What do you do if your virtual team is struggling to communicate effectively?

In my experience, there is no one size fits all template. I have seen colocated teams struggling to communicate as well. Lack of communication could be simply be due to a language and/or culture barrier as well. If we are working with/in a team, the first thing is getting to know the team members and understand the personalities to some extent, which will help understand the high level causes of any communication issues. Tools and practices come after the team composition is understood. We may need to pitch the possible improvements/solutions in different ways to different people.

Short answer = use human on humans! This is the one area that you cannot solve with tools or protocols. Ideally everyone should communicate, collaborate and follow up but in reality this rarely organically happens in IT world. So it comes down to this well disciplined, sharp, trustworthy, gluey person that initiates and engages people and follow up with them timely basis. Finding the right person/leader for this role is crucial.

A primary cause of ineffective communication within virtual teams is often due to overlooking the essential first three stages of team development: forming, storming, and norming, as outlined in the Five Stages of Team Development model. In such scenarios, it becomes crucial for the team leader—whether it's the engineering manager, program manager, project manager, or scrum master—to step in. The leader should take charge of facilitating and orchestrating meetings to ensure a space where knowledge transparency is encouraged.

Get into a short video call with each members, hesr their concerns, analyse issues. Address the whole team in a video meeting and resolve the issues, have regular focused meeting and share updates to all to improve openness and trust among team members. Take the team out for an informal get together if possible.

In a virtual team communication becomes very hard, I've covered this topic in one of the post in my leadership newsletter, but I want to provide a short answer here. In my previous role, our team was spread across 5 different locations, across 4 countries and 4 timezones. Traditional communication methods wouldn't have worked there. It is very important to understand the situation and assess who needs to know what. I'm all for transparency, however I also believe in focused communications on things that cannot be dropped.

A communication requirements assessment is critical to improving productivity, cooperation, and team satisfaction. It entails comprehending the tools and team interactions, soliciting feedback, and detecting real-world issues. Addressing these concerns can result in tailored solutions, empowerment, increased efficiency, flexibility, and better cooperation. By focusing on team requirements and difficulties, suitable tools and procedures may be selected, reducing future disruptions and cultivating a more engaged workforce.

It depends a little on the size of the company, doesn't it? For sure a bigger company needs precise protocols and guidelines how to communicate effectively. A much smaller company has the advantage that you can pay easier respect to personal preferences in communication tools.

In my personal experience ‘virtual teams’ still need the human element. Time for personal wins/loses, during meetings, freely given by the team helps the relationships build. Someone who is willing to freely give a personal success shows their openness to being a team player. Someone who is reluctant may need extra help in different ways to feel included. Like the analogy of every person being a plant. Some plants need sun, some need shade. Virtual teams need a lot of attention because of the lack of inherently knowing the need from day to day interactions. Sometimes virtual surveys can also help with anonymity, which may help struggling members. Lastly, one to one time where the rule is no mistakes are bad. Mistakes are where we learn.

In my experience, we look at the problem, why is the present communication practice is not working effectively, one of the biggest reasons is the inability of the team leaders to track productivity of direct reports because team members work remotely and are not seen by their team leads. they often wonder how they can ensure everyone is focused on work. If the problem is not associated with time zones, communication media or motivation, then it time to put stringent measures in place and if this fails, search for a more effective and dedicated team.

You need to define specific channels for different types of communication (ex email for formal communications, instant messaging for quick questions, and video calls for deep dive discussions.

Streamline communication! Use the right tools: Choose chat, email, etc. based on team size and urgency. Targeted channels: Create smaller groups for specific discussions, avoiding information overload. Focused meetings: Set agendas and include only relevant attendees, saving time and boosting focus. Daily standups: Share quick updates and schedule follow-ups for deeper dives. Broadcasts: Use a wider channel for deadlines, deployments, and deliverables. Regular reviews: Improve processes and celebrate wins through retrospectives. Team building: Host casual meetings to foster connections and reduce stress. Learning culture: Encourage knowledge sharing to keep teams engaged and growing.

A focus on meeting etiquette can help virtual teams avoid meeting fatigue. Show up on time and prepared. Set meetings to be as short as possible to be respectful of everyone’s time. Always set a clear agenda. This is critical with recurring meetings! If team members feel they have to meet just for the sake of meeting, you have lost them before you started. Do your best to keep team members engaged and focused by involving them. This can help keep team members from going into “check email mode”. Take notes, capture decisions, and assign actions. Take a few minutes at the end of meetings to review these items as a team. Finally, always follow up to hold everyone accountable and to identify risks and roadblocks as soon as possible.

Again it depends on the size of the company. In a smaller team you know exactly which tool is best to reach your colleagues asap.

1. Identify Communication Barriers: Pinpoint the specific challenges my team is facing. Is it a lack of clarity in instructions? Misunderstandings due to language barriers? Technical issues with communication tools? Knowing the root cause will help me to address the problem more effectively. 2. Establish Clear Communication Guidelines: Create and communicate clear guidelines for communication within the team. This could include preferred communication channels, response times, meeting schedules, and expectations for participation.

I believe technology can be a great tool here. For instance, in our case as I described above, a simple change like email scheduling rather than sending now, can put an important email in front of someone easily. With diversity, you need to support different modes of communications and normalize them. For example, I feel having modes for quick 1:1s, direct messaging (slack etc) or traditional emails is important. What I'm going to add is setting expectations for each. I used to have a expected reply SLA for my message boxes. This way the sender can anticipate when I'll reply by. Another tool you can utilize here is email filters. Go read about them and how to set up, if you haven't already.

Ultimately, communication can be single handedly improved if you create an open environment. For instance, if everyone on your team has a "how to" guide for themselves listing their preference on mode of communication, a sender will not have to worry much. It's obvious that you don't hesitate speaking to a person you're comfortable with. This goes beyond just communication though. Create a team culture that fosters openness, positive reinforcement, no judgment. This way people will feel more comfortable speaking up.

Be the model communicator. Set high standards for yourself, and your direct reports and peers will emulate your style. Invest in your workers. There are many good communication workshops available that yield excellent results. The off site, in person, classes I have taken with my coworkers provided the longest lasting, positive results. Challenge communications that are vague or don't make a point. Even when you know what the sender is saying, it doesn't hurt to ask for clarification. i.e. when someone promises delivery next week; ask them if that the beginning or the end of next week. And gradually tighten up over time till they get into the habit of providing more accurate commitments.