The human being must be in the focus, always. Naturally, this also applies to virtual global teams. As an agile company, we put people before processes and adapt our processes and working style accordingly to people.
Now that this has been clarified, we are concentrating on the core elements of potential employees.
Choosing the right team members is the first step when a team is being built/setup. All team members selected for the project should have the following characteristics:
1. They should work in a motivated way together as a team:
Instead of working as individuals, the team members are selected who can work in a team, rather than individually.
2. Possessing great quality of communication skills:
In addition to high social communication skills, the most common working language should also be mastered: English.
3. The ability of the team-members to recruit their peers by themselves:
After many years of experience, recruitment by a human resources department does not bring 100% value. Team members should always be involved in the selection of the future member, keeping future in mind, the team-members should always be motivated to until the team can take over the recruiting process completely by themselves.
4. Empathy for its team members:
Even if team members work geographically separated from each other, regular team events should be carried out regularly via Skype. For example, Indian team mates guiding their German team-mates while cooking an Indian dish. This not only increases the team spirit, but also enhances communication, understanding of strengths and weaknesses and social interaction between the virtually separated teams.
5. Having the desire to work without hierarchy:
Breaking through the hierarchical line creates a cooperative atmosphere without a management-driven approach. Through self-management waiting times are avoided and wherever and whenever necessary, solutions can be found by the team itself. Responsibility is thus assumed by the team itself, reducing the interference of management-based decisions.
6. The ability to think outside the box:
Each individual team member should be able to leave his or her own comfort zone, support his or her team members and motivated to contribute to the success of the team.
Team members of a virtual global team should have all these qualities in order to operate successfully. In the upcoming Part 4 of the series „Building virtual global teams“, we will talk about the structure of the processes.
