In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we tackle a topic of professional and personal interest to me (as I wrote my PhD dissertation on it): virtual teams and their management. Like any team, virtual teams are groups of individuals with shared objectives and shared responsibilities. Unlike traditional or colocated teams, though, virtual teams draw members from multiple locations and thus cannot easily meet face-to-face.

Virtual teams run the gamut of possibilities in terms of the number of members, the number of locations, the geographical and temporal (i.e., time zones) separation they have to contend with, and so on. Yet one characteristic is common to all virtual teams: their members rely quite a bit on information technology and telecommunications to carry out their work. Virtual teams use all kinds of applications, from e-mail and the telephone, to shared calendars, IM, asynchronous discussion boards, synchronous chat, resources and content management system, shared data repositories, collaborative whiteboards, and the like. More importantly, as a cohesive unit, virtual teams share responsibility for delivering expected results and have a manager in charge of ensuring the success of the endeavor.

The impetus for widespread virtual teaming, as for so many other innovations in the last decade, came from the pervasive adoption of the Internet and related technologies. As more and more knowledge workers became well versed in the use of these technologies, virtual teaming became prevalent in a number of contexts -- from software design and development teams taking advantage of the earth's rotation and doing work around the clock on the same project, to ad hoc or permanent teams of advisors in all sorts of areas. An example of the former are teams of hotel managers in the same chain who are brought together to respond to a crisis, such as an approaching hurricane or a widespread blackout, that impacts one or more of the hotel chain's properties.

I am a good example of the latter type of virtual team. I am a permanent member of the advisory board to the startup company Epic Trip, founded by a former student of mine. Having learned that great entrepreneurs seek to control resources they don't own, and with the shoestring budget of a typical early-stage startup, my student has assembled a virtual advisory board including myself, executives from the lodging industry, and former classmates who advise and/or "meet" from their offices around the world as the need arises.

It should not surprise you that virtual teams are worth a look. More than likely, you have been a member of one or more virtual teams -- in fact, you may be working with virtual team members right now and may be thinking of sharing this issue of CBR with them! If any external validation were needed, a look at some of the many forecasts for trends to watch in 2006 should lend support. For example, the Computerworld 2006 forecast issue lists the administration of global teams as the number one project management challenge for 20061 -- with its host of potential misunderstandings, time zone-induced coordination difficulties, cultural- and language-related faux pas, and so on.

Whatever the form or the reason for virtual teaming, the fundamental questions for members and managers alike are: What is the state-of-the-art in virtual team management today? Are there any best practices that have been developed over the last 10 years that can offer guidance?

I contend that these questions are best answered by information systems professionals with their understanding of both the technology platform supporting virtual team operations and of the social and cultural aspects of team interactions. In this issue of CBR, we tap into the expertise of two contributors who fit this profile and have years of experience in studying this organizational form, serving on and managing virtual teams, and advising managers who lead them.

Cutter recently administered a survey designed to benchmark virtual team management practice. We then invited our contributors to comment on the results. Our academic contributor is Carol Saunders, Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Central Florida and the current Editor-in-Chief of MIS Quarterly. Providing our view from the field is Sid Henkin, VP of Market Innovation for Prism Learning Solutions and a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium's Agile Project Management practice.

Both Carol and Sid begin by commenting on survey results and highlighting the key findings. The way this CBR survey was set up enables them to draw a comparison between effective and ineffective teams and make conclusions about different leadership behaviors that may be responsible for the different outcomes.

Subsequently, Carol marries insight from the survey to her substantial virtual team research experience, identifying a series of practical guidelines about communication within the team, team manager's behavior, effective technology support for virtual teams, setting objectives, and valuing contributions from distant members.

After commenting on the most interesting results of the survey, Sid focuses his contribution on the team leader and the impact of different leadership behaviors -- including the role of physical presence, face-to-face meetings, and expectations. Sid's contribution closes with a set of practical recommendations for those of you charged with the management of virtual teams.

Virtual teams are a reality in modern organizations and they are going to become more, rather than less, prevalent. In fact, I can see a day soon when we will no longer be talking about virtual teams as a different entity because all teams will have some virtual connotations. With this issue, we hope to have started you on, or helped you along, the way to effective managing in the new organizational form by offering the tangible, actionable guidelines CBR is always seeking to provide.

NOTES

¹ See Mitch Betts, "Forecast 2006: Security, Wireless and BI Projects Will Be Hot, " Computerworld Blogs Web site (www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/1509).