.
1.2 KEY RECOMMENDATIONS.
Virtual teamwork needs specific structure, strategies and support. Integral to a successful team is leadership with a specific skillset to build and manage the team, as well as the knowledge to establish guidelines and strategies specific to the virtual team environment. Effective leadership should place prominence on monitoring team processes carefully to ensure they are adhered to, which in turn will enable ultimate team performance, help to manage conflict and maintain equilibrium of workload amongst the team members.
In the absence of face-to-face contact, it is crucial for virtual teams to have communication processes in place to foster team spirit and form personal connections between the team members to prevent feelings of isolation. Establishing cohesion early in team development through team building will help to establish collegiality and trust, and empower teams for high performance and successful outcomes. Conflict management processes are fundamental to high performance successful teams and conflict should be managed and resolved as it arises to prevent it escalating and damaging the team. Setting and adhering to team norms by preparing a team contract or team charter will promote structure and clarity of team processes and expectations, and help to manage conflict. .
2 INTRODUCTION.
This report is prepared as a reflection of the OSCA presentation undertaken by our team, NSAHB DIST 5, as a form of assessment for Therapeutic and Professional Communication during first term 2013. .
The team demographics consisted of four female members geographically dispersed across Queensland and New South Wales, with two of the team members being from Generation Y (gen y) and two from Generation X (gen x). Due to our geographically dispersed locations, our team interface was a virtual environment with the only method of communication and interaction being synchronous (Skype) and asynchronous (email, Moodle forum, sms) communication (Furumo, 2009).