VT MiniBook Chapter 2

In this chapter we trace the history of groups and how individuals have been a part of teams from the beginning. We also examine some companies that currently use virtual teams in their workplaces.

Virtual teams can solve highly technical problems -- and simple ones -- in a world in which the sun never sets. But seemingly high-tech virtual teams often succeed with relatively little technology. Even the most sophisticated of them are "90% people and 10% technology."

Buckman Labs of Memphis, for example, links 1200 people around the world who go to work every day online. Through their electronic links, they solve technical problems in a flash without having to travel great distances to find the answers.

We have been operating in small groups since the beginning of time:

Nomadic Age: Nomads roamed around in small groups of groups.
Agricultural Age: Some 10-12,000 years ago we shifted from hunting and gathering to herding and farming and groups were formed around the first hierarchies.
Industrial Age: From roughly the 18^th-20^th centuries factories replaced farms, populations became urban and enlarged, while families shrank, and bureaucracies installed themselves.
Information Age: Beginning in the mid-20^th Century, the newest era of small groups has brought with it the turbulence of transition. We are deep into the age of information-based, electronically enhanced groups connected through boundary-spanning networks.

Types of teams:

Collocated: teams of people in the same place and organization.
Collocated Cross-organizational: teams comprising people from different organizations who work together in the same place.
Distributed: People in the same organization who work in different places either interdependently or separately.
Distributed Cross-Organizational: People from different organizations who work in different places.

We believe we are experiencing the most dramatic change in the nature of the small group since humans acquired the capacity to talk to one another--the explosion of virtual teams.