Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased this book because I was intrigued. In much of the work I do I am a member of "virtual" teams. That is, I often am some distance apart from the people I am working with.
I found the book to be a slow read, with nuggets of information separated by deserts of fluff. The first half of the book is filled with vague ramblings about how the information age has changed the way that teams work and with case studies that illustrate how the forming of virtual teams has helped various companies solve difficult problems.
In the second half, the book begins to pick up. In a chapter entitled "Teaming with People" the authors discuss team dynamics, including essential roles with a team, how teams form and which aspects of team dynamics are especially subject to the stresses of distance communication.
The authors suggest that the beginning and closing phases of most projects are the most stressful on team members and that extra effort be exerted at the beginning phase of the project to bring the core project team members together, even if they are geographically separated. This, say the authors, will help build interpersonal relationships that can hold the team together in times of stress.
There are several optimum team sizes. 3 to 5 is the size of a core team, 5 to 25 the size of a "team family" and 25 to 200 the size of a "team camp". In the authors' opinion, any team larger than 5 people will naturally divide into sub-teams.
The authors also point out the value of rewarding teams. Making teams compete, or making them completely independent of one another has little value for the company. Cooperative goals can encourage and motivate all of the teams, while competition can demoralize them.
Finally, the authors talk about starting up teams and provide a checklist of some elements such as a customer and a management sponsor which are essential to any team's success.
Overall, I found the book to have some good information on forming and maintaining teams, and what to do when those teams are not located in the same physical location. There is some fluff, I feel, and the book could easily be half its current length without sacrificing much.
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Praise for the First Edition of Virtual Teams
"If you want to see where organizational communications are going in the future, heed what these pioneers have written today."—Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community, and founder, Electric Mind
"Lipnack and Stamps have written an important book for the twenty-first-century corporation."—Regis McKenna, The McKenna Group, author, Relationship Marketing
"This book provides a long overdue perspective on how to apply the discipline of real teams in the fast-moving, increasingly dispersed information age of the future."—Jon R. Katzenbach, author, The Wisdom of Teams
"For those who want to lead the movement, catch up with it, or simply know where it is going, this book is packed with useful information and interesting stories."—Dee W. Hock, founder and chairman emeritus, VISA
"Virtual Teams provides valuable insights into global teamwork and management through network technologies now available to all companies, large or small."—Jim Lynch, director, corporate quality, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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