Virtual Communication: Obstacles of Virtual Communication

Confusion

Defining the Problem. What image comes to mind if I were to ask you to describe what "tailgating" is? For those who drive it may bring up the image of someone following too close behind you when driving a car. For sport-minded people it will bring up the image of a group of friends and family having a barbeque or dinner in the parking lot of a sports arena prior to attending the game. For others tailgating will have no meaning whatsoever. Imagine the confusion for international team members who are unfamiliar with sports tailgating if an American team member began a meeting by telling the team that he had a wonderful time tailgating prior to attending a football game!

Ambiguity in goals, tasks and roles is common on co-located teams. On GV teams it becomes a critical influence in how a GV team functions. Tasks and understandings need to be outlined in very clear terms. Often it takes an increased amount of clarification to understand how one is to proceed on a GV team than on a co-located one.

This confusion may damage the team's integrity if, due to confusion, one member is asking for one date (using the day, month, year format) for a deadline and another is hearing a different date (using the month, day, year format) for the same deadline. Similar confusion may result if specifications are not clear. This would hurt the quality of the team performance is a design needed to revised and reworked because of a misunderstanding on project specifications. The repeated reworking of a project that should have been finished may serve to de-motivate GV team members, especially if a member (or group of members) is led to believe that their work and effort has not been of any or little value. Confusion will prevent the team from working toward a common goal.

Overcoming the Obstacle. Most of the poor GV team interactions and confusion is the result of poor planning and communication. At the team start up, goals, tasks, roles and procedures need to be clearly defined and outlined. They must be even more explicit than a co-located team and all team members need to have a say in establishing how the team will work. Once protocols are established, they should be followed and adapted, as needed, to facilitate better, more clear communication and interaction.

There should be a common storehouse or website where team members can update their own progress and check on the progress of others. It is good to keep track of key e-mails and decisions so they can be referred to if needed. Once established, goals should be reviewed and modified as needed as the team progresses through the project. Team members need to be open to changes and feedback from other team members. For example, if the team decides that members should respond to e-mails within a 24-hour time window and this conflict with religious practices of team members, this rule may need to be modified.

In making assignments the team needs to assign a date and time to report back to a designated member. The team leader should have a regular check in from team members whether done as an e-mail, text or quick video call. An appropriate source for sharing documents and files should be established. If the communications and documents are not time stamped, then each document and its updated version need to be marked so the entire team will know the current version as well as be able to access past versions.