On Friday of last week I attended a great “Lunch and Learn” session at the Austin Chamber of Commerce offices. It was put on by Dale Carnegie Training, and focused on how to best lead virtual teams in the digital age.
The session really got me thinking. For virtual teams, communication and alignment are paramount. But we do not have the in-person rapport-building you find in a physical office setting. So digital means are a must.
Coming out of the session, I decided to build a list of tool types and descriptions. These should be useful for you whether working with employees in Asia, outsourcing partners across the country, or any type of virtual team or joint client/vendor projects.
Standard Communication Tools
The first place to start is pretty logical – existing and accepted communication vehicles that most of us already have access to (or should).
Telephone
Let’s start with the simplest and most logical medium: the telephone. Everyone should have access to a phone in one way or another, be it traditional Landline, PBX, Cell Phone, VoIP, or an online service like Google Voice.
As probably the most used, yet least rich medium, email absolutely HAS to be included. It’s easy. It’s convenient. But it is not the answer to all circumstances. When things start getting tense over email, move to a more personal touch point such as the telephone.
Online Chat
In a real-time world, many professionals choose to use chat for business purposes. This is great when both parties accept the channel as standard course of business, since you get immediate replies. No waiting for when they can find a moment to reply to an email.
Online Meetings
With the recent economic hardships, online meetings have become much more commonplace than they were in the past. And there are a slew of tools that can help, including Webex, GoToMeeting / GoToWebinar, and Online Meetings from FreeConferenceCall.com.
Combination Platforms
Newer platforms have emerged that cross some or all of the above services. The most well-known is Skype, but FreeConferenceCall.com, Google, ooVoo, and many others offer models that combine various pieces.
Other Types of Tools
This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Tomorrow, I will cover two more types of tools that are available and gaining ground in the digital communication space:
- Collaboration Platforms
- Enterprise Social Networks
Check back late morning to read Part 2. Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment on this part of the blog post below.
Hi Kurt,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on here. I agree that video conferencing has become much more important to communications across virtual teams and even out to partners and clients.
Check out Part 2 and see what you think of the SaaS based tools I share on there. Let me know what you think!
Best,
Tommy
Thanks for sharing Tommy. Full disclosure: I work for a leading video communication technology company. Our customers around the globe are communicating and collaborating better than ever using video communication that also has data sharing, recording, publishing even streaming built in to use for training, project stand ups, Stage-Gate meetings, HR interviews and of course the “All hands” company meetings. It’s all about the quality of experience to have a truly productive virtual team. It’s more important than every for virtual teams to stay connected and remain productive. Video communication and collaboration tools are where it’s all headed in addition to the social enterprise like with Salesforce Chatter. Skype is great for small teams but not very secure for most companies, even SMBs and not a very reliable connection. Conference calls or web meetings are limiting because you can’t really see the other participants reactions. And I’m sure you’ve been on those calls where someone’s checking Facebook, someone else is checking stocks, people tune out and aren’t nearly as engaged as they would be if they were in the meeting in person. This is where true high-quality video communication and collaboration can make a huge difference in staying on target versus treading water and stuck in endless email chains and weekly boringly unproductive conference calls! Looking forward to your next post.