What are the advantages of working in a global virtual team versus face-to-face?

  • Less influenced by status
  • Less subject to dominance
  • Offer flexibility of pace and schedules

However, research has shown that for a global virtual team to work well and for conflicts to be resolved all members  need to  take active responsibility for their group’s progress.  They need to  actively preparing for meetings and be responsiveness to all their group members.

It is not the team leader to do all of this in a virtual team – members must be active for their team to be a success!!

Here are some collaboration tools to start you off. Let me know of any others and also whether you like them – or how useful you find them.

Collaboration sites – virtual sharing of docs and collaboration

  1. You could use Google Sites to develop a wiki so you can collaboarate online. You are able to password-protect your site so only your team has access – similiar to the password-protected areas on this website, where only lecturers and you have access.
  2. Beehive Platform is a great site for collaboration – one of the teams used it last year and loved it – everything can be filed easily for members to add to and access. It is free (athough there are additions you can buy)
  3. My favourite is Wiggio although Trello is starting to really impress me – hold virtual meetings, use this for projects, brainstorming, messaging, collaboration online, everything. It is easy, intuitive and fun.
  4. Don’t forget Google Docs! You can write on the same document at the same time as someone else who is soemwhere else , store docs in progress and have docs on the go – very useful!!
  5. Also Go to Meeting for webchats, sharing information and everything.
  6. You can also use Huddle for collaboration and getting into the cloud.
  7. Great infographic of virtual platforms can be found here.
  8. SWOT and PEST templates:http://www.businessballs.com/freepdfmaterials/pest-analysis-free-template.pdfhttp://www.businessballs.com/free_SWOT_analysis_template.pdf

Collaborative mind mapping
Google Sites is a great site for collaborative mind mapping – your whole team can add to it. There are also templates for project planning, SWOT and PEST and you can insert them in your wiki. Mindmeister and Wiggio are great for this as well!

Polling online
PollEverywhere is a great site for polling your team. You can find out what they like or don’t like or what they want to do – answers can be texted, internet or tweeted to the site.

Microblogs and messaging
Don’t forget twitter. You can get your whole team to direct message someone or share with everyone through a hashtag or your own wiki address. You can contact me (@AverillG) through twitter as well and direct message me if you want. You can also add the #GlobCom tag, try and use it in all your tweets on GlobCom. You can find the official GlobCom profile on each page in the top right corner or here (@GlobComProject).

 Various helpful tools and articles:

If you have any questions or suggestions please don’t hesitate to contact me directly via E-Mail at agordon@aut.ac.nz.