The Importance of Virtual Collaboration

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Communications Management   Teams  

Collaboration is a tool that helps propel projects and teams to new heights. It goes beyond communication and can be used to generate new ideas and solutions. In order to collaborate, people first have to communicate and be able to work together. In a traditional office, this happens in meetings and in hallway conversations where workers engage with others until they reach a conclusion or solution that one person could not have done alone.

But how does collaboration happen in the virtual world where people are physically separated by miles (from a few to thousands)? Collaboration can take place anywhere, but it does need a little help when all or part of the team is not physically present. These guidelines will help the project manager jumpstart the collaboration of a virtual team.

Introduce Everyone
The first step in collaborating well is to make sure everyone knows everyone on the team. While this may seem obvious, when all or part of the team is virtual it can become too easy for people to stay in their own small work zones and not branch out to meet others on the team.

In order for collaboration to work though, people have to get out of their silos and work together. It is often up to the project manager to make sure that people on the team know each other and have the ability to reach out to others when they become stuck on a problem. Scheduling some time …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.