Course Details
Course Outline
5 days course
Introduction and Overview
- Identifying the differences between co-located and virtual working
- Dealing with the realities of effective global teamwork
- Assessing the impact of management in a virtual environment
Overcoming the challenges of working in virtual teams
- Planning to meet the individual and team challenges of operating virtually
- Meeting the motivational challenges of individuals and teams
- Managing the impact of separation factors including distance, time zones and cultures
- Proactively adopting a model that focuses on relationships, communication and tasks
Creating a Model for Effective Management in the Virtual World
- Analysing the impact of distance on collaborative working
- Comparing working together with working apart and plugging the gaps
- Factoring in the effect of trust amongst team members
- Establishing the foundation for effective collaboration
- Providing what team members need to be successful
- Focusing on the needs of a virtual team
Building and Maintaining a Virtual Team
- Proactively developing a team with a common goal
- Identifying key staff competencies and qualities
- Balancing an individual's technical and virtual contributions
- Mapping the key relationships to enhance team success
- Analysing the perspectives and priorities of stakeholders
- Assessing the impact of current communications with stakeholders
- Managing dynamics
- Orienting new virtual team members through onboarding
- Managing the virtual learning dip
- Running effective virtual team start-up sessions
- Start-ups sessions: face-to-face or virtual?
Technology, Communication and the Virtual Workplace
- Enhancing the benefits of virtual collaboration
- Developing proactive communication approaches
- Measuring the impact of technology tools in filtering the richness of human communications
- Generating structured processes for selecting the right medium for key team activities
- Auditing the communication landscape
- Focusing on training in the use of common available tools
- Leveraging key virtual technologies
- Intranets/Extranets
- IM
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Social Networking
- Conferencing and collaboration tools
- Tips for using e-mail efficiently
- Evaluating virtual tools to maximise communication
Managing Diversity and Distance
- Working with cultural diversity
- Culture from different perspectives: organisational, national, regional and international
- Exploring levels and categories of culture
- Impact of culture on communications, negotiations and relationships
- Responding positively to the range and depth of cultures
- Incorporating cultural differences to benefit the team
When things go wrong at a distance
- Proactive approaches to conflict pressure points
- Developing an empathetic approach to energy levels of team members
- Creating an Action Plan to Lead Virtual Work
- Taking a proactive approach to daily leadership
- Refocusing leadership actions using a three-level model
- Practical tips for successfully managing virtual work
- Shifting to a new set of management priorities
- Adopting a proactive vs. reactive management approach to virtual operations
