An article in the August 20th Business Week on how to build a productive global team led me to this, 10 excellent rules developed by Lynda Gratton of MIT Sloan. Based on what looks llike solid research on the ground, rather than hype from companies trying to sell remote communication systems, a lot of what she says confirms what I have been groping towards with this blog. The points I highlighted as being new or intriguing were:
1) The mode of communication doesn't seem to be important
2) What is most important is that communication be frequent and rapid
3) A set of rules, such as who should receive emails, who is copied and expectations of reply time make it easier (as I had suspected, and often recommend in training)
4) Timing of social events/face to face meetings can be crucial - meetings with a strong social element can be resented if they are held early on in a team's existence. Creating exciting work and a meaningful goal is seen as more useful.