Introduction
As organizations continue to expand their global reach, CIOs look for answers to address the special challenges posed by geography, language, culture and outsourcing. In 2005, organizations seeking to find a single solution for all of their project collaboration needs are still struggling with cross-firewall issues that inhibit frequent communication and information-sharing.
Meanwhile, project teams are rapidly closing the distance with clever use of new communications and connectivity solutions. Technology has never been better suited to the way we work today – online, offline, from multiple locations, and with people outside our own company.
This paper aims to help you support distributed project teams in your organization by describing their unique challenges and identifying both human and technology methods to mitigate them. Illustrating these points in practice, several sample projects are chosen from Steelcase, the world's largest office furniture manufacturer.
Each of these projects has sufficient data and longevity to provide insights, including critical success factors:
- The Dealer Tools project is a classic cross-firewall example, with sub-contractors from three firms.
- The SAP Implementation project was comprised of IT members working across international boundaries.
- The Steelcase.com project involves the internationalization of the Steelcase web site into eight sites in local languages by a 10-person team in six countries.
This paper was originally based on findings presented at the 2005 PMI Global Congress EMEA, and has been updated to reflect the needs of cross-cultural, usually distributed, teams. In Part I their unique challenges and both human and technology methods to mitigate these are identified. Part II provides the three sample projects from Steelcase International.
Part I
The Challenges
A number of studies have reported on the unique challenges of distributed and cross-cultural project teams. In a study of managing software requirements in a multi-site organization, it was found that remote communications, cultural diversity and time differences negatively impact requirements gathering, negotiation and specification (Damian & Zougli, 2002). Effective collaboration under these circumstances was challenged by:
- Lack of common understanding
- Reduced awareness of local context
- Reduced trust level
- Reduced ability to share work artefacts
These and cross-cultural issues are explored further in this section.
1. Lack of Common Understanding
One of the key issues facing distributed teams, and compounded by differences in language or culture, is achieving a common understanding among team members – of the project objectives, requirements, day-to-day communications, and even the project status itself. In the absence of physical proximity of team members, the normal hallway discussions do not occur. Not knowing who to ask, or in the absence of effective real-time communications, people let small things slide in favour of waiting for a formal status meeting.
This inability to maintain momentum by resolving issues as they occur often leads to disengagement by team members not located at the centre of project activity. This disengagement leads to lessened commitment and slipped schedules, thereby increasing cost and reducing the chance of project success.
2. Difficulties in Information-Sharing
More often than not, the project team now comprises partners, customers, contractors and others who do not share a common network or IT infrastructure. Creating an effective work environment is made more difficult when required information is stored behind corporate firewalls.
As a result, most cross-organization work currently occurs by telephone, fax or through e-mail. But people are seeking new ways to work together dynamically on tasks without limitations on attachments, endless forwarded threads or the possibility of network snooping of confidential messages. Email has reached the point of diminishing returns in building an effective work infrastructure (Microsoft, 2005).
3. Making and Maintaining Contact
In the absence of mitigating technologies and methods, distributed teams may suffer serious coordination problems. A software engineering study (Herbsleb & Grinter, 1999) found the following factors led to conflicts in the assumptions made at different sites, as well as incorrect interpretation of communications, resulting in project delays:
- Who to contact about what
- How to initiate contact with others
- Communicating effectively across sites
4. Lack of Trust
Trust is the glue for effective work. People unaccustomed to working with people they have never met in person may operate with a distrustful attitude. But business transactions have a cost - these costs are lowered when there is trust and heightened when it is lacking. Researchers Lipnack and Stamps (2000) have found that mistrust is expensive: “Informal communication goes down, formality goes up: endless forms and legalisms, time and effort spent checking other people's work, drawn-out negotiations, political games and backstabbing…third-party enforcement…When trust diminishes, price goes up.”
Trust-building activities occur more slowly in a culturally mixed setting. It takes longer to get to know people and it is more difficult to tell jokes or “break the ice”. Lack of sensitivity to other cultures can also lead to faux-pas, making it harder to establish a trustful atmosphere.
5. Cultural Differences
Misunderstandings can lead to costly or time-consuming mistakes. In many instances where project participants speak different native languages, they may not converse well in real-time. These people will often not speak in conference calls, foregoing the opportunity to surface issues or present solutions to known problems.
Cultural biases often go beyond things left unsaid. People interpret things differently, and may not place the same importance on what others consider fundamental values, such as being on time. Some team members may be uncomfortable with the relatively flat structure of North American teams, preferring to take leadership from an immediate superior.
Overcoming the Challenges
Technology can help overcome, or at least mitigate, some of the challenges outlined above. Technology enhances access to information and people, as well as aiding “virtual” leadership of physically distributed and cross-cultural teams.
Access to Information: Current trends favour easier access to information for project teams.
- Contextual access to information. Current business practices require access to information -- not in isolation, but contextually, linked to other relevant information. The ability to “hyperlink everything” drives increased productivity as project team members use a self-service approach to getting what they need when they need it.
- Change awareness. Unread markers alert users when something is new or changed, saving time since people can see immediately if there is a change that affects their work.
- Project Software for everyone. New software applications require less specialized knowledge and appeal to a broader audience. Some project tools now available focus on connectivity for all team members rather than exclusive use by a trained project manager. Additionally, there are more collaborative tools such as document review now integrated with the project software itself.
- Security. New products are delivering more advanced always-on but non-intrusive security model. Models such as Groove Virtual Office provide for painless user authentication, data encryption, and easy firewall traversal.
- Reduced Cost of Disk Space. Currently available laptops have 60–80 GB of disk space (Dell Computers, 2005). The consequence is that people can take their applications and data with them for offline work.
Access to People: Current trends are towards improved person-to-person communications.
- Instant messaging (IM) has moved into the workplace with products such as IBM Sametime, Yahoo and Windows Messenger. Reported benefits include improved teamwork and saving time on tasks (Shiu & Lenhart, 2004).
- Voice over IP (VoIP) is being adopted by more companies for cost-savings and closer collaboration between far-flung worldwide operations (Gibson, 2005). Computer-to-computer and computer-to-telephone voice communications allow people to stay in touch with very low costs.
- Presence awareness enables users to have their online/offline status known. These visual cues enhance productivity by letting people connect with team members to resolve an issue in real-time. This feature is also useful in extending the hours of overlap for teams working across time zones since many people are online outside of normal business hours.
As shown in Exhibit 1, team members can see the status of their colleagues in the project workspace. Shown at left, is the feature as implemented in Groove Virtual Office; at right is Microsoft SharePoint.
Exhibit 1
Virtual Leadership
- Establishing the framework. A key role of the team leader is to establish the appropriate working framework early on in the project. Of particular importance are:
- Introducing team members to their virtual work environment, just as we would introduce a new team member in a physical office space
- Explaining key processes such as information collection and distribution or how and when to communicate. In a physical work setting, team members typically compensate for lack of process through increased face-to-face interaction. This is much more difficult in a virtual environment where people new to virtual spaces may not want to raise issues in a common discussion tool. In this case, the best approach is leadership by example.
- Social skills and leadership. For team leaders, social skills are more important in a virtual team than a co-located team. It takes extra effort to keep everyone fully engaged, and the symptoms of team members who may be drifting are not as immediately visible. Furthermore, there is a need to understand and compensate for local biases among cross-cultural team members. Experience in cross-cultural environments is a valuable asset for today's project manager.
The team leader must be aware that values and behaviours are harder to communicate in a virtual world and compensate for this, appearing in the project workspace daily, answering questions and guiding the work.
- Clear and Visible Project Objectives and Status. Everyone must see and understand the project objectives, their role in achieving them, and the current project status. Failing to provide a digital workplace with current information will result in disengagement and potentially poor results. The project manager must ensure that everyone has access and is using the tools provided.
Leaders of successful virtual teams recognize that these factors are at play and invest the necessary time at the beginning of a project to build consensus, establish frequent team communications, keep the project objectives visible, and ensure that everyone is comfortable with the technologies being used to coordinate team efforts.
Part II
Introduction
Steelcase, the global leader in the office furniture industry, provides people with a better work experience through products, services and insights into the ways people work.
To maintain its market leadership, Steelcase has evolved into a truly global business. Common processes have been established companywide to support its increasingly global customer and dealer base. Work occurs across floors, buildings, geographies, business functions and companies. Internal and external subject matter experts lend their skills wherever and whenever they are needed. Project teams span lines of business.
The by-product of such a decentralized structure is the virtual work team, which has become commonplace at Steelcase; many Steelcase teams are global, cross-functional, multi-organizational and often multi-cultural and multi-language.
Steelcase International started out in the virtual collaboration realm using “what works”: email, shared drives, Notes databases and online team rooms. But none of these addressed the contextual, multi-faceted, rich nature of human collaboration.
In the case studies that follow, we are going to examine how three Steelcase International virtual teams have addressed their business needs using the Groove Networks' Virtual Office platform, combined with a number of process and people-cantered activities.
Common requirements
Steelcase International has identified the following requirements as key when selecting its next-generation collaboration platform:
- Simplicity. A collaboration tool must make the task of working virtually easier, not harder. This is a condition for fast adoption by users.
- Mobility. Knowledge workers everywhere are increasingly mobile and work more and more with people outside the company. Supporting this mobility through offline work and firewall traversal is essential.
- Human-centric. Facilitating natural human interaction and behaviour is crucial. And offering users cues they would normally find in their physical space is very important in adapting to their new virtual environment.
- “Toolbox” approach. One size does not fit all. Supporting various needs through a palette of integrated tools (file sharing, online meetings, project management, data capture, presence awareness, communication, and alerts) is another key factor for success.
- Security. Virtual teams work across firewalls and over the open Internet; providing always-on, by-default security is therefore a requirement.
CASE STUDY 1: Steelcase.com internationalization team
“You never met before and the project must be completed by yesterday…”
Steelcase decided to form an international marketing team of ten in order to localize its Steelcase.com corporate Web site for each of Steelcase's European hubs. The team is highly distributed and multi-cultural; some members had never met in person. Yet, they were charged with bringing the localized sites live within a short timeframe and under tight budget constraints.
Business needs
The team immediately elected to work virtually in order to meet its deadlines and budget objectives. Key needs were to manage the entire content development and Web site launch process through the virtual platform. There was also a clear need for bridging cross-cultural differences, brought about by the extreme diversity of the team. The 7 languages and 6 different country backgrounds were identified as both a source of richness in the collaboration, and a potential source of misunderstanding and misalignment in the team.
The solution
The team's specific needs were addressed as follows:
• Content building, including copy and visuals, using the Groove Files and Document Review tools.
• Managing tasks associated with the project's various stages including updating content, launching, content, go live, etc., using the TeamDirection Project and Dashboard tools.
• Frequent communication using Groove Chat, Instant Messaging and Discussion tools
Exhibit 2
What made the difference?
The capacity to react and bring the virtual team together quickly was key. In this respect, the low-infrastructure approach (peer-to-peer) offered by Groove was crucial, as well as the toolbox nature of the platform, which allowed rapid and easy deployment of the right environment.
As important was the ability to leverage the platform in various ways to build trust; for instance, by sharing familiar artefacts about people --pictures, bios, etc…-- inside the workspace, as you would in a physical environment. And by encouraging written, content-rich exchanges using the Groove Discussion tool to deal with complex questions and avoid misunderstandings caused by language and cultural differences.
CASE STUDY 2: SAP implementation team
“You said: Managing highly complex projects virtually?!”
A team of 20 located across Germany and France was formed to lead the SAP implementation in Germany, an ongoing, multi-stage project. This is a multi-cultural and cross-functional team, where members have different backgrounds, although the business language is English.
Business needs
The SAP team key business needs revolve around document versioning and the coordination of hundreds of project tasks. Prior to using Groove, the team struggled to collaboratively build and version documents such as business specifications, R&D information, training documentation, or project planning documents. To do that, the team had no choice but to rely on email, two disconnected shared drives and a combination of Microsoft Project and Excel to track project tasks. Going beyond the initial cultural biases inherent in a multi-national team was another key objective for the project leader.
The solution
Specific solutions implemented:
• Creating and working together on hundreds of documents using the Groove File sharing and Document Review tools.
• Common project management methodology and tasks tracking established using the Team Direction Project and Dashboard tools.
• Managing meetings preparation, execution and follow-up using the Meetings tool.
What made the difference?
Despite dealing with IT users primarily, the Steelcase Collaboration Services (SCS) team did not take for granted that people would feel comfortable working virtually.
On the contrary, the SCS team focused on training the team in the use of technology to “build bridges” and work with others effectively. Addressing the specific business needs of the team and customizing their work environment accordingly was another key focus area.
CASE STUDY 3: International Dealer tools team
“Four companies and one team”
With a network of over 200 dealers, Steelcase International has a team in charge of the development of a software tool allowing dealers to manage their complete order fulfilment processes. The 12-member team includes staff from four different companies, with half of the members being Steelcase employees and the remainder composed of external consultants working remotely.
Business needs
The key need is sharing information and managing project tasks across disconnected / incompatible IT environments, while ensuring data security and confidentiality.
The solution
This dispersed team works as one inside four Groove workspaces –one main workspace with all internal and external members, and separate workspaces devoted to each external consultant's activities –The team works securely across firewalls leveraging always-on strong encryption and authentication.
Specific needs addressed are:
• Sharing and collaborating on software specifications using the Files sharing and Document Review tools
• Managing project timelines using the TeamDirection Project and Dashboard tools
• Collaboratively analyzing dealer needs using the Discussion tool (replacing weekly conference calls)
• Tracking development requests using a custom Groove Forms application
• Developing meeting agendas, minutes and assigning action items with the Meetings tool.
What made the difference?
The SCS team worked with the Team Leader to map out processes that would have to be supported in this virtual work setting –again, an approach similar to what is done when designing a physical space.
Attention was also given to the people dimension; structured training and coaching were applied to establish trust among the team members (from four different companies) and ensure an equal level of comfort working virtually.
Conclusion
So, what are the critical success factors for enabling virtual teams? When analyzing the three pilot projects, a number of commonalities emerge.
Running pilots is itself a success factor. Yes, there are general best practices that are applicable to many organizations, but it is crucial to also uncover the practices specific to your organization that will allow your virtual teams to be really effective.
Piloting the Groove platform deployment with three real business teams helped Steelcase uncover these critical success factors:
- PEOPLE: in the area of virtual collaboration, the human factor can determine success or failure. The team leader has a particularly important role in any cross-functional team. But his/her role is even more pivotal when the team is virtual and multi-cultural because of the team dynamics when people are geographically distributed. It is therefore essential that the team leader's profile be a good match for leading a virtual team (see Part I). We have seen virtual teams fail because the leader was more comfortable operating in a hierarchical, physical setting rather than in a cross-functional, virtual setting. Training and coaching of virtual teams is also a vital ingredient for their success.
- PROCESS: clearly understanding the team's work processes is the second critical success factor, in that it helps ensure the virtual work environment supports the way people work and is aligned with the team's objectives.
- TOOLS: tools must adapt to humans and not the other way around. Because business needs differ from one team to the next, being able to choose from a toolbox is essential.
Summary
Recent technology developments have made distributed projects much more feasible. The following table summarizes the authors' findings based on practical applications.
| Challenges | Mitigating Techniques & Technologies | |
| 1 | Lack of Common Understanding | 1. Make technology easy-to-use and accessible from multiple locations 2. Ensure everyone can relate to information in the context of the whole project 3. Keep project objectives and status clearly visible to everyone 4. If possible, have deliverables that everyone can see – people are motivated by progress |
| 2 | Difficulties in Information-Sharing | 1. Use cross-firewall technology or hosted services 2. Ensure everyone has access and knows how to use the technology 3. Use Unread markers to save time in spotting new/changed information |
| 3 | Making and Maintaining Contact | 1. Establish a digital project home where the team meets regularly 2. Use presence awareness 3. Emulate introduction of new team members into a physical space – show them around, make introductions |
| 4 | Lack of trust | 1. Always do what you say you are going to do 2. Communicate frequently to re-focus efforts and ensure no one is drifting away 3. Lead by example |
| 5 | Cultural Differences | 1. Be available to communicate daily, including with team members in other time zones 2. Take the time to build consensus and trust 3. Communicate regularly and often 4. Use written communications in the workspace to provide clarity 5. Keep local context in mind and think through cultural biases before taking action |