Where in the World is My Team: Making a Success of Your Virtual Global Workplace Review

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Where in the World is My Team: Making a Success of Your Virtual Global Workplace ReviewBut did I? I just finished reading Terence Brake's book, "Where in the World is my Team?". I was intrigued by the reviews saying it was not a regular business book, and of course the topic of virtual teams, so I decided to pick it up.

If you are not familiar with this book, indeed, it is not like usual business books in that there are actually points in it that will make anyone laugh. At the beginning, we are introduced to Will Williams, the new assistant to the CEO at a gaming company, The Fun House. He is working in London, but there is a whole host of characters all over the world, with whom Will interacts. Will is tasked by his CEO, to put together a Briefing Report on the new workplace, working virtually, technologies that aid the new workplace, etc., for her upcoming TV appearance. The readers "learn" along with Will, as he wades in to the new workplace.

The set up having to go through Will's introduction in to working with virtual teams is a bit much, having to go through each of his meetings, and his personal feelings on meeting with his ex-girlfriend or the "interesting" analyst, whose work Will never bothered to read, dealing with his parents, his new love, etc. But you really can't skip any part of the book. The dialogue of a relevant conference call talking about ways to improve communication in virtual teams may be between a few paragraphs about the crazy analyst or Will's colleague in the next cubicle. You can certainly skim those parts though. By doing it in real world fashion though, every reader, who has worked in global virtual teams will recognize similar mistakes they have made as they have learned to work with virtual teams.

Many of the points made in the book, building virtual trust, communication, etc., have been stated in other books, but I do like the diagrams that are used to show the different points. For example the Collaboration Controller is good. I also like the diagram on pg. 25 on virtual trust and its different aspects.

Some of my favorite points include:

- Being in a virtual team, and especially leading one, means communicating when you don't have to - not just when you want something from someone. Only when you want something makes it very shallow relationship. Do you know anything else about them?
- Also under process I like the emphasis on the transition from establishing a relationship to going in to the task. The delicate balance between these two processes - of course I did not see in the book any details about how to actually do this transition.
- Working in isolation, means less communication which builds paranoia, people get anxious. Which I have talked about many times.
- The confusion caused by vague communication, lack of transparency, etc.
* I like the example given - an American to a Brit - "I created a "straw man" agenda for the upcoming meeting, and I have a "hard stop", at 3:00pm". What does that mean? Writing something like, "I created a preliminary agenda for the upcoming meeting and I have a deadline of 3:00pm, can you provide feedback until then", would do. Why do we write in the first way? I think a lot of Americans can relate to this example, we tend to use a lot of buzz words and are almost judged on our use of them.
* I also like a lot of the comments in the book, such as why do we waste time being vague.....as there is enough distance between people!!! It just leads to a lot of second guessing.....and the need to communicate a lot more in the future....

- With virtual teams, problems can easily be blown out of proportion! - so true!!!
- I like the emphasis on understanding the purpose - the book puts it out on the "purpose" of the team, or the "why" the team is doing what it is doing. I have always liked the emphasis on the "why" as to "why" the users need to work the way they do, why the system needs to work in a certain way, but I like the emphasis on "why" the team has formed.
- Team members tend to side with those who are located closest to them
- I like the list of 10 Behavioral Rules for The Fun House - 10 rules I think are great for any team!

About halfway through the main portion of the book (and one too many paragraphs about Spinks - read the book if you want to know who this is), I decided to skip to the Briefing Report located in the appendix, to see if something could be learned from reading that portion of the book only.

There are some points that I think could stand on their own if a reader was looking for a quick reference.

- The Collaboration controller chart on pg. 187, I like the outlining of the challenges and how to counteract them.
- In general good parts on the 6 items that make a team work well
- Section 3 on Cooperation is good - similar to other books though, especially on giving and getting trust.
- The general pointers part of Section 3 is good - pointers for building cooperation, although also ones you can see in other books. But at least something you can read quickly and get some ideas.
- Good questions for testing your readiness for managing the team and for testing the preparedness of the team members
- I like the cultural intelligence section, section 8. The Worldprism(tm) model

"Where in the World is my Team", is certainly not an ordinary business book and it is not dry, so it is something new. One of the negatives I have often found with many of these books is the lack of real life examples. "Where in the world is my Team?", provides those real world examples (of course changing the names to protect the innocent!). The bad part is that you can't skip significant sections of it or easily hone in on sections that may be relevant to your situation. The information comes to you in bits and pieces through reading the dialogue of conference calls, or reading email exchanges that Will has engaged in. It is an easy read and, and I hate to say it, but I found myself wondering what was going to happen to Will's father, but at the same time I was often frustrated with all of the "filler" stories and was skipping ahead when I could. However, if you are new to working with global teams and with virtual teams, this is a great first book to pick up. Why pick up a regular business book, when you can have a "story" to go along with it! If you are more experienced, you can still pick up new points, you will just have to wade through a lot of "story" to get to them.
Where in the World is My Team: Making a Success of Your Virtual Global Workplace OverviewAs the economy becomes increasingly global, businesses need employees who can work in teams that cross borders and transcend physical spaces. In Where in the World Is My Team, fictional character Will Williams shares entertaining anecdotes and practical advice to accustom readers to the challenges of a global, virtual workplace. This easy-to-follow guide, ideal for managers and those interested in succeeding in a global economy, introduces new technologies but focuses especially on the six Key Performance Zones for global team collaboration with briefing report summaries to emphasize key points.

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The Jericho Principle: How Companies Use Strategic Collaboration to Find New Sources of Value Review

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The Jericho Principle: How Companies Use Strategic Collaboration to Find New Sources of Value ReviewBOOK REVIEW:
If there is one thing that is certain, we live in an uncertain and changing world. Those companies that are agile and can quickly and cost effectively change to take advantage of new business opportunities will not only survive they will thrive. Being first to market with a new products or services usually means a higher margin return while the competition is playing catch up.
Business collaboration defined by the authors as " the alignment of business activities and processes with another business to create mutual benefit" is a growing tool used by many companies to quickly and cost effectively implement new business strategies.
Technology has and will continue to evolve to further enable collaboration, as noted by the many excellent examples sited in this book. Effective collaboration requires more than technology, it requires value creation from all collaborators, shared rewards, and managed risk.
This book does an excellent job of describing how organizations build processes and services to enable collaborative partnerships and alliances. After reading this book you will be better equipped to evaluate your company's readiness for collaboration and implement measures to improve your company's readiness in key areas.The Jericho Principle: How Companies Use Strategic Collaboration to Find New Sources of Value OverviewUnderstanding the opportunities and dangers of innovation through intercompany collaborationThe Jericho Principle identifies key trends and patterns in the increasing use of collaboration by corporations and creates a strategic and operational framework for answering key questions about the why and how of using collaboration to rapidly create innovation in uncertain times. Two business and technology strategists from Bearing Point Consulting, formerly KPMG, provide models and diagnostics that break down the various collaborative models in the marketplace, to give managers the tools and understanding they need to quickly and effectively launch the strategic partnerships and alliances that will drive innovation and value creation. Using case studies, client stories, and research, the authors offer the reader a clear view of the promise and peril of collaboration, revealing what works and what doesn't.Ralph Welborn (Westwood, MA), Senior Vice President, and Vincent Kasten (Fanwood, NJ), Managing Director, are senior business and technology strategists with Bearing Point Consulting, one of the world's leading management consulting and systems integration companies.

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Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children's Software (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning) Review

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Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children's Software (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning) ReviewFor me, this book is simultaneously insightful and nostalgic. I grew up playing games like "Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego", "The Castle of Dr. Brain", and "SimCity", so Ito's ethnographic coverage of kids at an after-school program who played such games reminded me of my own childhood, as viewed through the lens of a cultural anthropologist. For instance, while using SimCity's disasters to decimate a city was something I used to do as a kid, I'd always assumed it was a "bad" use of the game, but Ito actually interprets such actions in an entirely different way.
The book doesn't just look at how kids play these games, though. It also examines, for instance, how the marketing of some of these games mobilized middle-class parental anxieties about achievement, or how the entrepreneurs who started educational game companies soon found themselves to be victims of their own success. Or how the entrenched agendas of educational institutions can sometimes work against learning instead of fostering it.
The only thing I didn't like about the book is that because it's written for researchers, it can be a bit jargony at times. For instance, the first 20 pages or so are dedicated to explaining research methodology and what makes it different from other books in the field, which I wasn't terribly concerned with.
Ultimately, though, this book was a pleasure to read, and was complex enough to warrant multiple readings. What's covered in here would probably be useful for parents, educators, game developers, entrepreneurs, cultural anthropologists, marketers, and anyone who, like me, once played these games as a kid.
Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children's Software (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning) OverviewHow the influential industry that produced such popular games as OregonTrail and KidPix emerged from experimental efforts to use computers as tools inchild-centered learning.

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Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results Review

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Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results ReviewIncreasing collaboration sits at or near the top of most executives' to-do list, and much has been wrttten about it. A search of amazon's business and investing books for the keyword "collaboration" turns up nearly 37,000 books. Why, you might ask, do we need another one? Hansen has not written "a" book about collaboration, he has written "the" book on the topic. Hansen's "Collaboration" makes a bold promise--to provide the definitive treatment of the topic. It delivers on that promise.
Hansen starts with fundamentals. Firms exist to create economic value (as well as to capture and sustain value into the future). In most business books, collaboration is unmoored from any consideration of economic value creation and treated as an inherent good. Hansen, in contrast, anchors his analysis in a hard-nosed economic analysis of when collaboration creates value, that includes not only a project's benefits, but also the costs of collaboration and the opportunity cost of foregoing alternatives. The author's analysis leads to counter-intuitive findings--not all collaboration is good and more is not better. His analysis slices through the fluff of so many books on collaboration and brings readers to the hard edges of value creation.
The book follows a clear structure. After framing collaboration in terms of its benefits, Hansen provides a systematic list of obstacles that inhibit cooperation in many firms. His list is the closest to a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive taxonomy of barriers that I have seen. Hansen also includes a diagnostic to help managers assess the specific barriers to cooperation that they face. The book then provides extremely practical steps to enhance coordination within a firm. It closes with reflections on the leadership traits required to foster collaboration. The writing is clear, and the examples--a mix of familiar and novel--illustrate Hansen's points to a tee.
Many business books fall short in the solutionons they offer, veering at one extreme into a long laundry list of superficial or obvious actions or at the other into a "one size fits all" solution ill-suited to the complexity of real world organizations. Hansen strikes just the right balance. He introduces three actions, that are non-obvious and eminently practical. Among his many useful suggestions, I found T-shaped management and the simple rules for nimble networks to be particularly powerful. Hansen clearly spends a great deal of time with managers in the trenches, and his deep knowledge of the real world shines through in the recommendations.
This book is "academic" in the best sense of the word. Hansen does not conjure up his conclusions based on superficial observation or war stories. Rather, he draws on a rich body of scholarly research on collaboration that stretches back over decades. This firm grounding in research gives the book a solidity and credibility that many business books lack. Although the author is too humble to trumpet his own achievements, much of the best research is his own. The book achieves both academic rigor and practical relevance.
Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results OverviewIn "Collaboration", author Morten Hansen takes aim at what many leaders inherently know: in today's competitive environment, companywide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realized. In fact, most cross-unit collaborative efforts end up wasting time, money, and resources. How can managers avoid the costly traps of collaboration and instead start getting the results they need? In this book, Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through 'disciplined collaboration'. Based on the author's long-running research, in-depth case studies, and company interviews, "Collaboration" delivers practical advice and tools to help your organization collaborate for real results.

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Patterns for Computer-Mediated Interaction (Wiley Software Patterns Series) Review

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Patterns for Computer-Mediated Interaction (Wiley Software Patterns Series) ReviewWhenever I get a new book to review, I always approach it with a mixture of anticipation, curiosity, and dread, especially given the increasing number of books about patterns and, in this case, the size -- 581 pages! When I finally found a small window and sat down with "Patterns for Computer-Mediated Interaction," I was intending to hurriedly skim as much of the text as possible to get an idea of what it was like. Several hours later, I was hooked. What a surprise this book is! Yes, it's topical. The patterns are about developing software to allow people to have the best interaction experience possible. That is where the world is headed, no doubt! The patterns in this book, however, are not just about the technical aspects of these systems, the authors also address the "socio-technical" issues that are important for the people-side of this domain. What was especially interesting to me, as a long-time "patterns fan," was the intriguing and enlightening discussion of pattern languages and the close examination of the pattern language of Christopher Alexander. I've read many essays on this topic but this presentation was very special. I learned a lot. You can't ask for more than that. I can recommend this book whole-heartedly, not only for developers in this domain but also for anyone who wants to study a model pattern language and learn more about patterns and how they work together to solve problems. Two thumbs up!
Patterns for Computer-Mediated Interaction (Wiley Software Patterns Series) OverviewWritten by well-respected experts, this how-to guide provides patterns for the design of human computer human interaction (HCHI). An increasing number of applications are currently designed for use by more than one user, eg: multi-player games, interactive web sites, mobile phones, collaborative learning systems, interactive workspaces and smart environments. In these areas there is a shift from (HCI) human computer interaction to (HCHI) human computer human interaction. The role of patterns in this movement is twofold: 1st – patterns focus on the human user of the system; 2nd – patterns assist developers in the development process of groupware applications.

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Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledge Review

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Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledge ReviewThis book discusses the value visual mapping: brainstorming, graphic organizers, and concept mapping and offers suggestions for student use. More importantly, the book validates these visual maps with research, software references, and other authors and books. It's a great way to map student thinking and if done correctly, students can transfer the skills when needed. The author relies less on reproducible orangizers and more on student-centered products in conjunction with questions, collaborating and evaluating. A good resource for a team to tackle interdisciplinary units. Additionally, the author demonstrates visual mapping uses in the business world and on a district or school level. Great staff development idea.Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledge OverviewFeaturing new research and examples, this practical resource focuses on brainstorming webs, graphic organizers, and concept maps to improve instruction and enhance students' cognitive development.

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