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With the support of networking technology and the pressures of globalization, virtual teams are on the increase in the commercial and government worlds.
What are the most effective tools to support virtual teams?
What processes help or hinder virtual teams in their ongoing effort to maintain a common understanding of their project's tasks and status?
This presentation focuses on two projects relating to distributed (virtual) teams and shared situational awareness (SSA). One project is a training experiment that measured training effectiveness and other differences between one team training face to face and another team training (and collaborating) online using Web-based tools. The second project is a recently completed experiment, conducted by ThoughtLink and the Center for Naval Analyses, that examined how distributed teams develop SSA, and the effects that different modes of communication and visualization have on a team's SSA.
Any kind of teamwork is hard work, and working virtually has even more demands. It is important to understand not only the enabling technology, but also the social, economic, and political effects of working virtually. The presentation will conclude with a set of lessons learned for virtual teams.
