or inability of members to dedicate significant time to the project were major factors. Comments included:

• "'Team members' day-to-day tasks are being used as an excuse to avoid doing the project.'
• "'Out of 5 (conference) calls there has not been perfect attendance yet.'"

About halfway through the projects, "most teams recognized the need for reaching agreement on how they would operate going forward"—for Norming, in other words. "Teams also expressed some regret about their initial passivity, lack of initiative, and delays in collecting information." There now were big differences among the teams in their opinions of their "levels of trust, sponsor support, and team performance." Note that teams saying they were making progress at this stage had reported higher levels of communication, knowledge sharing, commitment, and accountability for assigned tasks during the Storming phase. Quotes included:

• "'Virtual teaming is something that requires discipline.'"
• "'We need to develop a sense of urgency.'"
• "'We really need to communicate each team member's responsibilities.'"

However, by the Norming phase, it was too late to effect final performance. Ratings by the evaluators at the end of the project were not related to how the teams differed by the Norming phase: the damage was done earlier. Teams that had "greater mission clarity, more time to examine work process effectiveness, and higher perceived levels of sponsor support" in earlier phases did better in the final analysis.

The authors provide a laundry list of "interventions" they recommend virtual team managers implement, broken out by phase:

• Forming
• • Realistic previews of virtual teaming
  • Coaching by members experienced with virtual teaming
  • "Develop a clear mission"
  • "Acquire senior manager support"
• Storming
• • "Face-to-face team building sessions"
  • "Training on conflict resolution"
  • "Shuttle diplomacy and mediation to create compromise solutions"
• Norming
• • "Create…team charters specifying task requirements"
  • Schedule and assign project tasks
  • Establish procedures sharing information and context (external workloads, emotional states, etc.)
  • Assign a team coach
• Performing
• • Ensure cultural support for virtual teaming
  • "Provide sponsor support and resources…"

Team members, too, had some advice for virtual teams:

• "Start early, meet often, and hold each other accountable to timelines and workloads."
• "Find out what each person's strengths are…"
• Talk "at least every other week" (editor's note: as a team, I believe).
• "Set firm deadlines."

Source: Furst, S., et al. (04), "Managing the Life Cycle of Virtual Teams," Academy of Management Executive 18(2):6.