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EARLY HISTORY |
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BRITISH PETROLEUM AMOCO was one of the earliest corporations to fully embrace virtual teamwork on a company-wide basis. BPA used satellite videoconferencing technology to manage dozens of remote sites around the world. This enabled them to share critical data and accident prevention strategies among platform workers, construction contractors, structural engineers, and geologists.
In 1995, their initial infrastructure costs were approximately US$13M for five pilot drilling projects. The majority of this was for hardware: about 1,000 large screen terminals with digital cameras running over ISDN lines and satellite links. A smaller portion was spent on upgrading people with virtual teambuilding skills: a new set of behaviors for collaborating and sharing information in a knowledge management world. In return, BPA estimated a US$40M savings from virtual teamwork in the initial 18 months.
One significant return came on the construction of a North Sea platform for the Andrew oil and gas field, where a damaged part was threatening to halt operations. By immediately and virtually contacting engineers and vendors from different countries for a quick fix, they were able to continue operations in a matter of hours, instead of taking their mobile drilling ship offline at a cost of US$150K/day until the part was replaced. The completion of the Andrew Platform ahead of schedule, largely due to the element of virtual teamwork among subcontractors, resulted in an estimated US$4.5M savings that paid for that platform's quarter share of the US$13M startup costs. The success of these drilling pilot projects encouraged BPA to roll out virtual teamwork to all its operations and to outfit 30,000 employees with videoconferencing capabilities in the following year. The lessons learned from Andrew were passed on to other operations in Alaska, South America, and the Gulf of Mexico at an average savings of US$7M per location. In 1997, a BPA oil refinery in Germany was able to avert a week-long shutdown, due to the failure of several corroded parts, by instantly videoconferencing those parts with experts in England. This resulted in a savings of US$2M/week. Overall, BPA experienced other improvements: easier and quicker company communication, more efficient resolution of customer issues, faster and less wasteful resource exploration and extraction, improved staff productivity and effectiveness within virtual teams, more rapid and effective decision making and problem solving. Lastly, a 10% reduction in the overall staff travel budget was realized in the first year. This was projected to continue decreasing in subsequent years and it did. |
The first example of teambuilding by virtual methods was recorded with Canadian Tire Acceptance Limited in 1994.  "We built a community around three leading teams from Human Resources. These HR practitioners were located in different regions of the country and they used video conferencing (with telephone and email for side channels) as their principle means for gathering to exchange ideas.  At the start of meetings we experimented with teambuilding activities online. When addressing communication concerns, we would purposely disable 'audio out' or 'video in' for some groups. For example, the first group had the blueprints for constructing a device, but were prevented from speaking and so had to pantomime the instructions (through video only) to a second group. This second group had to explain the instructions (through audio only) to a third group who had the materials to construct the device. However, this third group could not get any information at all from the first group.  Working through and around these 'barriers' highlighted the importance of effective communication and practice in the short term went a long way to making our meetings shorter, more productive, and with fewer errors in the long run."
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These represent virtual teaming successes prior to the beginning of virtualteamworks.com in 1997.  In one of the earliest uses of desktop videoconferencing, FORD MOTOR COMPANY used virtual design teams, operating in seven European locations, to design the new "Mondeo" car in the mid-90's.  PEOPLESOFT, specializing in software solutions and international IT support, uses "Eureka!" to give help desk teams instant access to collective company knowledge organized by case-based reasoning. These teams are then able to respond quickly to global customers' problems.  The turnaround of NCR is credited to its WorldMark line of cash registers and transaction scanners which were completed ahead of schedule and on budget. These were developed by the interactions of many small virtual teams combined from about a thousand internal employees working with over one hundred external consultants.  CHEVRON, in a global initiative to learn "faster and better than competitors," has developed a best practices transfer database with "Lotus Notes." This allows teams to exchange questions and answers using keyword searches and to track and disseminate the impact of their exemplary work.  SIEMENS, a multinational corporation making everything from computers to toasters, has marketing offices in over 50 countries. They employ "ShareNet" to distribute critical consumer information over its own intranet to thousands of virtual sales teams, so that these global sales people can address the diverse needs and characteristics of their millions of international customers.  MICROSOFT, identified approximately 300 knowledge management competencies necessary to develop new software. Virtual teams of workers and supervisors rated these competencies to create an ordered webbase of personal profiles. Now software developers can select employees to work together on new virtual development teams based on the competencies they possess and the competencies that the project demands. Also, employees can use the webbase to plan their future training and education needs in light of anticipated new project requirements.
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