BENEFITS F2F Comparison The Need Pros & Cons Until recently, face to face (F2F) teaming was a norm among organizations. Groups of people came together and participated in meeting that required their cooperation, communication, trust, and teamwork. Now with the advent of global collaboration and high speed Internet access, virtual teaming is becoming a popular method for creating high performing teams. The following chart compares the various similarities and differences of both approaches. Most of these strengths and weaknesses balance and cancel each out leaving a single advantage and challenge. The PRINCIPLE ADVANTAGE OF VIRTUAL TEAMING is that it saves the time and cost of assembling people in the same location for a F2F program. The INITIAL CHALLENGE OF VIRTUAL TEAMING is that participants must be competent at employing the chosen communication technology (such as email discussions, teleconferences, videolinks, etc.). Prior technology skills training can eliminate this concern. In today's economy, the corporation that is able to quickly create teams of talented people to respond to customers' requests is the one that will capture the greatest market share. However, geography, culture, language, time, and organizational structure act as barriers to assembling such talented teams, unless virtual teaming and technology can be employed. Virtual teamwork addresses your modern needs to: reduce product price and raise product quality; lower communication or transportation costs; respond rapidly to customer service requests; keep up with technology's changing pace; and share knowledge and information globally. F2F Teaming VIRTUAL Teaming SIMILARITIES moves at the team's pace to meet their needs moves at the team's pace to meet their needs involves social interaction with others involves social interaction with others demands reflection on common experience demands reflection on common experience accelerates learning with expert facilitators accelerates learning with expert facilitators incurs equipment costs (AV, tables, chairs) incurs equipment costs (hardware, software) DIFFERENCES consumes travel time and travel costs saves on travel time and travel costs insists on suitable classroom space insists on suitable office space has limited program time allocations independent of time (different zones) needs a minimal number of participants unlimited number of participants (2-2000) can be independent of technology needs "technoliteracy" to communicate favors format over content favors content over format people may attend to body language people may attend to the message people may miss the message people may miss the body language easy to interrupt conversations difficult to interrupt conversations exchanges may not flow smoothly exchanges may flow smoothly With virtual teams, certain pros and cons are associated with the communication places (assembled or dispersed), times (synchronous or asynchronous), and channels (textual, graphical, aural or optical). Knowledge of these pros and cons can help select the best combinations of place, time and channel, or can eliminate concerns by avoiding the pitfalls associated with each. Click here for more information on the PROS & CONS of communication place, time, and channel   Copyright © 1997-2005, virtualTEAMWORKS.com, All rights reserved, info@virtualteamworks.com