Title: Mastering some of the communication challenges in geographically dispersed teams
1Mastering some of the communication challenges in
geographically dispersed teams
- Sjur Larsen
- Project manager, the Norwegian Corporate
University - Researcher PhD candidate (sociology), the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
2PhD dissertation
- Developing the conditions enabling the
effectiveness of internationally dispersed
project teams
3The Norwegian Corporate University(BedriftsUniver
sitetet)
- An incorporated company, co-owned by the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
the Norwegian School of Management, the
University of Oslo, and the Foundation for
Technical and Industrial Research (SINTEF).
4The Norwegian Corporate University Purpose
- To offer tailored training programs or courses,
with or without credits, to companies and public
sector organizations with competence from the
owner institutions.
5Cooperation and Cooperation Technologies
- Newly developed course at NTNU, a part of the
Organization, Information, and Management
Masters degree program at NTNU - Tailored specifically to the needs of
internationally dispersed project teams in Hydro
Automotive Structures - In charge at NTNU professor Per Morten Schiefloe
(sociology) and professor Eric Monteiro
(information science)
6Cooperation and Cooperation Technologies
learning goals
- Provide understanding of central conditions for
cooperation, including cooperation and
interaction in cooperative situations. - Provide understanding of conditions for the
development of effective teams. - Provide an overview of different kinds of
cooperative situations and tasks.
7Cooperation and Cooperation Technologies
learning goals
- Provide an overview of different kinds of
cooperation technologies - Provide an overview of what cooperation
technologies are useful for what purposes - Reflect on possibilities and constraints related
to uses of existing cooperation technologies in
ones own organization, and finding more
effective and useful ways of using these
technologies.
8Geographically dispersed teams
- Virtual teams
- Dispersed teams
- International teams
- Internationally dispersed teams
- Globally dispersed teams
- Global teams
- Global virtual teams
9Reasons for explosive growth in geographically
dispersed teamwork
- Advances in computing and telecommunications
- Increase in work from home.
- Utilizing personnel from different sites
- after MAs
- in strategic alliances between companies
10Reasons for explosive growth in geographically
dispersed teamwork
- Globalization
- The need for close customer contacts on a global
scale and subsequently increased reliance of
companies on resources outside their home country - Maintaining a 24-hour work cycle
11Reasons for explosive growth in geographically
dispersed teamwork
- Fierce competition and exponential growth of
information creates a need to integrate
cross-functional, cross-cultural, and
cross-organizational know-how and expertise. - Companies can pull in outside resources for a
project without adding people to the payroll.
12Why does communication become more difficult in
dispersed collaboration?
- Communication becomes less frequent when people
are working apart. - The 30 meter rule When the distance between
workplaces increases to about 30 meters or more,
the communication frequency among individuals
drops considerably. If two people reside more
than 30 meters apart, they may as well be across
the continent. After 30 meters, they are mentally
distant because they are in different work state
out of sight, out of mind.
13We (the good and trustworthy ones) and the (not
so good and trustworthy) others
14The global-local dilemma
15The global-local dilemma and human nature
The hierarchy of priorities of the human
being 1. Oneself 2. Ones family 3. Ones
friends and local community 4. The others
(e.g., people at other organizational units)
16Why does communication become more difficult in
dispersed collaboration?
- Due to less frequent communication, it takes
longer time to correct misunderstandings, and
dysfunctional views of the others at other
locations. - There are some things that one takes for granted
in collocated teams, that you dont think
consciously about, for instance small talk where
you solve many problems by talking quickly to one
another. In distributed teams you often dont
have the mechanisms for solving things that
rapidly (manager).
17Finding common ground in dispersed collaboration
- Effective communication depends on establishing
mutual knowledge. - Mutual knowledge is knowledge that the parties to
a communication share in common, sometimes
referred to as common ground. - Catherine Durham Cramton (2002). Finding Common
Ground in Dispersed Collaboration.
Organizational Dynamics, 30(4), pp. 356-367.
18Finding common ground in dispersed collaboration
- When assessments of common ground or mutual
knowledge are accurate, communication is more
likely to be understood as intended.
19Mutual knowledge
- Mutual knowledge is a building block of
successful communication and coordinated
activity. - Without it, people speak and understand what is
said on the basis of their own information and
interpretation of the situation, often assuming
incorrectly that the other speaks and understands
on the basis of that same information and
interpretation.
20Mutual knowledge
- In face-to-face communication, it usually is easy
to sort out this kind of confusion. - However, working from different locations
increases the likelihood that people will have
different information and not know it.
21Mutual knowledge
- Still worse, electronic means of communication
make it difficult to discover and resolve such
misunderstandings quickly. - Even when misunderstandings are discovered,
damage to working relationships tends to linger.
22Mutual knowledge
- Failure to establish mutual knowledge can damage
trust and destroy collaboration.
23Problems in the exchange of information in
dispersed work groups
- Failures to communicate and remember information
about context - Uneven distribution of information
- Differences in what information is salient to
sender and receiver - Differences in speed and timing
- Uncertainty about the meaning of silence
- Cramton (2002)
24Uneven distribution of information
- When you work in the same place you are
continuously updated on things that happen, and
then you dont need that much explanation of the
things under discussion. You can only say, The
profile we discussed on Monday, how are things
going with that? When you are doing things with
Germany you often have to sum up the discussions
from the last time, what profile we are talking
about, and so on. It is not impossible that this
can be solved and improved by having a more
continuous dialogue. I think that some of the
reason why this happens, is that you have a
limitation on how often you communicate, how
often you get in touch with one another. And
because it necessarily does not occur as often as
you would do if people were in the same location,
the number of events that have happened in the
meantime increases. And this requires a more
extensive update to a person you are to
communicate with the next time in order to get
the right answer. This makes the dialogue more
difficult, and you may avoid getting in touch,
and so you get into a circle (project manager).
25The meaning of silence
- One of the biggest challenges faced by dispersed
team members in Cramtons (2002) study was
interpreting the meaning of their partners
silence.
26The meaning of silence
- I agree.
- I strongly disagree.
- I am indifferent.
- I am out of town.
- I am having technical problems.
- I dont know how to address this sensitive issue.
- I am busy with other things.
- I did not notice your question.
- I did not realize that you wanted a response.
27Silence halts the process of establishing mutual
knowledge
- The meaning of silence is ambiguous. Silence
might signify meanings as wide-ranging as
agreement, disagreement or indifference, or in
dispersed collaborations it may mean only that a
message was undelivered.
28Silence halts the process of establishing mutual
knowledge
- Silence halts the process of determining what
information others do and do not know and what
conclusions they have drawn. Partners can
interpret silence differently and not know this
is the case.
29Guidelines for practice
- Leaders of newly formed teams whose members will
be working from dispersed locations are typically
advised to bring the team members together for a
face-to-face meeting at least once at the outset
in order to build relationships and trust. - A good idea, but does not adequately address the
problems of mutual knowledge.
30Guidelines for practice
- It is better for people who will collaborate
remotely to visit each others locations at least
once. - This gives them an opportunity to see how a
partners situation differs from ones own and to
absorb details that a partner may neglect to
mention, as well as allowing partners to get to
know each other better.
31Guidelines for practice
- In designing and launching dispersed teams,
leaders should give careful attention to the
communication system and norms. They should
educate team members about the pitfalls of
failing to share situational information and
making assumptions about remote partners and
locations. - Team leaders should monitor the effectiveness of
communication processes across locations as a
regular part of their job.
32Guidelines for practice
- Members of dispersed teams and people
communicating via computer mediation should
resist making assumptions about the situation and
constraints of remote others. - Instead, they should actively seek out such
information. - One also should take care to explain ones own
situation to remote partners, and try to see it
through their eyes.
33Guidelines for practicekeeping all team members
informed
- Ideally, all members of a dispersed team should
be sent the same information. - Purpose to provide each member with an accurate
picture of the pace of activity in the
collaboration, including any differences in pace
among subgroups. - If there is a risk of information overload,
adjustments to this principle should be made.
34Guidelines for practicekeeping all team members
informed
- I like to stay informed about what is happening
in the projects I am working on. The very best
project managers are those who keep me involved
even about information on the status in projects
that is not relevant for me. The messages should
have headings that clearly tell what the message
is about. Then it is easier to choose quickly
what messages are important to read. Some
project managers dont give any such information
on a continuous basis. All of a sudden they might
need something. Then I have to go to the customer
to understand what they want, and I have to be
updated about the status in the project. The most
important in the job of a project manager is to
ensure that the people who are to contribute get
the information they need (team member).
35Guidelines for practicekeeping all team members
informed
- Sometimes, for 5-6 weeks I dont hear anything
from the project. I would have appreciated to
receive a report or update from the project
manager, say, every other week, concerning the
status in the project, what is the next step, and
where we are in the project phase. I receive
drawings with suggestions for changes from the
project manager of product development. After
receiving this, it is often completely quiet for
several weeks. I need to know more about what is
going on in order to be able to plan my time
better. I have periods when I have very much to
do, and other periods that are more quiet. I
would have preferred to receive a message, say, a
week in advance, that I will be receiving a
drawing the following week (team member).
36Guidelines for practice
- Establish clear understandings about how often
remote teammates will check for and respond to
messages. - When people suffer through unexpected silence on
the part of a remote partner, they often draw
inaccurate conclusions that linger even after
communication resumes.
37Guidelines for practice
- Providing prompt feedback, even just a few words,
can help people involved in dispersed
collaboration feel each others presence, detect
errors, and correct inaccurate interpretations
and attributions. - Investigate ambiguous or unusual messages and
occurrences before drawing conclusions, because
of the many sources of uncertainty inherent in
communication across distance and via technology.
38In conclusion
- Effective collaboration requires common ground.
Establishing common ground without the advantages
of shared location and face-to-face communication
is a central challenge of dispersed
collaboration. - Individuals and groups that wish to carry out
stable, effective collaborations across space and
time need to recognize and understand this
challenge.
39Co-located work and its challenges