When we think of virtual teams we think of people accomplishing outcomes together across different locations. There are significant challenges to working together this way. Yet there is another dimension to virtual teams that can add to the complexity of functioning like a team. This is the dimension of  time. When people work together interdependently, yet operate at different times during the day, a different kind of distance is created that must be bridged. This is true even when time is the only thing that separates team members.

Virtual Team as a Function of Time

Consider a co-located team working at different times. When I was going to university, I had a job as a “Float Unit Coordinator” at a large city hospital. I did the clerical work on the ward, ordering blood work and x-rays, answering the phone, conveying messages between busy doctors and nurses and I updated all the patients charts each day. As a “float” filling in for permanent Unit Coordinators when they were either sick or on vacation, I saw and experienced every ward in the hospital. Each ward consisted of a very well engineered team made up of different people on different shifts, each with very well defined, interdependent roles (doctors, nurses, orderlies). A number of factors made this process function effectively, including the clear roles and responsibilities of team members.

Two roles were particularly critical to allowing the team to function effectively: that of the Head Nurse as well as my own job, Unit Coordinator. The Head Nurse set the tone of the ward. Some wards were efficient but happy places to be with a tone of mutual respect between all staff. Other wards were less efficient and more stressful as impatient doctors spoke curtly with busy nurses who sometimes took out their frustrations on the orderlies.  The Head Nurse was like an orchestrator, ensuring those playing different roles operate harmoniously.

The job of Unit Coordinator was important in ensuring the flow of communication. This was not left to happenstance. The job was very clearly defined and there were specific activities over the course of the day that allowed all of this to happen.  The Unit coordinator was the hub, through which information flowed.

Without these two roles, of orchestrator and hub,  in place it would have been virtually impossible for these teams to function with the efficiency and effectiveness that they did.  Overlay

In the next post we will examine different combinations of location and time and the success factors required for each to function effectively.