PM-502, Management Characteristics of Successful Project Managers
A.	Session No: 6

B.	Short Title: Insights For Every Executive - Especially Those Who Manage From Afar (Virtual Teams)

C.  Learning Objectives: The student will gain an understanding of the leadership challenges of managing a geographically distributed team (that may be failing), and learn the leadership techniques required of managers (leaders) of distributed work groups.
D.  Reading Assignment: Kostner, all.
E: Session Description: The leadership techniques used by King Arthur for bridging the interpersonal distance so that knights (team members) act as one cohesive group are as applicable in the virtual team of today as they were in this legendary story.  The author uses key symbols as metaphors for communicating these principles to us.  Successfully using these techniques will serve to assist project managers in overcoming the virtual team management challenge.

F: Point One: 
	a) Question: What is the symbol for trust?
b) Key Point: Excaliber is the symbol of trust.  The greatest people challenge of the remote leader is to develop trust among group members and of the leader.
c) Instructor Notes: 
•	First, distant team members tend not to know each other well.
•	Second, they have few opportunities to develop trust in the traditional way (at one location).
•	Third, they tend to communicate poorly with one another across distance, which destroys trust.  If these trust issues are ignored, performance will suffer and synegy across distance will never occur.
•	Only through building high-level trust can a virtual (multi-site) leader expect to get high-performance results.

G. Point Two:
a) Question: What is the symbol for teamwork?
b) Key Point: The Round-Table reminds the remote leader to create symbols and structures that solidify the unity of the dispersed work group.
c) Instructor Notes: 
•	Groups that work across distance tend not to see themselves as a team or a unified group.
•	Groups are more drawn to people and events at the local level.
•	A Round Table symbolizes a team, a unified group.

H. Point Three:
a) Question: What is the symbol for sharing information equally or as effectively across distance?
b) Key Point: The Joust reminds the remote leader that shared information is essential to help the remote leader identify ways to solve the problems of sharing information with all team members equally, whether local or remote.
c) Instructor Notes: 
•	Team members don’t know each other, technically or non-technically.
•	New skills in communicating equally among all team members need to be learned.
•	Set up ways electronically for team members to learn about each other (audio to televideo conferencing).
•	Don’t rely on electronic communication exclusively, find the resources to bring the team together at a common location.
•	Find common ground to develop relationships.

I. Point Four:
a) Question: What is the symbol to focus effort and energy across distance?
b) Key Point: Camelot the symbol that teams need a clear, common vision; a mission that all accept; and individual and collective goals, including those split by distance.

c) Instructor Notes: 
•	Virtual work groups need clear structures to focus effort and energy.
•	Remote teams need something more to align people and performance, despite distance.
•	Decision tools are needed to streamline activity from distributed locations.
•	Team members will do those things they think are important and the leaders role is to involve the people in the decision making process to align with the project goals.
•	Structure the intellectual link, the emotional link, and the decision tool to touch every team member on an individual and personal level.
•	The emotional link is centered around what the project represents - the vision and the mission.

J. Point Five:
a) Question: What is the symbol of the relationship that are established between those on-site and at remote locations?
b) Key Point: Lancelot is the symbol that represents the relationships that need to be fostered and nurtured between those on-site and off site.
c) Instructor Notes: 
1) Inequities in those relationships can pit those away from the leader’s location with those on-site with the leader.
2) Lancelot reminds us that friendship and reliance on on-site team members can create envy and resentment, and can inhibit development of relationships with off-site team members.
3) A remote leader must choose scrupulous fairness and equality of opportunity when leading people near and far.
•	Every member gets core information at the same time.
•	Second, every member has equal input.
•	Third, every members ideas are weighed against the vision or the decision tool.  Decisions are not made on the leader’s preference or on which member is more convenient.
•	Fourth, every members ideas are never judged or rejected at the onset.  Judgmental words cause defensiveness.  Rejection may cause them to drop out or not offer more ideas.
•	Fifth, every member has an equal opportunity to shine.  Every member is expected to take a leadership role and every member has unlimited opportunities in creating the vision and project objectives.
•	Sixth, every member is rewarded or publicly recognized for their contributions to the project.
•	Seventh, the leader socializes equally with people near and far.
•	Spend 70-80% of your time sway, attending to the needs and relationships of distant members.
•	The leader must confront and deal with problems of performance personally.  It is your responsibility as the leader to act on information, not to ignore it.
•	Breakdown in trust can lead to breakdowns in the team.  Team members trust you to act consistently and fairly.

K. Point Six:
a) Question: What is the symbol for how to communicate more effectively across distance.
b) Key Point: Merlin is the symbol to remind the leader that people in each location have different information; and equally important.  Each location has a different context from which the send and receive information.
c) Instructor Notes: 
1) This communication is execerbated because of the inequities of information and context.
2) Be extremely clear when making all agreements, secure crystal clarity by using these anchors:
a) Visual anchors-pictures, graphs, charts, images.
b) Hands-on anchors - feel, touch, manipulate it.
c) Verbal anchors - words and details, analysis, comparison, steps, process.
3) Anchor clarity with a clarity partnership, where one person repeats what was heard, without being asked.
4) The clarity partnership helps people split by distance to share critical context and details that typically are missing when people work in isolation.
5) Keep communication flowing to counteract the out of sight, out of mind phenomenon on distributed teams.