The Challenge of Long Distance Team Working

Managers and members of long distance or “virtual” teams operating in a national or international environment

• Create your Cultural Profile
• Access to 70 Country Packs
• Pragmatic, fun e-learning
• Interactive method
• Acquire operational tools

The purpose of this seminar is to significantly increase the participants’ effectiveness when operating in a virtual environment. The goal is to enable them to work efficiently as a part of long distance teams.

At the end of this training, they will have acquired the skills they need in order to:

• Assess and appreciate the challenges of virtual teams
• Identify and make use of cultural differences
• Develop the skills they need for long-distance working
• Create a group consciousness and “virtual team dynamics”
• Adapt their working methods to a virtual environment
• Apply what they have learned from the seminar in their professional environment

Module 1: Understanding the way virtual teams operate

1. Challenges and opportunities of virtual teams

• In what ways are virtual teams different from “normal” teams?
• In what ways are they similar?
• Various types of virtual teams
• Challenges and opportunities related to virtual working

2. Intercultural challenges

• Dealing with differences, confusion and indifference
• Understanding and mastering time and space-related factors
• Managing risks and uncertainty
• Interacting with the group, the hierarchy and authority
• Identifying and understanding your cultural profile and that of others
• Making effective use of cultural differences within virtual groups

3. Sharing information and communicating effectively at long distances

• Communication process for virtual teams
• Affective and cognitive aspects of remote communication
• IT and collaborative tools: the choice and optimization of the technology
• Speaking a common language

4. Adapting tools and working methods

• The definition of individual and collective roles within projects
• Team building and team working
• Assessing the tasks performed by staff members (important and urgent)
• Skills assessment and expected results
• Remote knowledge management
• Remote conflict management

Module 2: Maximizing the effectiveness of a virtual team

1. Generating virtual team dynamics

• Defining the vision and objectives of a virtual team: creating meaning
• Drawing up a "virtual team charter" including the team's commitments
• Confidence in virtual group environments: forms and mechanisms
• Creating a group consciousness
• Power and influence in virtual environments
• Developing your E-leadership

2. Preparing and running remote meetings

• Various types of remote meeting
• Preparation, organisation and follow-up: the role of a meeting organizer
• Fully understanding sources of influence and decision-making processes
• Anticipating latent conflicts
• Reconciling cultural differences

3. Skills management for virtual teams

• Expected results: Acquiring the know-how required to succeed in long distance teams
• Developing key skills of members of virtual teams
• Assessing the added value generated by long distance working
• Analysing strengths and areas for improvement
• Remote working and personal challenges

4. Identifying best practices

• Listing the skills identified during the seminar: knowledge, know-how and interpersonal skills
• Identifying personal and professional challenges when it comes to improving and consolidating your remote working abilities
• Identifying and encouraging best practices from existing or future virtual teams based on the skills acquired at the seminar