Trust Me….I’m On Your Team

By Kathy Martucci, PMP:

We don’t find the concept of trust on most traditional lists of project critical success factors. Yet it may be the number one consideration in establishing and maintaining a high-performing virtual team. While it can be argued that trusting relationships are needed by all teams, they are even more important to virtual teams because of a lack of face-to-face time.

Let’s face it – we wonder what those people are REALLY doing? We email them; maybe call them, but have we ever met face-to-face? Do we share anything of ourselves beyond work issues?  Do we actually see them operate on a daily basis? Are THEY working as hard as WE are?

While multiple media are the channels by which members make the “physical” connection, there is little to no face-face communication in a virtual team. Yet it is only through meaningful interactions that people develop trusting relationships. More importantly, informal encounters (walking through the hallway, meeting in the kitchen), something that virtual team members cannot do even with the most advanced technology, have been shown to provide a common perspective that leads to enhanced collaborations.

This is yet another challenge for the Virtual Team Project Manager to address. Building and then maintaining trust, which can easily be fractured given time and spatial differences, requires genuinely engaging the team toward that end. If trust can be achieved, more open communication, cooperation, a higher quality of decision-making, and more satisfaction in the decision-making process follows.