Virtual team composition

Virtual Team Composition Virtual Team Composition While composing a good virtual team an organization needs to concentrate on three factors including the people who will be involved in a virtual time, the size of the team and the roles of different team members. An effective virtual team is one in which members of the team has certain important characteristics, competencies and skills. According to Ferrazzi, an effective and successful virtual team is one which comprises of members who have very well established communication skills, have higher level of emotional intelligence and can work on their own (Ferrazzi, 2014). Size is another important factor that has impacted the effectiveness of a virtual team. An effective virtual team is one that comprises of smaller number of members or Ferrazzi states that those virtual teams were more effective that had less than ten members (Ferrazzi, 2014). Furthermore, the size of the virtual team is even dependent on the competencies that are required for individuals to work on a single project. A third important factor that needs to be considered while creating an effective virtual team is the roles that different members of the team need to perform. A team comprises of members including leaders, managers, technical staff and part time employees. While hiring individuals for a virtual team, organizations should make sure that the team members have the ability to carry out all these roles.
2. Communication as well as training of virtual teams is very essential in order to ensure the success of a virtual team. Communication is very important because in virtual teams members are located in diverse geographical locations and they work at different hours of the day due to differences in the time zone. Communication is essential in order to clarify and to inform each team members about the work they need to complete. This is essential to ensure that there is no lapse in the work and the interconnected tasks are completed on time. Technical training is the most important training that needs to be provided to virtual team members. In virtual teams, members are dependent on each other’s work and in case if any team member is not able to complete their part of the job, the entire task is delayed. Technical training will help one team member complete another team member’s job and this would help in eliminating delays in the completion of the task.
3. One of the major differences between a leader who is leading a traditional team and a leader leading a virtual team is the difference in control. A leader who is leading a physically available team has more control on the employees and can easily identify the issues they are facing through face to face communication. But a leader of a virtual team does not have enough face to face contact with the team members so it becomes quite difficult for him/her to identify the emotional issues the team members are experiencing. Since a leader in the traditional teams is in direct contact with the employee, the leader can help the employees by showing them how a task is to be done. But in the virtual world a leader has to be flexible enough to allow the employees to do the work on their own since it is very difficult for a leader to exhibit how work needs to be done.
References
Ferrazzi, K. (2014). Getting Virtual Teams Right. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 8 December 2014, from https://hbr. org/2014/12/getting-virtual-teams-right