Virtual Teams

"Today's trend is tomorrow's reality: In the coming decades, most people will work in virtual teams for at least some part of their jobs."

"Three words capture the essence of successful virtual teams: -> People -> Purpose -> Links."

"Virtual teams are not a fad. They are the future."

"The feedback loop between task definition and appropriate membership becomes a core defining process during a team's early development."

"Perhaps the most familiar type of virtual teams is the classic cross-functional group of experts and stakeholders who come together to solve problems or seize opportunities that require cooperation across organizational boundaries."

"To start a virtual team, you need independent people, cooperative goals, and multiple media"

"In the networked world of the Information Age, purpose is the new source of legitimacy and power."

"Hierarchy clearly has far less influence in the new world of virtual work."

"The actual time the team spends creating, specifying, designing, and managing itself is largely informational work"

"To be successful in virtual groups, people must have much more independence and decision-making capability than people typically do in bureaucracies."

"The only universal role observed in groups is leadership."

"By anticipating the likely stress points, a new, still-forming team gains a powerful advantage."

"The advantage of cooperation will only grow in the years ahead."

"By creating information places with graduated levels of access, virtual teams more easily and naturally stage the socialization of their members."

"The people/links/purpose model of virtual teams fits the features of the digital workspace that network technologies create."

"To work smarter, virtual teams need to build explicit models with common categories and the right relationships."

"Teams with higher levels of trust coalesce more easily, organize their work more quickly, and manage themselves better."