Virtual Teams

A virtual team can be considered as a group pursuing the same goal, formed by different skilled people separated geographically. This form of team is getting highly used these days due to the following facts:

• New alliances, different partners around the world.
• Mergers and acquisitions.
• Telecommuting, building communities with people in many places.
• Need for business travel, and need of technology to support this.
• Need of reducing costs.
• Need of reducing time-to-market or cycle time.

It is necessary to think about the differences that arise in virtual teams since they involve the lack of physical presence:

• No face-to-face communication
• Lack of community among participants
• Lack of immediate managerial oversight
• Need of strong leadership skills
• Well-defined conflict resolution strategies
• Responsibility skills

The following is a video about "Team and a Dream", an organization about Virtual teams and how they use them for "Internet Startups":

Shuda, Skip. Building and using virtual teams (2008). Retrieved on May 9th, 2011 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrN8PjZXkPM

References:

-Kuruppuarachchi, Palitha R. 2009. "Virtual team concepts in projects: A case study". Project Management Journal 40, no. 2: 19-33.

-Shuda, Skip. 2008. "Building and using virtual teams" Retrieved on May 9th, 2011 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrN8PjZXkPM