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With all the available technical literature on using virtual learning and collaboration tools, the human factor easily gets lost. And with more business being done outside the traditional office, the need to keep geographically dispersed teams developing new knowledge and performing every day at an efficient level is crucial, whether they are interacting from across the street or from the other side of the planet.
Ubell has pulled together some of the best minds in the field to present a practical guide to managing and instructing these teams. But even more to the point, this book offers multiple perspectives on how to best navigate the roadblocks of geography, cultural stereotypes, varying communication styles, and individual desires, with the goal of creating productive group experiences.
The book opens with five chapters on managing virtual teams. Like training or supervising any team, this kind of management often involves leveraging personalities and ensuring that all team members possess an equal voice and opportunities to share and discover new things.
Interestingly, we get a look into managing both student teams participating in online class projects, as well as dispersed, collaborative workgroups within organizations. We also get a sense for how much learning groups and working groups have in common in terms of best practices. For example, both situations necessitate methods for keeping conflict at bay and supporting group leaders.
The second and third parts cover virtual team technology, and enterprise and global teams, respectively. The chapters on choosing online collaborative tools will be a useful primer or refresher for exploring those technologies that serve as the backbone of collaboration. The "Teaming Across Borders" and "Global Corporate Virtual Teaming" chapters provide blueprints for communicating and building relationships among very culturally diverse groups.
All in all, Ubell has done a fantastic job of bringing together an assortment of ideas about virtual teams. And in an age when corporate and higher-ed universities are abandoning the bricks and mortar for bytes and pixels, it couldn't have come at a better time. I give this one three caramel macchiatos.