virtual team

Working in Virtual Teams

Posted on 03.19.20

I had originally written this blog some time ago; however, as many people around the globe are being forced to work from home, I believe this post might be more relevant than ever. Please note my personal best wishes for the wellbeing of you and your family until the craziness subsides.

Working in Virtual Teams

While much research has been published on why virtual teams fail, fewer publications have demonstrated what works. We present a five-phase model that balances individual contributors, leadership skills, and necessary functional enablers.

What is a Virtual Team?

Virtual teams share three characteristics. First, they are tasked with completing a common objective, meaning that there is a business need for the team to be assembled. Second, team members are dispersed in different geographical locations or working from home.

Normally, we only think about dispersed team members located in different cities or in different time zones around the world. In recent days, we also accept that panic and fear force dispersion for workers. Any barrier to face-to-face communication results in a dispersed team. For instance, team members located on different floors of the same building face barriers in face-to-face communication. They must take an elevator or climb a flight of stairs to meet. A chance interaction at the coffee pot or water cooler (do we still have these privileges?) is greatly reduced, even though these team members are theoretically “co-located”.

Barriers to face-to-face communication reduce opportunistic social interactions, and decrease chances of random idea exchange and collaboration that lead to enhanced creative problem-solving.

Finally, virtual teams conduct most of their communication by electronic technology. Of course, many people today (especially millennials) choose to communicate through technology – texting instead of talking. But in the case of a virtual team, electronic communication is the primary means of communication due to separation, distance, and time differences.

Improving Virtual Team Performance

The five-phase model to improve virtual team behaviors and to lead to enhanced performance includes:

Initiation and structure,
Methods of communication,
Meetings and protocols,
Knowledge management, and
Leadership.

Each foundational building block includes two or three specific tools, actions, or checklists that support the effectiveness of a virtual team. For example, communication includes a recommended tool, a common practice, and a leadership action to get real results in virtual team performance.

Why Do We Need a Model for Virtual Teams?

Models help to frame the context and solution to problems. Moreover, training participants in a given model establishes a common framework and provides clear expectations for team behaviors and performance.

We recommend training virtual teams on the five-stage model at the earliest group meetings. One of the recommendations for a virtual project than is to hold a face-to-face meeting to ensure a common understanding. The face-to-face kick-off meeting is also a time to develop special technical skills and team behaviors. Technical training may include project management skills, software applications, and new product development processes. Team training should include communication, leadership, and knowledge management.

Performance Measures

Projects are measured by their critical success factors determined during project initiation. Likewise, virtual teams should be measured by team behaviors and metrics that are established for success of the team’s activities. Virtual teams must have team metrics in order to support teamwork.

Many companies speak about teamwork but will evaluate employees on individual performance metrics. The only way to enforce team behaviors is to include team measures in employee evaluations. This is especially important for virtual teams in which a large amount of work is conducted independently and in isolation from others. Such performance measure are a part of the Meetings and Protocols arena of the five-phase virtual team model (VTM).

Identifying Virtual Team Members

Selecting team members to serve on a virtual team will be addressed in greater detail in a future post. For now, however, be aware that virtual team members must have a different set of characteristics than those working in traditional, co-located teams.

First, virtual team members must demonstrate technical expertise. One of the benefits of a virtual team is an ability to access technical experts regardless of their location. Unique cultural, professional, and personal experiences yield a variety of perspectives that are advantageous to selecting technical expert talent on a virtual team.

Next, virtual team members require a higher degree of self-sufficiency, self-motivation, and emotional intelligence than traditional team members. Team members may work in isolation without day-to-day routines or schedules. Self-directed leadership is required for successful task completion.

Finally, dispersed team members should be skilled at operating within a virtual environment. While they may not be computer wizards themselves, virtual team members must be tech-savvy in order to best utilize communication tools and shared knowledge to accomplish project work.

Learn How to Improve Virtual Team Performance

You can improve the performance of a virtual team by using the five-phase Virtual Team Model: initiation and structure, communication, meetings and protocols, knowledge management, and leadership. Learn how to improve your team’s performance in our online Virtual Team course. Find out more here and register here. Contact me at [email protected] for questions/comments.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

Routines for Innovation Teams

Posted on 09.05.19

Last week, we discussed two key arenas for success with innovation teams – communication and the project charter. Good communication is obvious in all areas of our lives, but we are often staggeringly inept at sharing information when needed by others. The project charter is a critical guiding document for the team that lays out boundaries and constraints for the product development effort. You can watch a short video on communication and charter here.

While skills development is one of the biggest concerns for innovation executives and leaders, routines in innovation processes can build habits that drive success. Many of the systems and processes in new product development (NPD) are detailed and sophisticated so that companies minimize risk and maximize ROI. On the other hand, routines for project teams are simple and inexpensive with high returns.

Rewards and Recognition

Most of us get up every day and go to work for a purpose. We might say we need to earn money to pay the bills, but as creative professionals, our purpose in working is far deeper. People drawn to innovation, design, and development work, value helping others and improving lives. Hiring for Purpose is the first practice in the Initiation and Structure element of the Virtual Team Model (VTM).

***Element 1 of the Virtual Team Model***

Human beings also want to reap rewards when we fulfill our purpose. Creating a new product that makes it easier to do yard work or yield an increased throughput at the factory are achievements worth celebrating. Recognition of successes in innovation is an important motivator for teams, especially when the challenges seem insurmountable.

NPD teams can build rewards and recognition into their daily routines. For example, daily stand-up meetings can also celebrate successes when goals are met, and tests are completed. Innovation professionals can gather in an informal celebration at lunch after a successful gate review. Displaying the first-run production batches in commemorative packaging builds morale and showcases the team’s efforts.

Rewards and recognition should also include profit-sharing for the new product or business as well. Profit-sharing and stock options are long-term rewards that encourage strategic development rather than quick hits. Longer term rewards also demonstrate the organization’s commitment to learning and development for the innovation teams.

Renewal

Too often, we are on the go all the time. Because of the dedication to the purpose and mission of new product development, innovation professionals often put in long hours. Especially during crunch times to meet critical deadlines and during commercial launches, team members work evenings and weekends, traveling away from their homes, families, and friends. All of this go-go-go takes a toll.

Therefore, innovation teams must build routines of renewal. It can be as simple as instituting walking meetings instead of sitting in stuffy conference rooms. Renewal comes from relaxing the mind, body, and spirit.

Japanese companies require a two-week vacation each year. The reason is that you don’t really let go of your worries and concerns with just a few days away from the office. But, in two weeks you have time to pursue a favorite hobby, breathe in nature, and rejuvenate your soul. Renewal is also the reason that churches and universities offer sabbaticals. The intensity of work in these professions – to help guide and educate others – must be balanced with personal renewal. Sabbaticals give preachers and teachers an opportunity to clear their heads of day-to-day busyness and to focus on important messages.

What is Your Innovation Routine?

Does your innovation team have routines beyond schedules and budgets cycles? Do you recognize and celebrate all accomplishments? Even the learnings that come from failure? Do you reward teams with both financial and motivational honors? Do you give your innovation professionals time for renewal?

Innovation is tough work. If you face issues with too many failed projects and demotivated teams, consider adding routines of reward recognition and renewal. Learn how at the complimentary Life Design Master Mind Q&A webinar on 21 October 2019 at noon CDT (1 pm EDT, 10 am PDT). Register here.

Are Your Innovation Teams Struggling to Move Forward?

If your teams are struggling with cohesiveness and generating timely results, please join us on Friday, 6 September 2019 at 12 noon CDT for a complementary Q&A webinar on Building Effective Cross Functional Teams. Everyone who attends the webinar receives a FREE work style assessment.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

What Does Diversity Mean for Innovation?

Posted on 03.28.19

Innovation often means success or failure for a company. Organizations need to create new products and services to maintain relevance in the marketplace. Customers and other stakeholders view innovation as driving new features and functionalities that ultimately support profitability for a firm.

Just as customers and clients are diverse, innovation teams need to be diverse. An interesting paper in the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM, Vol. 35, 2018) describes four different categories of diversity related to new product development (NPD). And it may surprise you that what we typically consider as measures of diversity can actually hinder innovation team effectiveness.

Job-Related Diversity

in their paper, Weiss et al., define “job-related” and “not job-related diversity”. In the first category are team member differences regarding education, work experience, and organizational functions. In contrast, not job-related diversity includes demographics, geographies, and value systems. Much of the general literature on teamwork has focused on not job-related diversity; however, research on creativity and innovation has examined job-related diversity to a greater degree.

Surface versus Deep Levels of Diversity

Diversity traits are also categorized by the ease with which another individual can view or discern them. For example, demographic diversity is a surface characteristic since we can usually discern age, gender, or race easily. Likewise, education and organizational function are readily determined for most team members and is often part of socialization, forming a team, or standard team-building activities.

Deep diversity traits, on the other hand, require interaction in relationship with another party to be fully revealed. And in some work situations, a person’s closely held values may be strictly guarded and not revealed to others. These characteristics include personality and preferred working styles such as openness to experience, degree of introversion/extroversion, or level of power and achievement. Deep personal values are not job-related yet strongly impact how an individual behaves and interacts with other team members.

Deep job-related traits include cognitive diversity and interaction styles such as knowledge, skills, and thinking and communication styles. A brief encounter or low-level working relationship cannot reveal deep job-related diversity characteristics. However, on an innovation team with open and honest dialogue, these deep diversity traits, such as thinking and communication styles, may be revealed over time.

Which Traits Lead to Innovation

According to the review by Weiss et al., surface level, not job-related diversity traits can hinder innovation productivity. People may immediately form stereotypes when thrown together into a team composed of people based on demographics alone, for example. Here, the differences outweigh the benefits and people will drift toward others more like themselves. This can lead to intra-team conflicts since there may be a lack of goal or purpose for the diversity of the team toward a working relationship.

For benefits of diversity to be captured, innovation teams need to build on job-related diversity more than just surface characteristics. While geographic diversity (a surface trait that is not job-related) can enhance local market understanding for an innovation team, job-related diversity plays a larger role in team productivity. Cross-functional teams face challenges in communication due to jargon, terminology, and norms. If not addressed properly, diversity in function can actually harm the efficiency and productivity of an innovation team. However, when team purpose, knowledge sharing, and conflict management processes are established through training and application, team collaboration is supported.

Of course, this doesn’t surprise me. In my chapter on Virtual Team Models in PDMA Essentials 3, I describe key practices for the team leader to reinforce the common purpose of the team, communication methodologies, and tools for knowledge sharing that enhance gaps for dispersed teams. It is only with deliberate attention to, and understanding of, individual and cultural differences that a team can build a cohesive group working style to achieve innovation success.

Working Styles

Finally, much work has been done to help individuals raise their self-awareness in working styles. The DiSC® assessment, for instance, allows people to learn about their preferred working style and to test interactions with team members of different working styles. Of course, when dealing with a deep, job-related diversity trait, team members must learn to trust one another, compromise, and forgive mistakes. Another great starting point for innovation teams is the Team Dimensions Profile which looks at the team members’ focus on possibility versus reality and the desire to interact or analyze. The Team Dimensions Profile then shows the distribution of working styles to build communication, collaboration, and conflict management strategies that improve innovation outcomes.

Why is Diversity Important to Innovation?

Innovation relies on satisfying customers with different wants and needs. Marketing messages must balance functional characteristics of a product with the emotional needs of end-users. An NPD team with diverse perspectives can best identify with the broadest set of customer needs and is well-suited to designing and developing products for the highest levels of customer satisfaction.

Yet, as researchers have learned, team diversity is not just an observable surface trait. An effective innovation team must tackle diversity from a deep level of job-related traits such as knowledge, skills, and working styles. Understanding our differences allows us to generate communication patterns that yield improved efficiency and productivity for innovation.

Learn More

I love to help innovation team succeed. If you want to learn more about the Team Dimensions Profile, view a sample report, or learn more about Workplace DiSC, please contact me at [email protected] I’m also offering a 15% discount on a standard bundle of Design Thinking and Agile NPD courses for the 22nd to 24th of April 2019. Use code “bundle” at checkout. Design Thinking provides a fabulous set of tools to increase diversity in communication with your end customer in mind.

If you want to learn more about developing a strong virtual team, you need to register for one of the Virtual Team Model courses right away! Some other tools for leaders of innovation teams include the Situational Team Leadership group activity and assessing the creativity of your team with a Team Dimensions Profile. Contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching. I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

Stop by and Say “Hi”

Are you attending the Texas Open Innovation Conference in Houston on 28 March? I’d love to chat with you. Also, I am speaking on open innovation and design thinking at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Spring Meeting in New Orleans on 1 April (Management Division). And, I’ll be at the Bay Area SHRM Conference on 4 April 2019 in Friendswood, Texas. And, get ready for the PDMA conference in Orlando in November! I’ll be sponsoring a booth at the conference and would love to meet you in person!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

This was first published on the blog at www.Simple-PDH.com. o

What Dogs Teach Us About Leadership

Posted on 03.21.19

Joey is a dog. Not just any dog, but an elite sled dog who participates in the famous Iditarod race across Alaska. The race covers 1,000 miles and commemorates an historic sled dog run to bring medicine to the people of Alaska. Mushers, the humans who drive the sled, win both fame and fortune at the Iditarod.

Nicolas Petit is one of the world’s top mushers. Unfortunately, he got stuck in a blizzard last year and came in second. This year, he was several miles ahead of all other competitors – a huge lead in this sport with legendary and vigorous competition to win. But, then, something happened and Petit watched his 5-hour lead evaporate.

Teamwork

Sled dogs are trained to work as part of an integrated team. Each dog has an assigned role whether it is in the lead or it is a power role to pull. The dogs are trained to work in pairs and with the dogs ahead and behind them as well. When you witness a dog sled race or demonstration, you see cooperation and companionship.

High-performing teams also demonstrate cooperation and companionship. In the business world, we call this “collaboration”. Collaboration allows a team to produce more than the sum of its individual parts. Creativity and innovation accelerate in collaborative environments because each idea builds and expands on those concepts that came before it. Most people report increased job satisfaction when working in a collaborative team setting.

Collaboration for Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are a special subset of working teams. In a dispersed team, most group members are located at different places, sometimes in different countries and often in different time zones. Virtual team members communicate primarily through electronic means and have little, if any, contact.

Innovation is believed to be enhanced by face-to-face collaboration. The speed of new ideas coming to the table can be accelerated in a F2F environment, and co-located team members have an easier time building trust among themselves. Yet, dispersed teams can outperform co-located teams when they are structured appropriately.

In the virtual team model (VTM, PDMA Essentials Volume 3), we present six elements of team structure that are critically important for innovation success with dispersed team members. Of these elements, setting and reinforcing the common purpose is a priority for team leaders. The common purpose unites team members with different individual personalities, work styles, and cultural norms. Purpose explains the mission, vision, and values of the team and leads to improved cohesion.

With new product development (NPD), the purpose to improve customer’s lives and increase the quality of products is a unifying message. Virtual teams bring an advantage to NPD in that local representation on the team yields a globally-attractive product. Moreover, because team members bring varied cultural perspectives to the innovation work, creativity can be higher than in a F2F team. You can learn more about the virtual team model here (training tools) or you can download a paper on the VTM here.

Leadership

Sled dog teams have more than one leader. And of course, this complicates matters significantly. We all know that working in a matrix organization introduces challenges that are not present in functional or project-oriented structures. A matrix organization is defined by staff members of having more than one boss; typically, a functional supervisor and a project director. A sled dog follows the musher’s direction and also follows the lead dog, for example.

Leaders motivate and inspire team members. I love to help leaders become more effective so that their teams can innovate at a higher level. It is important for leaders to recognize the varied working styles of each individual team member, and to match responsibilities and roles with people’s capacities and performance. Situational Team Leadership model is a tool that managers can use to improve teamwork and output for NPD teams. Contact me at [email protected] if you want to learn more about adapting teams and leadership styles with a Situational Team Leadership activity.

Situational team leadership focuses on an individual’s demonstrated skills and pairs these competencies with motivation and willingness to learn. Early in a team member’s assignment, s/he may be new to the task and lack confidence in an ability to complete certain activities. The team leader offers a directive style to manage this team member’s work, to support and encourage learning and growth.

As people’s skill sets grow and their confidence in task completion increases, the leader will offer different styles to encourage continued learning. These include coaching, supporting, and delegating. It is important for leaders to accurately assess – through conversation and observation – how well an individual is adopting new practices to build higher performance skills. Above all, a leader must be encouraging and tolerant, especially in innovation where failure often leads directly to knowledge creation.

Back to Joey

So, you’re probably still wondering about Joey and his musher, Nicolas Petit. In this story, we observe a demonstration of poor leadership and in act of solidarity or team cohesion. Petit yelled at Joey. And then, the whole team stopped. The dogs were well-fed and healthy but refused to go on after Petit yelled at Joey. I don’t know the entire set of circumstances that led to the musher scolding his dog, but I do understand the consequences.

When leaders scold team members with negative verbiage in public or in private, the employee loses trust and confidence. This is even worse in a virtual team were cultures and norms of communication vary widely. Broken trust is extremely difficult to repair, even more so for complex human team members.

A better approach (as compared to public shouting) is to offer private coaching to the team member whose performance is suffering. A leader can offer a Performance Improvement Plan that focuses on short-term goals, commitment to the team’s purpose, and shared responsibility to change behaviors and learning patterns. A leader cannot impose these objectives on another team member because self-awareness is key to lasting transformation.

People cannot be bought with a handful of tasty biscuits or raw meat. Hard work is required for a lagging team member to get back up and race again. But, when one team member shows his commitment to improving team performance, the others will also come along, just like sled dogs at the Iditarod.

Learn More

Stop by and Say “Hi”

Finally, successful leadership depends on a variety of perspectives for the team, the product, and the customer. We are holding a special workshop on Agile NPD on 23 & 24 April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA. Register here for the 2-day Agile NPD workshop and save on a full 3-day experience including a one-day pre-workshop course on Design Thinking. Use code “bundle” at checkout and save 15% on both courses (standard registration).

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

Brand Messages

Posted on 11.15.18

I’ve been travelling quite a bit lately. Some for business and some for pleasure. I have been through several airports and stayed in a bunch of different hotels. I’ve rented cars and taken shuttle buses, trains, and mass transit. All of these places are plastered with advertisements for products and services.

We are often exposed to products and services through these advertisements, especially when we initially become aware of a new offering. But we are also exposed to products and services through our use of them – the airline, the hotel, the rental car. As an overall picture of the quality and detail of service, the company’s reputation, and our use of the prime offering, we get to know the company’s brand.

People, too, have a brand. Of the many people I met in my travels, I gained a first impression of strangers or I furthered a relationship with old friends and colleagues. Like a product or service, each interaction with a person reflects his or her brand and enforces my desire (or not) for continued interaction.

In innovation and new product development (NPD) leadership, we generally consider a brand as a three-pronged approach to identifying the offering. The three elements of a brand are:

Clarity – the brand message must be clear and concise,
Consistent – each exposure to the product or person should maintain an expected range of performance, and
Compelling – successful brands tell us why they are unique and draw us toward them with an interesting story.

Let’s look at each of these elements in depth from both an innovation and leadership perspective.

Clarity

It is no great wonder that most conflicts begin because of a lack of clarity. Occasionally, clear messages are disrupted by noise or a poor signal – like trying to talk to someone over loud music or when they have only one bar on their cell phone. More often, brand clarity is disrupted because of our own assumptions as senders or receivers of messages.

Consider Apple’s famous advertising slogan “Think Differently.” The product message was clear. In a crowded personal computer market, Apple told their customers and potential customers that their product stood out; it was unique. The product brand message appealed to users who value product novelty and view themselves as different from the average person. And, at just two words, we cannot argue against the concise message!

Contrast Apples’ brand clarity with a leadership brand message. Sometimes we encounter individuals who are told to focus on “leadership presence”. There is no clarity in this message since we each can interpret “leadership presence” differently. Does it mean making a quick decision and sticking with it? Does it mean working long hours or having a corner office?

Before we can coach an individual to improve his or her performance, we need to clearly identify the behavior to enhance or modify. I believe asking questions to clarify goals and objectives, and to agree on fundamental definitions, is important to improve our innovation leadership skills. Asking powerful questions is one tool we address in both Virtual Team Leadership Training and in the Innovation Master Mind group.

Consistency

Product brands need to provide a consistent message. We have to recognize the product and be reminded of what it does for us. The product benefit message needs to be consistent so that we know we will get the same level of quality each time we engage a product or service to solve a problem for us.

While Coca-Cola has generally been a consistent brand for over 100 years, the company has had some high-profile stumbles with inconsistent brand messaging. The classic example of New Coke in the 1980s almost destroyed the brand. And again, in the 2000s, an honest attempt to promote their holiday theme led to inconsistent branding interpretations among diet soda drinkers. Of course, brand consistency is more than colors and logos, but these tangible perceptions of a brand help consumers consistently identify products and services with which they are familiar.

As an innovation leader, you also need to present a consistent brand. You cannot expect to be clam and reserved in a meeting with executives at the same time you shout and pound the table with direct reports. Our expectations of successful project leaders include consistent behavior that is honest, open, and forthright. When you are true to yourself, you will be true to others.

Compelling

Brand messages must be compelling and engage the appropriate audience to want to learn more. Again, Apple’s “Think Different” campaign featured famous and admired people so that consumers would be interested in how they could also be “different”.

Product and service brands engage us with their (consistent) colors and logos but also with a message of how we will be better because of their offering. Swiffer™ promises us that we can save time in our housekeeping chores – definitely a compelling message. Scott’s Brand Fertilizer promises us a greener lawn and to be the envy of our neighbors – another compelling message. And Maybelline promises us the secrets to beauty – a compelling desire of every woman!

Leaders also must deliver a compelling message to inspire and motivate their teams. It is not enough to simple state project goals, schedules, and budgets. Effective leaders create a shared purpose for the project team and draw the team together to accomplish these objectives.

In Chapter 6 of PDMA’s Essentials 3: Leveraging Constraints for Innovation and in the Virtual Team Leadership Training, we discuss building shared purpose within a team. The compelling message starts before the project, in initiating and structuring the team. Team members who believe in the organization’s mission and values are readily inspired and motivated to complete tasks and activities leading to a shared goal. Successful innovation leaders keep the objectives and unified purpose front and center throughout the project execution stages.

How to Apply a Brand Message

With products and services, New Product Development Professionals (NPDP) are trained to analyze customer needs, benefits, and value propositions. We can compose brand messages that are clear, consistent, and compelling that reflect our customers’ values. The goal is to create engaging products that meet customer needs and delightfully serve and satisfy their expectations.

Every leader also needs to consider his or her brand. We need to clearly express our potential as leaders through consistent behavior and in motivating team members. Clarity and consistency in leaders is expressed by asking powerful questions and in the following the golden rule – treat every as you would want to be treated. Our compelling message as leaders drives and supports a shared purpose and a mission to improve all circumstances in which we are privileged to serve.

What is Your Product Brand? What is Your Leadership Brand?

Contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 to learn more about the Virtual Team Model Leadership series or Situational Team Leadership. If you are in the position of leading a virtual team, please check out our courses and coaching at Simple-PDH.com as well as Chapter 6 in PDMA Essentials Volume 3. Finally, if you are a CIO (chief innovation officer) or NPD (new product development) manager, you will be interested in the Innovation Master Mind (IMM) group. IMM is a 6-month peer coaching group that allows you to extend your NPD knowledge beyond NPDP certification and to collaborate with other CIOs and innovation managers.

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC