Discussion: What are the challenges of collaborating with a non-co-located/global/culturally diverse team?
Creating and Collaborating with a Virtual Team
Short lecture: Composition of virtual team, skills to look for; membership on a virtual team, being a “team citizen” virtually; recognizing the seeming saliency of local requests and committing time to virtual team
Activity: Building trust on a virtual team
Activity: Setting group norms on a virtual team
Virtual Meeting Management
Short lecture: Advantages/disadvantages of videoconferencing vs. teleconferencing and how to overcome disadvantages
Activity: Participating effectively in virtual meetings
Discussion: Using web-meetings, web-chats, RSS-feeds, wikis, whiteboards, other web-based collaboration tools for document dissemination and management, team maintenance, collaboration
Leading upward Virtually
Discussion: Ensuring HQ remains connected to local projects; avoiding “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome
Short lecture: Responding appropriately to HQ anxiety around overseeing non-visible work
Cultural Competency
Activity: Cultural awareness, finding ourselves on culture scales; recognizing how culture influences how we collaborate, respond to conflicts, and assert ourselves
Discussion: Tools for gaining competence in different cultures
Activity: Adjusting (without changing ourselves) to direct vs. indirect communication and individualist vs. collectivist management
Discussion: How to manage conflict while “saving face” for other person
