A team of researchers at the Institute for Information Technology and Culture (IITC) at Wayne State University has just published the results of a three-year National Science Foundation study of global virtual teams at Ford Motor Company, Procter & Gamble, Motorola, Milliken and Autoliv to determine why so many team members complain that virtual work is so much harder than they expect. Researchers found that, while advances in communication technologies have made virtual teamwork almost commonplace, making such work pay off requires qualitatively different skills than team members have traditionally learned in collocated local offices.

The IITC research team, from the disciplines of anthropology, engineering, psychology, sociology and business, observed virtual teams in action over several months, attending virtual and face-to-face meetings and sharing in team member correspondence via email. They observed sophistication of technology was not a factor in success. Rather, it was the regular communication and how comfortable team members were with the technology, as well as the reliability of the technology, that worked best for the teams. Teams who achieved the greatest business success were those who worked well together and developed a kind of "rhythm" in their interactions and negotiated a "protocol" for using the virtual technologies that were available.

"Technology use and team work processes have to be negotiated at the start of a project, and then remain flexible enough to change as the team's work requirements change," says Julia Gluesing, the principal investigator on the project. "Team members also have to learn about differences in their local work contexts and keep each other informed about changes in local business conditions that could impact the team's work and that other team members may not be aware of. Most team members are not used to doing this explicitly and regularly." This means team members have to learn not only about each other's professional expertise, but they have to consider and explicitly negotiate the differences in local work practices and culture.

To read about the results of the study, get the 2003 Jossey-Bass book, Virtual Teams That Work: Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness.

IITC is developing a workshop on global virtual teaming that will be offered in the fall to businesses and individuals who are interested in learning how to do virtual work more effectively. Anyone wishing to attend can contact IITC to receive workshop details. IITC is a multidisciplinary group of medical and organizational anthropologists, psychologists, engineers, nurses, social workers, computer experts and doctors collaborating to understand the cultural aspects of technology use. For further information on IITC, visit Institute for Information Technology and Culture.

Wayne State University is a premier institution offering more than 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 31,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.