Preparing the Teams: A Global Case Study in Virtual Teaming

Can deep, personal cross-cultural relationships, connections and understandings be achieved virtually? That’s the question that kept swirling in our minds last May when a group of Pepperdine MSOD students designed the program’s 1st virtual intensive with faculty. And honestly, it’s the question I keep hearing now in 2021. The answer is yes, by the way. It’s absolutely possible to build human connections in the virtual space, and it’s actually fun. Seriously, fun.

           This is the 3rd blog post in a series about virtual teaming. In fact, it’s a global case study based on work completed in May 2020 between a US-based graduate program and a South Africa-based graduate program and businesses. I am defining virtual teaming here as situations where groups of people are tasked with working toward a common goal within a virtual environment. This may include all remote participants or a hybrid work environment. I encourage you to read the introductory post in this series to understand the case study context. The 2nd post discusses how we as individuals and teams prepare for change.

           Today’s post is all about design for virtual teaming spaces. How do you design for a 14-day generative, international intensive that turns into a virtual experience overnight? When you have no precedents. In the middle of a global pandemic. COVID-19 was impacting our student cohort in various ways with different levels of intensity. These impacts spread across jobs, families, home life, and mental health. All of us were exhausted.

           Thankfully, we did have some previous research and writings about virtual teaming, as it was not a new phenomenon for many corporations. In The Handbook of High Performance Virtual Teams, the authors provide a basic design framework for virtual teaming. They break it into two categories as noted below: the givens (what we know) and the creations (what we design).

Virtual Team Givens

●  Distance: performance monitoring, cultural awareness, team identification & norms

●  Time: time zones, meeting schedules, work schedules

●  Technology: software, hardware, communication applications, internet connection

Virtual Team Creations

●  Culture: geographic location, generational differences, virtual work experience

●  Trust: time spent together, communication frequency & quality, sense of accountability

●  Leadership: roles, teambuilding, project management skills, facilitation, conflict resolution

For our graduate school intensive, we knew that we were dealing with distance, time, and technology. Distance was a group of consulting teams working across North America with businesses in Africa. Time zones were scheduling synchronous and asynchronous work across a 9-hour time difference. Technology was linking virtual software with often inconsistent internet connections.

And we needed to create culture, trust, and leadership in rapid succession for a temporary partnership. We learned a lot in these few months of experimentation and exhaustion, and we definitely made some mistakes. Here is what we learned when designing for an in-person experience that has moved virtual.

Design for human dignity. One thing that surprised us was the power of a shared human struggle. We found ourselves and our South African colleagues working from home with various distractions like children, pets, and street noise. This home-based experience brought forth our humanity. Designing for humans experiencing a worldwide phenomenon involves checking in with people often and measuring the energy level of the group. Health care leader Chris Aiken summed it up this way, “You need to make space for dialogue, informal communication, and shared experiences.”

Design for sequential work. While scheduling meetings across a 9-hour time difference can be challenging, spreading work across time zones can increase productivity. It’s a balance of meeting compression (short, productive dialogue) with expanded work time. If you have a meeting at 6pm SAST/12pm ET/9am PT, then the ET and PT group have time to work together, and the PT participants can complete work for SAST participants to review the following morning. People development professional Christine Parcells says, “There just isn’t an easy way to easily catch all the time zones around the world. I think more consideration to design asynchronous learning in an engaging way is something I want to think more about.”

Design for tech disruptions. Our world still cannot fully support the level of bandwidth needed for a totally work from home environment. Depending on your location, internet and cell connection may be limited. Back in May 2020, our South Africa partners were dealing with rolling blackouts. You just never know what might happen. Additionally, working across companies means that everyone comes with a different level of technology prowess. Organization effectiveness professional Hannah Nichols offers that “giving people extra time to get comfortable with the technology and that it will take more time to set things up” is a success factor.

Design for memorable connections. Listening to a lecture-only presentation in a virtual format is rough. If you are designing for sequential work like I stated earlier, then you know that meeting time together is precious. Use this time for connection, dialogue, and creative group work. Nonprofit professional Erin Hall shared this advice, “Even more so than in person meetings and events, I think it is critical to design experiential components in the virtual space. There is near zero reason that someone just giving a presentation needs to be a live virtual meeting. Also, there is even more temptation and less consequences for me to ‘check out’ of a virtual meeting if I’m not engaged.”

As you can see, designing for virtual work requires agility. I love the mindset of tech product professional Shelly Dhamija who said, “Being agile means not getting attached to the outcome of a plan. It’s about keeping an open mind for new possibilities.” When we design for human dignity, sequential work, tech disruptions, and memorable connections, then the real fun of virtual work might begin.

References

1.       Nemiro, J., Beyerlein, M., Bradly, L. And Beyerlein, S. (2008). The Handbook of High-Performance Virtual Teams.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Read the next post in this series here.