Project Issues for e-teams

Every team has internal boundaries. Some team members may share more similar backgrounds, social interests, training or responsibilities, or they may have worked together previously. It is critical to acknowledge the existence of temporal and geographic boundaries as well. When working remotely, a team member may decide to arrive at the office at the same time as others, or at quite different times. Workers in different time zones might be subject to certain very particular restrictions. The two new boundaries—project planning and project management—introduce particular project-related concerns for e-teams.

1. Project Planning: During the project-planning process, there are additional considerations for e-teams that pertain to the definition of tasks and their assignments to specific team members. One consideration is the nature of the project’s activities, either proactive or reactive.
2. Project Management: Project controls with respect to communications within work groups. Just because team members work virtually doesn’t mean they should be burdened with performing all communication in written form, amounting to unnecessary documentation and e-mails. Verbal communication can still be effective. For instance, if a team member has an opinion or suggestion:
3. E-mail the other nine; there may be several rounds of back-and-forth emails.
4. Tell the other four at the team’s location, and hope that someone mentions it to the other team at its location.
5. Tell the other four at the team’s location, and use the telephone to call one or more members of the other team.
6. Arrange a meeting either face-to-face or via technology.
7. Tell a preassigned, point-of-contact team member to pass the information to the point-of-contact team member for the other team.

Alternative 1 is a possibility, but it does add to the existing volume of documentation. Alternative 2 provides no assurance that the second team, will actually receive the communication, while alternatives 3,4 and 5 do provide some assurance that the communication will actually reach the intended targets. Alternatives 3,4, and 5 also represent initiating styles of e-leadership and to some degree distributed leadership in teams.