rearranging the deckchairs blog has an interview with karen lojeski about ‘virtual distance’.

karen’s research shows virtual distance can cause competitive disadvantage, project failure, and economic loss. the research also showed that virtual distance does NOT only occur with geographically dispersed teams. yep, geographic distance is NOT REQUIRED. instead, the focus of the definition is on electronic communication.

Of course, geography can play into virtual distance, but the concept itself is really independent of location. You are at risk for virtual distance any time electronic communications becomes a substantial substitute for talking on the phone and meeting face-to-face. That lack of perceived “closeness” can have very real effects on the productivity, efficiency, and ultimately on the success of, IT projects.

there’s lots of research out there concerning the problems of electronic communication so this isn’t a new revelation. i don’t know of any research that shows how much in-house teams use electronic communication in comparison with f2f but i think it’s pretty obvious electronic communication is on the increase. at what level does it become to the detriment to the team?

karen consults and the website doesn’t reveal much but i’m intrigued and repulsed by this:

Using a set of metrics coined the Virtual Distance Indexâ„¢, VDI helps global corporations quantitatively measure the extent to which they are exposed to Virtual Riskâ„¢.

i can understand the desire to have a lovely little quiz or checklist which you can apply to your team in order understand problems and then used as a roadmap out of those problems but i don’t think they work very well.

having used a psychometric instrument in my research, i don’t have a lot of faith in them. i think it’s too easy to administer the instrument, get a result and rely very heavily on that result as the whole story. i think some instruments out there are easy to see through and there is research that some people try to answer these the way they think the administrator wants them to be answered. an example from my research, was collaboration was the #1 preferred way of dealing with conflict. if you think about conflict in your teams, is collaboration really the preferred way? that wouldn’t be my answer from previous experience. however i do think people know consciously and subconsciously that they should be collaborate as much as possible.

‘collaboration’ is one of those buzz words, one of those management concepts, that have been flung at us so many times we just nod and agree it’s a wonderful thing we should all participate in. but is it? and how do we learn to collaborate?

the latest issue of the M/C journal focuses on collaboration. i have only read the editor’s notes and the titles of the articles look very intriguing. i expect to comment more on the journal.

i am a fan of collaboration. sure i’m brilliant (laugh now – meant to be a joke) but i can’t know everything going on in the world. i can’t be an expert on teams as well as code perfect php, speak fluent german and know every intricate detail on tax law but if i had aspirations of building a financial software package for the german market I would need those skills plus more (i’m not btw). of course collaborating with a team who had those skills would allow me to develop such a product.

during my research, i looked at conflict management styles (of which collaboration is one). in 1964, blake & mouton wrote ‘ the managerial grid ‘ and developed 5 management styles based on how much you care about people & production. the 2 dimensional framework still persists and was made even more famous in 1976 with the thomas-kilmann instrument measuring conflict styles (Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument ).

it’s unclear as to the effects of collaboration in conflict. brown (1992) thought it was best to use collaboration in all situations. some reports found using collaboration in conflict increased promotability (blake & mouton, 1964; thomas, 1971) while others linked it to negative team functioning and effectiveness (de dreu & van vianen, 2001). when administering the ‘dealing with conflict instrument’ (hiam, 1999) to my research participants:

collaboration was the dominant preferred style for handling conflict!

in fact, 89% said they preferred to use collaboration. while testing the instrument, hiam’s research also showed collaboration was the primary style but at 47% – no where near as high as my 89%. i wonder if this is because of the push towards teamwork or the influence of the buzzword? could it be industry specific (i don’t know those details of his study but mine were heavy IT)? is it a virtual vs face-to-face team difference?

my gut feeling is collaboration should not always be used during conflict. how well each style works was beyond the scope of my research but maybe there will be something in this journal that further explores the issue.

here’s a posting about using email for collaboration. or rather why is there such resistance to using collaborative software tools instead of email which lots of us would agree isn’t the most productive tool. and why do people revert back to email even after using software?

fyi, this posting is from a collaboration software company blog. they decided to look for what’s good with email and found:

- it’s easy to use (we all know how it works, we’re used to it)
- it’s universal (we all know how it works & it works for everyone. it’s not platform or software dependant)
- it’s accessible anywhere
- it can be personalised (personalised in terms of who you cc or bcc or what priority u put on the email)
- it’s managable & configurable (it’s easy to set up filters and manage ur email)
- it’s searchable
- it’s in your face (u can’t get away from it)
- it just works (this was more of a summary… easy to learn, get started quickly, etc)

i was reading case studies at basecamp the other day and one of the questions asked was how using basecamp has effected their email usage. i think every study i read said they previously used email as their primary mode of communication and now that they use basecamp, that usage has dropped significantly.

email was used by 100% of the companies that participated in my thesis research. i don’t think anyone would find that surprising with a virtual team. email usage ranged between 12% and 75% across the teams. this also didn’t surprise me.

what did surprise me was the slowness to incorporate newer technologies (especially as 50% of teams were in the IT industry). none of the teams used blogs (either reading a team members or writing their own). none used application sharing. none used shared whiteboards. none incorporated member profiles. none used videophones.

that’s not to say it was ALL email usage. two teams used a wiki (30% usage for one team and 5% for the other). collaborative software was used by one team 55% of the time. yahoo groups (or other group software like google groups) was used by two teams (60% and 10% of each team’s usage).

i did not ask what sort of planning went into technology decisions. with the top 3 communication methods being email (email and email with attachments), IM and phone (individual and conference phone calls but not VOIP calls), i suggest there isn’t much or any planning on technologies and our mindset doesn’t expand much beyond those 3. or perhaps we just don’t have time to plan. whatever the reason, this isn’t very good news for software vendors.

there is enough research and experience out there for us to know email has its faults – everyone has experienced being misunderstood in an email. so why do we cling to it so tightly? the list above answers that question to some degree but i don’t think delves deep enough. and btw, none of the items above are hard to work thru in a collaboration software IMO.

there’s a few things that come to mind but i’m starting to feel exhausted and feeling like a ramble may be coming so i’ll just concentrate on one other reason: privacy. community moderators are familiar with the idea of the ‘back channel’ which is when you talk outside the normal community way (using IM person to person instead of posting in the group). back channel communication is all about privacy. sometimes we don’t want to say something to the entire group. sometimes we’re shy about putting forth an issue to the entire group and want to float it to one person first. sometimes we’re just not sure what the protocol is with discussing something. i think this is one of the reasons email is good. the question is how do you maintain that privacy but not lose the ideas if they are needed later? that’s a question for vendors to incorporate!!

what are the other ways email is good or bad in how we use it to collaborate?

while i have finished my thesis, i am leaving the survey online for a few months so others can participate. if you work in a virtual team and are interested in contributing, please email me at jen at riza dot com. i will supply you with additional information concerning the research & confidentiality as well as instructions.

fyi, the research involves an online survey which takes approximately 15-20 min and a short follow-up interview (via IM or email).