Important Practices When Working With Your Virtual Team
November 6, 2011 in Global Virtual Opportunities
Important Practices When Working With Your Virtual Team
Article by Jason Drohn
Irrespective of the type of business you’re managing, whether you are selling software to help people rank their sites well or you’re selling eBooks, you will need to build your own team to help you scale up your business. Expanding your business while keeping in touch with your target audience is practically impossible to do on your own because there are so many issues you need to focus on which is why you need a team of people to help you. If you hire an in-house team, it’s going to prove to be expensive. So the best option turns out to be hiring a virtual team that can fulfill your tasks on a regular basis.
First and foremost, realize the value of having an effective team, and whether it’s global or local you need to focus on quality. It is great to talk to your team, and you should, but take care that you do not waste any time at all on the calls. In order to cut down on the possibility for mistakes, it is up to you whether or not you send them an email with any important information. It is difficult to state a certain length for your conference calls, but perhaps it is best to just use common sense. Your team will feel appreciated if they have an opportunity to ask questions, etc. Be sure all know and understand they can contact you by email if they need to do so. But the focus of your call should be on critical issues that need to be addressed. This is why it makes sense to always prepare the material before the call.
You should start relying more on modern technology to help you manage your virtual team more efficiently. There is plenty of different software available, like GoToMeeting, that is created especially to help ease communication by allowing you to hold discussions online, meetings, brainstorming sessions and much more. Skype will allow you to have a conference call with your entire team if you want to share ideas or get updates. Once you start leveraging technology properly, there won’t be any limitations and you will be able to access your team easily. However, remember that there are also offline solutions for communication and one of the best is the phone, which is why you shouldn’t overlook it.
Bear in mind that each person has their own strengths and base of knowledge, so be sure to allow them to contribute on their own. If necessary, you can ask team members to do special tasks that involve a higher level of responsibility. It not only makes your managing work easier, but it also gives a sense of responsibility to the key players in the team. The overall positive effect can be one of increased willingness to accomplish more. Many people want to expand their opportunities, and that is one way to let them do it.
If your company can benefit from a virtual team, then be sure you take the necessary steps to do it properly. If the project manager isn’t getting things organized then it will be difficult for the team members to focus on the task on hand, and get them completed on time. You will always experience challenges along the way, but they can be handled if you take an even handed approach to it.
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For more information and how-to type resources, check out this virtual team building article. It’ll give you the steps necessary to getting your virtual team started.
