Page 252 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

developing your Virtual team � 231

ferent directions. Trust is the glue that keeps it all together, and tech-
nology is the lubricant that keeps everything spinning. So what holds
a virtual team together is analogous to what holds an atom together—
an electric charge pulls everything together by enabling the telecom-
munication needed to build bonds between people located perhaps
half a world away, to share knowledge among those team members,
and to energize performance.

` the VIrtuAl teAm deVelopment proCess

As the use of virtual teams becomes more and more pervasive, re-
searchers and practitioners have increasing experience and research to
help us understand how to facilitate their development. 9
Bruce Tuckman’s time-tested and oft-cited process—forming,
storming, norming, performing, and adjourning—has been easy to re-
member and to use as a reference when leaders consider how to facilitate
the development of high-performing teams. Virtual teams, however,
10
are relatively new as a widespread phenomenon and provide new chal-
lenges for leaders. While the basic team development processes remain
essentially intact, leaders of virtual teams need to emphasize different
things at different times. In fact, to be effective, leaders should consider
starting the virtual team development process before the actual team is
formed. The virtual team development process described here can be
considered a way to call attention to key tasks of virtual team leaders.
Tuckman has said the team development process starts with form-
ing and proceeds through adjournment. We’d like to suggest a re-
configuration—or at least different emphases—for the successful
development of virtual teams. We start with “norming.”

norming
Effective team leaders who are creating teams in any situation may be-
gin the norming process well before the team is even formed. Tuckman