I will do my best trying to include few tips on how to build and success with virtual teams. They have become very popular and now have a lot of acceptance as part of product research and development projects. However virtual teams could be used in several projects in an cost efficient way. There are a couple of things that you have to know or ensure before you try to start your project with a virtual team -based on Jessica Lipnack video chat @Project Shrink.
The team should feel that they are doing something useful. That their work is needed and also appreciated by the team and the project itself. They should feel their value. Also,they should be happier doing their work in that way (as part of a virtual team) than doing it in another way. Remember, you need a team that feels comfortable doing their work, and comfortable about how the perform or execute their work.
On any project, and even more on those that depends on specific people knowledge -like research, product development and software development- communication is the key. When you have a few genius working for you, you must ensure that they can share and transfer their knowledge properly during meetings and reports (that should be a few and not a lot). So the magic key to success in any project is communication, communication and more communication -please, it doesn’t mean a lot of meetings or a lot of reports. It means effective communication.
How to achieve an effective communication? It’s really easy these days and that’s why (probably) virtual teams are working better now -i.e. faster and cheaper. Technology is critical. Technology means cheap communication channels with video or audio, and also cheap shared spaces for files, documents and products. The use of online collaboration tools, organized reporting structure (i.e. status meetings, daily status reports or weekly checkpoints), well supported audio and video conference infrastructure, and of course a good plan (not a complete plan, but a good plan that could be adapted easily) will increase dramatically the chance to succeed.
By achieving a good communication infrastructure, team will focus on the work they have to do instead of logistics. And now, the only thing you have to do, as manager is to understand and validate that you are part of a virtual team too. Obviously as PM you will feel the necessity of full control, however mature teams -and mature team members of course- will handle it in a better way -remember, they feel part of a team and also they like to be part of one.
Inside big corporations, most of the people work at their desk without ever having met their big boss, however, they receive mails from them all the time. You got emails from people you may not know in real, but you work with them or for them. Got the point?
Virtual teams aren’t new at all. But with technology, now PMs can ping them everywhere, all the time -everything is about perception and how you name the things 
Hi!
good article the point abt effective communication is well made.
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