New Ways of Working Network

The manner in which a team is put together --team formation--is often critical in determining the success or failure of a team. When members of a team are physically collocated, many of the unresolved questions that face a team when it is first launched are addressed through cultural norms about "the ways things are done around here," as well as informal agreements and understandings that develop when people work together. But increasingly knowledge work is done in remote virtual teams. This means that people need to know how to form effective teams quickly and effectively. Forming effective virtual teams requires new skills typically not required in more traditional workgroups. Team formation in a virtual team requires that the team make explicit decisions about things that in a collocated team may remain implicit. This paper provides a primer on team formation and identifies key decisions that need to be made by teams in order to be effective. 

Note: this report was partly funded by the Rym Oy (Finland) as a part of the NewWoW project of the Built Environment PRE Program. Companies funding the project include Rapal Oy, Senate Properties Oy, Olof Granlund Oy and ISS Services Oy.