My interest in reading this book stemmed from the fact that I regularly see a couple of my team members, but very rarely meet with others. Geography and different areas of work mean it can be weeks before I have contact with certain team members. This can be frustrating if we are supposed to be collaborating on a piece of work together as communicating via telephone can also be difficult and relying on email can cause delays. My team has also recently been advised that we are moving more towards ‘agile’ working and hot desking, rather than having a fixed base, which will potentially make this situation worse.
Cassandra first of all outlines the potential pitfalls that a team suddenly put in a virtual environment can face, highlighting that without management input to clearly define what is expected, team members can be left feeling very uncertain as to what they are supposed to be doing and whose is responsible for the various tasks. Without a clear model to follow, communication can be difficult and with no check points to keep work on track and to time, projects are more likely to fail.
The Virtual Team Global Business Model (VTML) has been devised by Cassandra to overcome difficulties that can be encountered when working remotely from other team members. The model acknowledges communication needs to be synchronous at certain points to ensure that team members are completing tasks effectively, whereas workers can carry out individual tasks asynchronously. After describing the different roles and stages in the VTML each chapter focus on a different aspect of the model. Throughout the book a fictional company is used to illustrate the various points of the VTML.
The first area focuses on management’s role in ensuring workers have clear guidelines for goals, objectives and tasks to be completed. Goals should define the desired outcomes, objectives should reflect these, being specific to each team, and tasks are the processes specific team members will complete to achieve the overall goal. Over all of these should be a clear timeline for checkpoints so progress can be monitored and team members understand when different stages should be complete. The book then moves on to look at a team leader’s role, a team guide’s role, followed by individual team members. Having a person to guide the team and as a point of contact for any issues and to review work is important for the team to be successful.
Throughout the VTML the emphasis on good effective communication and clear understanding of individual responsibilities, with the team leader ensuring this promotes synergy within the team. The team guide helps with facilitation, ensuring accountability is maintained and that any miscommunications and potential conflict from these are resolved positively.
The book then relates the VTML to both the business world and higher education. The final chapter gives an overall summary of the topics covered and suggests that a final review of following each project helps to identify areas that were problematic for the team. This should then enable these to be addressed as the team moves on to the next project that they will be working on.
Some of the book is very relevant to my own situation and gives good practical advice on how to overcome some of the difficulties our team are currently encountering. I feel that the VTML could become more prevalent in the future for a lot of workplaces and adopting all, or even part, of the model will help teams become more effective. I would rate the book 7 out of 10.
