Virtual Teams and Knowledge Management
- Naama Berkovitz
- Feb 1, 2007
- 4 min read
The last decade has brought far-reaching changes in how many organizations work: the complexity, dynamism, and globalization required from organizations today is only increasing and growing.
Organizations seeking to survive must demonstrate flexibility and the ability to adapt quickly. One of the ways that allows organizations maximum flexibility is the team-based work structure in general and virtual teams in particular. Since this review deals with virtual teams, we will first define a virtual team.
The currently accepted definition is that a virtual team is "a group of colleagues who are geographically or organizationally distant from each other, communicating with one another using a combination of communication technologies and computing means to achieve an organizational goal."
The question then arises: what distinguishes virtual teams from traditional work teams?
Two key characteristics are commonly noted in this context:
Spatial Distance
Information, Data, and Type of Communication
Spatial Distance
The central characteristic that distinguishes different teams is that virtual teams cross boundaries of space and time. While members of a traditional team work close to each other, virtual team members are separated by many kilometers and sometimes even by continents. This separation holds many advantages for the organization. It allows it to employ the most qualified workers for the task regardless of the worker's location, it provides flexibility to the workers themselves if they wish to work from home, and no less importantly, it allows the organization to respond faster to changing market conditions.
Information, Data, and Interpersonal Communication
These days, many work teams, both traditional and virtual, use various technological means. However, it is the dosage that separates the different types of teams. While virtual team members will exclusively use computer-mediated technology of various types, traditional team members can conduct face-to-face activities. Although email is probably the most common means of communication used by virtual teams, additional communication tools also allow virtual team members to share information. Among the most prominent tools, we can include the telephone, fax, videoconference, and various project management software where project members "store" their outputs. Technology is what enables virtual team members to bridge time/distance gaps. The types of communication teams use can be divided into asynchronous communication, such as email, fax, or other systems that allow screen sharing, and synchronous communication, such as phone calls or videoconferencing.
What, Then, Between Virtual Teams and Knowledge Management Activities?
The types of communication virtual teams use (synchronous/asynchronous) present an interesting case study in the context of documentation and knowledge sharing.
Asynchronous communication is based on the written word and, by its very nature, allows for the documentation of knowledge for retrieval at a later stage. It may be that the processing of knowledge will be more complex and require the use of supporting tools of various types (such as software that allows email management and routing through the use of business rules to central knowledge repositories), but if the organization is willing to invest efforts, it is possible and right not only to share but also to preserve the relevant knowledge. Synchronous communication, on the other hand, serves as a primary tool for knowledge sharing; however, it does not constitute an optimal tool at all for knowledge documentation as it is based on the spoken word and on communication that is inherently less structured and, therefore, less suitable for knowledge management.
The dilemma in such cases is the importance of documenting knowledge versus sharing knowledge. Can one be preferred over the other? In certain cases, can documentation be sacrificed for knowledge sharing and vice versa?
The dilemma is further sharpened when we are presented with the following findings: Research has found that when the virtual team was asked to perform simple tasks where the overall functioning of the team is an additive function of individual efforts (inherently independent tasks such as brainstorming), asynchronous communication was preferred. The explanation is that this type of communication allows more than one person to express themselves simultaneously and allows everyone to think at their own pace. However, when the virtual team was asked to perform more complex tasks (judgment and decision-making tasks), requiring interdependence between team members, more "tight" and coordinated work, and feedback given to members, it was found that "rich" synchronous communication has an advantage.
Since it does not seem reasonable to prevent virtual teams from using the format from which they will derive maximum benefit, we are left to think, are there solutions that allow documentation, even partial, of the more elusive communication, namely synchronous communication?
In my assessment, two possible courses of action should be considered:
Knowledge structuring - creating a "dedicated documentation template" for each central purpose for which we conduct asynchronous communication (work meetings, brainstorming, etc.). This template will support the achievement of the central goals so that:
It will allow verification that all the different parts have indeed been executed and not forgotten
It will assist in efficient documentation so that the important parts of the communication are highlighted
It will allow quick retrieval of types of information (lessons learned, insights, success stories, etc.)
Knowledge tagging - In recent years, we have witnessed the flourishing phenomenon of video clips on the internet. Evidence of this is the recent acquisition by the world's largest internet corporation, America Online. AOL acquired a company to search for video clips and movies online. The company in question is Truveo, which developed a unique search engine for particularly fast locating of videos and video files of various types on the internet. The acquisition amount was estimated at more than $435 million. The race to develop search engines that allow finding information on/in videos and video files is in full swing and testifies to the strength of verbal communication. And if video files can be tagged, documentation of synchronous communication can be. Synchronous communication, part of it is documented and therefore searchable, and part of it is audio files, where, for now, traditional tagging is required. It seems that in the case of virtual teams, one can try to enjoy all worlds...
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