While not news for many of us, much of what is driving the developments in Collaboration and the developments in collaboration tools is the necessity to create a Virtual Team space (VTS). Early in the book the authors define 10 trends in collaboration, the most interesting to me is the trend which they call, “Presence Everywhere” – which means being able to detect which involves basically being able to quickly find a person whether they are online or on the phone or in a conference room. A typical scenario as to when this may be useful is given (and I am sure a familiar one to everyone); A and B are working together via web conference and they need C to help solve an issue. Typically one or both A and B will be looking through their buddy lists to see if C is available online, if not both may try calling C via various numbers; office, cell, etc., and if they are finally successful in finding C it may take several clicks of sending links to bring C in to the web conference. IBM is working on their Sametime product to have this type of capability to reach external contacts. LiteScape also apparently has ways to detect the availability of users not only via instant messenger buddy lists but also from your list of outlook contacts and detect their presence via mobile devices.

If you were not already familiar with the term, the book introduces you to “mashups” as another trend in collaboration. A mashup is the process of creating a hybrid application built from data or functionality found across a number of different applications. An example of this can be seen in a site listing real estate, for example, which uses a 3rd party site or application to provide information about criminal activity in or around the house which is for sale.

There is no shortage of collaboration tools which the book introduces you to such as TimeBridge which can help you schedule meetings faster, but a great part of the book is the emphasis on the human aspect of collaboration. As they say, collaboration is 10% tools and 90% people.

The second half of the book takes a look at the human side of collaboration with chapter 7 specifically focusing on virtual teams. A very good point is made at the beginning of the chapter that the challenge has traditionally been how to minimize diversity among the people on teams whereas the key in the future will be to embrace the differences and work with them. I agree with this whole heartedly and would extend this to all aspects of working in a distributed manner, for example – time differences, location differences, etc.

Chapters 8 through 14 also focus on different aspects of people and processes. A lot of what was written was review on how teams work, it will most likely be review for a lot of people. What I found funny was, for example in Chapter 9 on Interpersonal communication, the author mentions how important Mirroring/Identifying is in building report, but he doesn’t go in to the next step of how you do this when using collaboration tools.

Chapter 15 is supposed to bring it all together; the human side and the technology side, but I found it a bit lacking. It talked more about the different stages a company may be at in using collaboration tools, and why they may have problems implementing them, but it did not seem to go that step further and talk about how to overcome the actual road blocks to working with distributed teams and actually using the technology.

In general this is what I thought was lacking in the book overall; actual examples or case studies of the use of tools and use of team interaction processes to overcome problems. On pg. 194, the authors discuss the work of one of their clients, and I agree it is an excellent example of an operational agreement between two distinct agencies. There is a lot of detail there, however, there are very few other real life examples given in the book. Adding additional examples and case studies, which I have no doubt the authors must have from their consulting practices, would have made the book much stronger.

My first thought with this book is that it is especially good for larger companies which are working with a number of collaboration tools, or looking to implement them. However, chapters 1 through 6 which relate to the different technologies that are available, as well as the appendixes listing a number of different technologies, can also be very interesting for smaller firms which are often working virtual from the very start of their existence. As well, for most anyone who reads this book, unless you are a study of collaboration tools you will most likely be surprised at the wide range of tools available and perhaps at what is considered collaboration technology. As far as functionaries who will appreciate this book; marketing folks can certainly get a number of ideas for tools that they can use to do their jobs better, software engineering folks, and anyone who has to deal with remote teams on a daily or almost daily basis will benefit from reading this book.

Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World - http://www.amazon.com/Collaboration-2-0-Technology-Practices-Successful/dp/1600050719/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213561049&sr=8-1

Authors: David Coleman and Stewart Levine
Published: January 2, 2008

Offshoring Secrets – Building & Running a Successful India Operation

The case for many workers in the US and around the world is that they have been working in virtual environments for some time now. The virtual environments may vary; from completely virtual where the person is working independently from home or a small office and rarely sees the people face-to-face, that they work with on a daily basis. To other environments where the worker is in an office with one part of their team and other parts of the team are co-located in one or more other locations. Whatever virtual situation you may be in, if you are managing a virtual team and are fairly new to it, then “Managing without Walls” can help you.

A lot has already been written on ways and methods to communicate virtually, the different tools, etc., and Chapter 9 of this book is another one of those. However, I think this one is a must read chapter, though I fear it probably will not be read as thoroughly as it could be. The authors give good examples of how to thoroughly write an email so that there is no question about what the person is asking about, when it is due, etc. In an age where more and more people are using their phones to read and respond to their emails, we are getting back to very short email responses which lead to more questions than they solve. May as well pick up that phone you are using to answer an email and talk to the person...which is also stressed in this book (as well as many others and something I cannot stress enough as well!).

At least part of Chapter 3 will not be relevant for many people who just find themselves managing a remote team, they usually have no choice over who is on the team, or where that team is going to be working from. The chapter on Outsourcing is not really relevant, we have alot written on that already. Chapters 6 and 8 would work for managing any team, whether it is remote or not, does not matter. So if you are new to project management, they may be helpful.

I usually think I am doing a bad job of managing remotely if I have to continually be up both early and up late to talk with the team (I deal with a 10 hour time difference to Ukraine). One or the other is okay on a daily basis, but not at both ends, unless there is an emergency, then sometimes this type of constant connection is necessary. Chapter 12 gives some insights in to managing emergency or high-risk situations in a remote situation. The natural instinct for the one person who is remote (a lot of times the manager) is to want to be on the phone all of the time getting continual updates. But this often interferes with the other side being able to get the work done to handle the disaster. At the same time the other side has to be willing to communicate more often to explain the status of what is happening. The chapter outlines good suggestions for how to handle communications during an emergency situation. Other issues touched on in this chapter include risk planning. For example; planning for personnel issues such as when one employee leaves and starts recruiting others to join him/her, public transportation issues which can affect teams in the US, and be also disruptive to teams in other countries where public transport is the chief means of getting to work. I love this statement which should help anyone kick start their risk management plan; “If the things you are concerned about for your project never change, it is like continuing to worry about your 12-year old concerns when you are 55! This is not a very effective or a good use of your time. It suggests that little progress had been made in the meantime.” (pg. 318).

If you are new to managing virtual teams, especially helpful to you will be Appendix A – The Virtual skill set checklists which will help you analyze in what management areas are you ready to manage a remote team and what areas do you still need to work on. Unlike many other books on managing virtual teams, the book does not emphasize the areas where managing a remote team is different from managing a co-located team, save for two areas; the politics of a virtual team and managing conflict within a virtual team.

Whether you are brand new to managing virtual teams, or have been at it for a year or more, a project manager will find something new in this book, just read it though by picking out the chapters most relevant for you

Managing Without Walls, by Colleen Garton & Kevin Wegryn. copyright Oct 2006.

http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Without-Walls-Maximize-Cross-cultural/dp/158347062X

Managing Virtual teams is becoming more and more the hot topic in the project management world, as outsourcing continues to grow. I thought I would share with you a book I read recently which I believe can assist Virtual Team managers, while not the most recent book, it is from 2003, I still found it useful.

The book is called: "Quick Guide to Interaction Styles and Working Remotely: Strategies for Leading and Working in Virtual Teams" by Susan K. Gerke, Linda V. Berens and can be found on Amazaon, for example for approximately $8.95, 36 pages in length.

What can you expect from a short 36 page book called a "Quick guide"? Well apparently enough to make the book a worthwhile buy for the price.

After reading the book, I believe if any project manager, who is managing a virtual team picks up this work book; they will be introduced to a number of small changes that they can put in place for dealing with their remote team, and these changes can make a world of difference. If today's style is to make continuous
improvements, this book gives enough suggestions and ideas that can help just about any project manager put in place their own quick changes. The layout and format of the book goes a long way in making that happen with the numerous bullet point suggestions and lists for many of the topics.

The appendix also contains useful information. Appendix A concentrates on tips for when to use what means of communication. I had seen this in a previous book from 1998, in that book email instructions had also been included at the time, but this newer guide includes more concrete suggestions for breaking out the subject line which will hopefully get the emails answered when you need them to be answered. Again
little steps which can make the whole interaction process much easier and less stressful for the project manager.

There is one thing that initially bothered me when first going through this book. The Interaction Styles model is another four-quadrant model. Most of us have seen one or more of these types of models for explaining personality types, etc. The Quick Guide is a work book and the interaction styles presented in this book would be further defined in the book, "Understanding Yourself and Others: an Introduction to Interaction Styles". Without having the additional explanation of how the interaction styles model was derived, it seems like it would almost be easier to understand and relate to this new four-quadrant model if it followed a
widely accepted four-quadrant model and if it were presented in relation to that model. For example against the DISC model (behavioral and personality model), I see some similarities but then the styles also seem to be in quandrants that do not match up with the DISC model.

Overall a very quick read and a quick way to put several noticeable changes in place to help reduce your stress level when managing your virtual teams.

For those who may be interested, the latest issue of the InnerCircle newsletter from Sun Microsystems has an interview with Matthew Ricks, the Sr. Director of Vendor Management for Sun, entitled: "Lessons Learned from Sun’s Outsourcing Initiatives". While not necessarily containing anything earth shattering, it does give good background on how Sun got started outsourcing their ERP and IT support. To register to receive the monthly newsletter and to look at the archives go to this link: https://communications.sun.com/sunReg/sunIC/icreg.jsp?cid=1