Tag: Facilitation

Collaboration in Collocated and Virtual Project Teams

In the second part of this series,(click read to see part 1) I included a portion of Yahoo human resources head Jackie Reses’ memo announcing the end of telecommuting at Yahoo. It stresses Yahoo’s top priority is collaboration and concludes face-to-face interaction via employee collocation is the best way to enable it (Swisher, 2013). Different communication channels may be preferred for project work performed by a collocated team than for a virtual one. The degree to which project activities require a lot of day-to-day collaboration will also be a factor (Lojeski, 2008). The diagram below illustrates communication methods for virtual and collocated teams comparing how they will differ and whether activities require collaboration.

Face-to-face communication provides the most information, as it includes non-verbal communication cues such as facial expressions in addition to verbal content. Virtual teams rely on technologies such as telephones, email, collaboration sites and web conferencing tools. These technologies, while powerful, generally can’t provide as much non-verbal content. Advances in high-end videoconferencing technology allow virtual team members to feel as if they are in the same room, but the cost may still be prohibitive for day-to-day use by all but the largest organizations (Lojeski & Reilly, 2008).

Veteran agile coach Gene Gendel has experienced the challenges of communication within virtual agile teams and told me “Short lead and cycle time, frequent delivery to market and fast-paced incremental development are all heavily dependent on close team collaboration and quick executive decisions, which might become hostage to the lack of face-to-face communication. In such cases, effective use of technologically innovative virtual collaboration tools becomes paramount.”

Andy Singleton believes the use of electronic collaboration tools has changed communication preferences for all teams. He observed “It seems to me collocated teams are relying more on chat and comments, rather than audio and video and in-person meetings. The trend is very strong among young people who are moving from calls to texting, and from visits to Facebook comments.”

Andy also said although electronic communication may not be as rich as in-person meetings, it better accommodates the kind of multitasking that is typical of today’s project teams and allows individuals to reach out to more people. He believes conference calls which include entire teams are “Basically a chance for the boss to dump problems on a group of people that aren’t related to the specific problem.” He recommends limiting call participation, believing “It’s a great idea to line up calls with SPECIFIC people who are related to the problem. Then people will pay attention and appreciate it.”

Karen Lojeski told me that communication methods must be carefully considered. She said that “We’re like a cork bobbing on the ocean” when it comes to managing the high volume of communication typical of the modern knowledge worker. To prevent workers from feeling even more disconnected as the result of all of the electronic communication chatter, she recommends that “techno-dexterity” becomes a core competency. By this, she means we all have to become adept at choosing the right form of communication for the right situation.

I’ve learned about the tradeoffs between asynchronous technologies like email, texting and chat and synchronous technologies like conferencing and in-person meetings from my own experience managing projects. For example, competing demands for attention sometimes resulted in people not seeing or responding to important messages until it’s too late. Face-to-face meetings and conference calls involving entire teams consumed a lot of people time and their frequency and duration needed to be managed carefully. It wasn’t always easy to determine exactly which team members were affected by a problem or issue.

When a subset of a team meets to discuss a topic, it’s best to report the results and key decisions to the entire team to ensure everyone is aware of them. Conference recording technology can offer an advantage. Team members who can’t attend conferences can replay recordings when they have time. Recordings can be forwarded to other team members and stakeholders to keep them informed or allow them to go back and review key parts of discussions.

Schwaber and Beedle (2002) addressed communication tradeoffs when they created Scrum, a popular agile product development framework. The rules of Scrum mandate a “daily Scrum” meeting which lasts between fifteen and thirty minutes. Team members report on what they accomplished since the last meeting, what they will do next, and any obstacles they face. Any other team meetings are ad hoc, involving only the affected team members. This promotes a pattern of brief but tightly managed daily contact.

I believe project managers need to work closely with teams throughout a project to establish, monitor and modify communication channels. Team members need to be given adequate time to handle communications in addition to their work. They must also be held accountable according to agreed-upon team rules to communicate progress, questions and issues appropriately. Teams should periodically review and revise their communication methods during projects to find the right balance and eliminate dysfunctional channels.

Wherever possible, projects employing virtual teams should budget reserve or contingency funds for some face-to-face gatherings of representatives from different locations (Lojeski & Reilly, 2008). These funds could be allocated for project kickoffs, post-release retrospectives, to gather key resources to resolve serious issues and problems, or even celebrations. Gene Gendel agrees strongly with this, saying “Even if permanent collocation is completely not an option, short-term collocation of key people is still highly desirable.”

Andy Singleton encourages his virtual teams to get together in person when needed. He applies the same principle of selectivity for managing conference calls, feeling it makes those meetings more meaningful. Managers must provide flexible communication options, and then train, support and trust teams to make good choices based on circumstances. Karen Lojeski told me she advocates providing project managers with the ability to visit remote staff as needed to foster their connection with the rest of the team. She justifies this as a necessary “Virtual Distance management” expense.

Beyond The Telecommuting Debate

Ironically, Yahoo is making a big bet on face-to-face communication in an era where many workers may be less likely to engage in office or hallway conversations than ever before. Psychologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle researches the use of modern communication technologies and social media. She reported (2012) more and more office workers are eschewing conversation in favor of electronic communication using email, texting and social media. Although she does not note whether these workers are engaged in collaborative activities, her experience is clearly aligned with Andy Singleton’s own observations about the teams he leads.

Turkle (2012) recounted that even an employee who complained about the lack of talking in his office admitted that he, too, prefers to communicate through technology. If these trends are as widespread as Turkle believes, Yahoo might encourage staff to periodically turn off all devices and spend more time talking with their colleagues. We need to be mindful that face-to-face communication provides more than just content. It can enhance trust and respect and reinforce shared goals and vision.

Reses doesn’t specifically address any of the other collaboration-enhancing factors cited above. The memo says “We need to be one Yahoo, and that starts with physically being together”, which suggests Yahoo management is mindful other improvements need to be made (Swisher, 2013). Their decision regarding their work environment is clear. Hopefully, they realize that people, goals, vision, trust, respect, rules, safety and support are as important as environment.

Project managers have to understand all of these factors as well. They need to be ready to step up and unite their teams. As Karen Lojeski said, “Project managers have to become Virtual Distance managers.” If she is correct in believing that the old management techniques have to be changed, project managers will be well-positioned to create new, more effective techniques to promote collaboration and innovation.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.
 
References and Bibliography
Binder, J. (2007). Global project management: Communication, collaboration and management across borders. Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing Company.
Hansen, M. (2009). Collaboration: How leaders avoid the traps, create unity, and reap big results. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Kotter, J. (2007). Leading change – why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review (January, 2007) Retrieved from www.hbreprints.org.
Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lojeski, K. (2010). Leading the virtual workforce: How great leaders transform organizations in the 21st century. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Lojeski, K. & Reilly R. (2008). Uniting the virtual workforce: Transforming leadership and innovation in the globally integrated enterprise. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Mezick, D. (2012). The culture game: Tools for the agile manager. No publisher listed.
Miller, C. & Perlroth, N. (2013, March 5). Yahoo says new policy is meant to raise morale. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/technology/yahoos-in-office-policy-aims-to-bolster-morale.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
Project Management Institute, Inc. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK Guide) (5th edition). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, Inc.
Schwaber, K. & Beedle, M. (2002). Agile project management with scrum. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Swisher, K. (2013, February 22). “Physically together”: Here’s the internal yahoo no-work-from-home memo for remote workers and maybe more. AllThingsD. Retrieved from http://allthingsd.com/20130222/physically-together-heres-the-internal-yahoo-no-work-from-home-memo-which-extends-beyond-remote-workers/.
Sy, D. (2009). Sharepoint for project management. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly
Turkle, S. (2012, April 22). The flight from conversation. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
Zofi, Y. (2012). A manager’s guide to virtual teams. New York, NY: American Management Association

In the first part of this series of articles, I discussed the forces that can psychologically divide teams and hamper their performance. These include the temporary or permanent physical separation typical of telecommuting arrangements and virtual teams as well as cultural and organizational factors. In this second part, I’ll talk about success factors critical to fostering collaboration among all teams, whether or not members telecommute or work in different locations.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to eliminate telecommuting stirred up controversy about telecommuting’s advantages and disadvantages. Jackie Reses, Yahoo’s head of human resources, justified the decision in the memo announcing the policy change to employees on the grounds that:

To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together (Swisher, 2013).

While Yahoo’s new policy clearly favors team collocation as a means to promote collaboration and innovation, as Yael Zofi (2012) of Aim Strategies observed, “Virtual team arrangements have become increasingly popular as companies rethink their human capital resources and real estate expenditures” (p. 13). They may be the only choice when organizations must harness staff that are housed in multiple locations.

Even Yahoo has benefited from their successful web site for women which was created by a geographically dispersed team of home-based employees. Project leader Brandon Holley felt using a virtual team provided an advantage, claiming “It grew very rapidly. A lot of that had to do with the lack of distraction in a very distracted company” (Miller & Perlroth, 2013). The recipe for successful innovation, then, seems more complicated than just simply ordering all staff to report to the office every day.

Project Collaboration and Virtual Distance

Collaboration is critical to successful project execution (Binder, 2007). Project teams do need good environments, but just throwing people in a room or giving them permission to work from home without providing the right conditions is a recipe for disappointment, if not disaster (Mezick, 2012).

Karen Lojeski (2010) of Virtual Distance International developed the concept of “Virtual Distance” to describe the many forces that can divide teams and inhibit collaboration. The concept goes beyond simple physical proximity to include disconnections due to the use of technology and dysfunctional working relationships. Project performance, collaboration and work output suffers for both virtual and collocated teams when Virtual

Distance is high (Lojeski, 2010). Success factors crucial to promoting collaboration and reducing Virtual Distance to be discussed in this paper include:

• A physical or virtual environment that facilitates teamwork
• Assigning people that are willing and able to collaborate
• Developing shared goals and vision
• Promoting mutual trust and respect
• Defining acceptable behavior in a framework of rules
• Making the environment safe for failure and conflict
• Obtaining active management support

A Physical or Virtual Environment That Facilitates Teamwork

It is common for project teams to be provided with a combination of office space and virtual environments to facilitate communication and information sharing. The virtual environment would include a project management information system, which is a suite of technology-based tools to manage documentation and communication among team members and other stakeholders (Sy, 2009). These tools might be further supplemented with Web-based document repositories, teleconferencing, Web conferencing and video conferencing tools (Zofi, 2012, Lojeski & Reilly, 2008).

Agile project management best practices provide useful insights into the question of collocation’s value. These approaches were specifically intended to foster team interaction, creativity and innovation. Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle (2002) expressed their preference for housing a team in a large open workspace as a means of promoting collaboration in an immersive environment. Despite that recommendation, the popularity of outsourcing and offshoring has led to the wide and effective use of virtual agile teams.

During a recent discussion with Karen Lojeski, she stressed that in any environment, project managers have to find ways to be visible among team members and ensure everyone connects at a human level. Even collocated teams can suffer from high Virtual Distance if other factors that affect working relationships aren’t addressed. She feels strongly that traditional management models just don’t work anymore in today’s workplace and have to be modified or replaced.

Assigning People That Are Willing and Able to Collaborate

Peter Senge (1990) believes “the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine ‘thinking together’ “(p. 10) is the first step for the team learning essential for collaboration. Without people willing and able to collaborate, Senge’s belief suggests knowledge and technical prowess would not be sufficient to guarantee positive project outcomes. Compensation and incentive programs or organization charts may also need to be changed to reinforce desirable collaborative behaviors when team members are drawn from different functional silos within an organization (Hansen, 2009).

I asked Andy Singleton of Assembla, whose job includes managing a lot of virtual teams about the importance of selecting the right people. He said that “In our teams, collaborative ability is important, and we qualify people for it. Before we hire them on a long-term contract, we do a two-week trial to see if they can work with our distributed team.” He admits that people who might fit into a collocated team may be rejected because of their work habits, but he feels that teams may gain some good collaborators with limited speaking skills. He advocates teaching people how to fit into virtual teams by providing them with coaching and checklists.

Developing Shared Goals and Vision

Shared goals and vision are critical to helping any team cope with ambiguity, complexity and adversity. Project sponsors and senior managers should define goals and vision to unify the project team as well as the organization at large (Hansen, 2009). They also have to support and defend them as needed throughout the project. Project goals and vision should always be clearly identified in a project’s charter as its purpose or justification, including any metrics that could be used to define success (PMBOK Guide, 2013).

Promoting Mutual Trust and Respect

Daniel Mezick (2012) emphasizes trust and respect as the foundation of successful team performance. He considers respect to be “a positive feeling of esteem for a person and specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem” (p. 56). Patrick Lencioni (2002) defines trust within teams as “the confidence among team members that their peer’s intentions are good, and there is no need to be protective or careful around the group” (p. 195). This allows team members to ask questions and act without fear of ridicule. Karen Lojeski told me her own research showed “trust is at the center” of positive team relationships and reducing Virtual Distance.

Time and patience may be needed to develop trust and respect when team members have diverse backgrounds. Teams also have to be encouraged to admit when they don’t have answers and need help. I worked on a software development project in which I held regular developer team meetings. I would always ask the attendees to share any questions or issues with the rest of the team and almost always would be met with silence. Afterwards, one or more developers would contact me after the meeting to report problems. I learned you have to be patient and provide private communication channels in addition to public ones until everyone is truly comfortable with each other.

Defining Acceptable Behavior in a Framework of Rules

Acceptable forms of behavior must be defined and clearly communicated as rules to provide a basis for accountability among all team members (Zofi, 2012). Rules establish boundaries on behavior, and those boundaries stimulate team members to creatively solve problems and overcome hurdles (Mezick, 2012). Leaders at all levels must promote and practice all agreed-upon rules to encourage all team members to cooperate fully. The rules for managing communication within the team and how issues are discussed, resolved and escalated to senior management are especially important as they can help teams productively manage conflict (PMBOK Guide, 2013).

Making the Environment Safe for Failure and Conflict

Project teams must also be provided with environments in which it is safe to fail, and to manage conflict positively. This is because, as Mezick (2012) notes, innovation requires teams to take risks and deal with the different opinions and viewpoints of individual members. He believes tolerance for failure early in projects promotes learning, and effective conflict resolution helps teams productively iron out differences.

Obtaining Active Management and Support

John Kotter (2007) highlights strong leadership and management support as key steps needed in any successful change initiative. He believes while it may not be necessary to obtain unanimous support from everyone in the highest echelons of an organization, it is essential to have a critical mass of key personnel willing to work as a team to embrace a project’s vision and goals and provide guidance (Kotter, 2007). These leaders may be instrumental in helping a project team overcome adversity, resolve issues and conflicts or manage risks (PMBOK Guide, 2013).

In the third and final part of this series, I’ll provide strategies and tactics for fostering team collaboration based on the seven success factors described above. I’ll also talk about the role of the project manager in managing Virtual Distance and helping to ensure positive, productive team environments.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

References and Bibliography
Binder, J. (2007). Global project management: Communication, collaboration and management across borders. Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing Company.
Hansen, M. (2009). Collaboration: How leaders avoid the traps, create unity, and reap big results. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Kotter, J. (2007). Leading change – why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review (January, 2007) Retrieved from www.hbreprints.org
Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lojeski, K. (2010). Leading the virtual workforce: How great leaders transform organizations in the 21st century. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Lojeski, K. & Reilly R. (2008). Uniting the virtual workforce: Transforming leadership and innovation in the globally integrated enterprise. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Mezick, D. (2012). The culture game: Tools for the agile manager. No publisher listed.
Miller, C. & Perlroth, N. (2013, March 5). Yahoo says new policy is meant to raise morale. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/technology/yahoos-in-office-policy-aims-to-bolster-morale.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
Project Management Institute, Inc. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK Guide) (5th edition). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, Inc.
Schwaber, K. & Beedle, M. (2002). Agile project management with scrum. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Swisher, K. (2013, February 22). “Physically together”: Here’s the internal yahoo no-work-from-home memo for remote workers and maybe more. AllThingsD. Retrieved from http://allthingsd.com/20130222/physically-together-heres-the-internal-yahoo-no-work-from-home-memo-which-extends-beyond-remote-workers/.
Sy, D. (2009). Sharepoint for project management. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly
Turkle, S. (2012, April 22). The flight from conversation. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
Zofi, Y. (2012). A manager’s guide to virtual teams. New York, NY: American Management Association