What is the basic data that a virtual team must acquire about itself? To account for all the essential characteristics that comprise virtual organizations, we need to go down a level, expanding each dimension into three elements.
We array these 12 elements in the familiar systems model of inputs, processes, and outputs. This generates a “periodic table” of organizational elements, providing the conceptual infrastructure for practical approaches to creating and managing virtual groups on any scale. This taxonomy (a theory-based framework of categories) provides the basic architecture for our four-wall design of an online virtual team room.
See more in Theory: A System Science of Virtual Teams
Download Virtual Teams book Chapter 12: Theory (PDF)
The methodology is organized by the four network principles, and arranged in the input-to-output order that is basic to systems models.