Virtual teams present unique risks that must be managed. Key risks stem from the multiple boundaries within and between virtual teams, and the challenges of building effective remote interpersonal relationships without in-person interaction. These relationship risks include a lack of shared values and culture, slow development of trust and cohesion, reduced coherence in communications due to time lags, and weak informal coupling between team members. Recognizing these risks enables project managers to take steps to mitigate them, such as facilitating occasional in-person meetings or shifting work schedules to improve synchronous communications.

1. Risk Management with Virtual Teams
John C. Goodpasture, PMP
Managing Principal
Square Peg Consulting LLC
www.sqpegconsulting.com
www.johngoodpasture.com
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Copyright John C Goodpasture, 2010 ©
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2. Risk Management with Virtual Teams
Risk is the price we pay for opportunity
Virtual teams present unique risk management situations, some effects of which can be
accommodated within planned buffers on the baseline, and others will be potential
impacts that are ‘off baseline’ but identified on the risk register.
Risk management in context with virtual teams begins with a consideration for the unique
structure and organizational form of the virtual team. For risk managers, the nature of
virtual team boundaries and remote interpersonal relationships strongly impact the risks
associated with virtual teams.
Virtual Team Boundaries
Virtual teams have more boundaries than relationships are defined and constrained
co-located teams. Some of these are by boundaries, each of which is to be
internal to the team, but others are managed for the risk to both budget
external and unique to the nature and efficiency and performance
architecture of virtual teams. Thus, effectiveness.
Virtual teams have more boundaries . that are unique to the nature
and architecture of virtual teams.
members. One mitigation is to use the
rules at boundaries to establish a degree
Networking of command control that is naturally
With virtual teams, every team member present in co-located teams, but not so in
is a potential node on a network and a virtual teams.
point of interface with other members of
the team. At each node for each team
member, there are governance rules. Work cycles
Some of these rules are general purpose Because virtual teams can operate
and apply to every node, and others will around the clock, the need to
be very specific to the circumstances at synchronize configuration control of the
one node and not apply to others. project’s intellectual property—
documents, standards, designs, reports,
data, and procedures. Synchronization
Governance on the network errors can become a significant risk to
The purpose of network rules is to the integrity of the material. Rules for
control or direct workflow among team configuration control typically require
members, and to mitigate the risks of that check-in and check-out cycles
time and distance between team operate 24 hours per day so that no team
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3. member is locked out during their work processes to load and apply changes to
day, but this puts unusual stress on the run in batch cycles. One approach is to
system because there is no time-out for rotate required downtimes among all
stabilization, maintenance, and for work day cycles.
Remote Interpersonal Relationships
Establishing effective relationships communication is strictly non-verbal but
within virtual teams is perhaps one of at the same time remote. And, in many
the most important risks to be managed. entrepreneurial situations, the team may
It’s not uncommon that virtual teams are be recruited virtually with members
“teams of strangers”. Not only are never having met face to face with
teams composed of strangers, but to company management or team
compound matters very often leadership.
It’s not uncommon that virtual teams are “teams of strangers”
culture and values of the project
It’s obvious that not only is the body leadership or the project’s host business
language missing, in many cases we enterprise. Extra effort on the part of
can’t imagine what it might be since project management is required to instill
we’ve never interacted with our virtual values and culture among participants
teammates in a common brick and that may only be transient members of
mortar space. To fill the vacuum, we the team or the business.
find ourselves imagining reaction effects
and imparting a persona of our own Misunderstandings that arise from
making. cultural differences can be profound and
lead to risks of unintended
So it is that other means of building consequences. For example--and from
relationships come to the foreground. In my own experience--a failure of a
doing so several distinct risks are project activity as viewed from the
encountered that is the subject of the perspective of one cultural outlook may
following discussion. be evaluated as poor planning and
execution by the activity manager. But at
Four attributes govern relationships, and the same time--viewed from the
each has unique risks when applied to perspective of another culture--that same
the virtual team. activity and result may be seen as
appropriate risk taking, even though the
risk did not work out favorably.
Inheritance:
Virtual teams--unlike there co-located Depending on what culture is inherited,
counterparts--do not routinely inherit the the activity manager will either be
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4. penalized or rewarded. Certainly no thereby risking the near term schedule
project manager wants a confusion of and perhaps the associated budget.
values; ensuring the inheritance of a
commonly understood risk attitude is a Lack of trust is among the most cited
very important project management task reasons for team failures. Virtual teams
to obtain a smoothly working project in have no easy way to establish trust but
a virtual team setting. commonly employed mitigations usually
involve occasionally getting team
members together physically in some
Cohesion: way.
Co-located teams draw effectiveness
from the cohesion among members that Some projects have produced metrics
share a common environment, team that show better team performance if
goal, project culture, and willingness to team members have been personally
support each other. Such cohesion introduced. A prominent example is the
depends greatly on trust. Trusting early space programs that employed far
relationships do form in virtual teams, flung teams in remote tracking stations
but they generally form more slowly, that had to work together on a common
mission and pass information accurately
and with timeliness
Trusting relationships do form in virtual teams, but they generally
form more slowly
the crowd is those same voices without
phase (timing) coherence.
Coherence:
Coherence is an attribute of the familiar Communications and collaboration
idea that teams can achieve more among team members is sensitive to
together than their members can when coherence. The time lags within virtual
working independently. In the absence team communications and collaboration
of coherence there is often confusion, degrades coherence, raising risks
ambiguity, wasted effort, and sometimes because things are out of phase with
an outcome that lacks essential customer each other.
value.
The common mitigation for improving
Coherent behavior is time sensitive. We coherence is to introduce an opportunity
are all familiar with the difference for simultaneous communications that
between the noise of a crowd talking are time sensitive. Sessions for time
among themselves and those same sensitive communications are scheduled
individuals singing in a choir. Singing is so that they overlap the working day for
an example of coherence; the noise of as many members as possible. To make
these sessions practical and productive,
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5. the working day may have to be time-
shifted for some participants. Informal person-to-person
communications is a form of coupling.
The informal communications by casual
Coupling: association that is a centerpiece of co-
Coupling is a measure of sensitivity, located teams is all but missing in virtual
correlation, and interference of one teams. These so called ‘water cooler’
activity upon another. Within teams, conversations are a very important
activities are more highly coupled than communications channel for coupling
the coupling between teams. But virtual one activity with another, but this
teams are not as highly coupled coupling mechanism is all but missing
internally as co-located teams, and this with virtual teams, raising the
reduced coupling is a risk to communications risk.
performance.
Summary
Virtual teams present unique risk management issues, some of which can be
accommodated in the baseline, and others are risks listed in the risk register.
Two risk categories are virtual team boundaries and remote interpersonal relationships.
Boundary conditions may lead to inefficiencies and ineffective performance both within
teams and between teams. Relationships risks include lack of value inheritance, poor
team cohesion, absences of coherence in communications, and weak coupling between
team members. . In all cases, when these risks are recognized and understood, project
managers can take steps to mitigate these risks.
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To read more from John Goodpasture, visit johngoodpasture.com and
sqpegconsulting.com
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