Question:
I’ve recently been appointed the team leader of an exciting new product development team. While I think I’m ready for this, I’m a bit concerned because team members are spread in various locations making a potential nightmare when organizing meetings. Any suggestions?
Answer:
It’s all about effective communication. So it will be vital for you to encourage long distance co-operation, contribution and enthusiasm. How can you do this?
- Frequent communication is essential. Establish early on how, when and how often you’re going to meet and talk with each other — whether it’s virtual or in person.
- You can set the foundations at your initial team start-off meeting. Make sure the team guidelines are clearly defined from the beginning including:
- a clear, action-oriented and definitive goal;
- roles and responsibilities of the members are written down and agreed;
- timeframes, deliverables and resources are clearly articulated and understood.
- Schedule your meetings carefully. Work out how much travel is really necessary. Although your start-off meeting is critical, other meetings can be managed through telephone or video conferences.
- Give structure to the team meetings by using an agenda. Distribute it in advance so team members can prepare progress reports etc. and they can then actively and productively participate in the meeting.
- Those team members who want to reduce travel need to be encouraged to improve methods of ‘virtual’ communication.
- Investigate and use technology wisely. For example:
- Invest in high quality speakerphones.
- Consider videoconferencing, either in house or by using local videoconferencing facilities.
- Look into web conferencing or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve had a lot of experience of running teams spread over a number of different locations – often where face to face meetings were impossible and ALL communication was via email or the telephone.
I learned the hard way, but often simple things help ensure that nothing is lost in the communication. I often had difficulties getting my staff to understand what I was explaining to them. So eventually I always asked them to explain back to me what they were going to do. It’s not great, because it brings an element of micro-management, but in the first stages of the project it’s useful until the team starts to gel – then the communication becomes far easier as people start to understand each other better.
Communication is definitely the #1 issue! Once that it working then the fact that the team are spread around doesn’t matter so much!
Good luck!
That’s a great tip. I think when you are new to working together, most people prefer to be able to check back and make sure they’ve understood what it is they’ve been asked to do. The problem is that some people don’t like to ask in case it seems they don’t know what they are doing (when they do) and you, as the manager, get the wrong impression.
Erring on the side of micro-management in the short-term can help prevent future misunderstandings and potentially costly mistakes. It’s all in how you communicate why you want the person to explain back to what they’ll be doing. Communication is a real skill which we don’t pay enough attention to at times!