Virtual Teams: People Working Across Boundaries with Technology

by Jeffrey Stamps and Jessica Lipnack

Book Overview

Die ist die 2. komplett ?berarbeitete und aktualisierte Auflage des ma geblichen Buches zum Thema Management erfolgreicher virtueller Unternehmen. Jessica Lipnack und Jeffrey Stamps haben in ihren Vortr?gen und Schriften die 90/10-Regel popul?r gemacht - 90% Menschen und 10% Technologie. Diese 2. Auflage konzentriert sich darauf, die Menschen in den Mittelpunkt zu stellen und beschreibt, wie virtuelles Arbeiten funktioniert. Alle Beispiele und Fallstudien...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471388254
• ISBN13: 9780471388258
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Virtual Teams, Mentoring and POD Publishing

I read the Lipnack & Stamps book with a single purpose in mind: I was researching trends in organizations for the book I was writing on mentoring. I was particularly interested in their discussion of the difficulties in building trust in virtual teams. Little did I realize that I would personally encounter this problem two years years later when I chose to use POD publishing for my book. The authors were right on the mark in their discussion of communicaton and trust. My team spanned two continents and four states. All communication was via e-mail. The ambiguity of silence was a recurring problem and subject to a rash of interpretations, mostly negative. As were the double level messages that occasionally came through. Having read the book I was far better prepared to deal with ambiguity and retain my sanity than otherwise would have been possible. It was an amazing experience, and I thank you, Jessica and Jeffrey. Lu Ann W. Darling, author, DISCOVER YOUR MENTORING MOSAIC, A GUIDE TO ENHANCED MENTORING

Highly Recommended!

Globalization can create as many problems as opportunities. One big problem is figuring out how to unite people worldwide to work on projects for your company. In an age that lacked a worldwide communications net, the answer would probably be quite depressing. However, as authors Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps make clear, the modern Internet makes it quite possible for workers all over the world to collaborate. The physical location of your firm’s various experts is no longer a barrier to effective team building, be they in Dublin, Bangalore, Las Vegas or Bangkok. In fact, the authors claim that companies that fail to create effective teams across cyberspace will be left in history’s dustbin. This might be overstating the case, but we [...] recommend this book for its candor about exactly how challenging it is to create virtual teams. Still interested? If so, this book serves as an excellent primer of both theory and practice.

"Teamwork" Re-defined for New Realities

The authors are convinced that, eventually, "virtual teams will become the natural way to work, nothing special. Virtual teams and networks -- effective, value-based, swiftly reconfiguring, cost-sensitive, and decentralized -- will profoundly reshape our shared world. As members of many virtual groups, we will contribute to these ephemeral webs of relationships that together weave our future." That day is already here for many people and I agree that virtual working relationships will soon be the rule rather than the exception. The authors correctly note that technology extends capabilities "but organizing to do things together is only human. The most profound change of the new millennium is in the way we're organized." Moreover, as more people connect online, "we increase our capacity for both independence and interdependence. Competition and cooperation both thrive in our new culture." However, there are perils to avoid because whatever goes wrong with in-the-same place teams can also go wrong with virtual teams -- only worse and, worse yet, faster and at a much greater cost.The authors organize their excellent material within 14 chapters whose individual titles indicate each chapter's perspective on virtual teams: Why, Networks, Teams, Trust, Place, Time, Purpose, people, Links, Launch, Navigate, Theory, Think, and Future. I agree that a virtual team "is a group of people who work interdependently with a shared purpose across space, time, and organization boundaries." Nonetheless, I still have some quibbles about the authors' sequence of subject matter (not with the content itself) and am still convinced that cooperation between and among members of virtual teams is even more difficult than it is between and among those within physical boundaries. Moreover, my own rather extensive experience with all manner of corporate clients suggests that the most formidable barriers are between two ears. If you have some serious human barriers in your own organization, I urge you to check out O'Dell and Grayson's immensely thoughtful and practical book, If Only We Knew What We Know. But please keep in mind that even if O'Dell, Grayson, Lipnack, and Stamps were retained to create virtual teams for your organization, unless and until everyone else involved buys into the enterprise, the results would be abysmal. Hence the importance of several points which Lipnack and Stamps make in the final chapter, notably the absolutely essential need for trust. "A presumption of trust enables a successful strategy of collaboration [enables everyone involved] to be better innovators, competitors, and survivors....If purpose is the glue, trust is the grease." I agree. Of course, no single volume such as this can provide all the right answers but Lipnack and Stamps raise most (if not all) of the most important questions. Their answers seem sensible and practical. Of course, decision-makers must decide what the nature, extent, and duration of a virtual relationship should b

Practical Ideas for Boundary-Crossing Teams

The very nature of teams has changed in most organizations. This change is not rooted in the use of technology but rather in organizational changes that require teams that cross all kinds of boundaries: organizational, temporal, geographic, functional, cultural. Virtual Teams focuses on the fundamental issues that challenge members, leaders, and stakeholders in these boundary-crossing teams rather than simply on the technology that connects them. A major strength of the book is the wealth of stories about how key ideas have been applied in both public and private sector organizations. This book offers practical ideas you can apply to any team - whether it is co-located or spread across the world. - Lisa Kimball, Executive Producer, Group Jazz