The Virtual Project

The virtual project, also known as a “distributed team,” is one in which the participants are geographically distributed to an extent that they may seldom, if ever, meet face to face as a team. The geographical distances involved do not have to be great; individuals who work in the same industrial complex may be functioning in a virtual project if their schedules do not allow them to meet face to face. As distances increase, however, the difficulties of communicating and building teams increase significantly. When team members are spread across several time zones, opportunity for direct communication is severely limited, and the associated costs of both face-to-face and electronic communications increase dramatically. Electronic communication takes on much more importance in virtual projects because electronic systems must assume the burden of making the development of effective project teams possible.

Jaclyn Kostner has written extensively on the virtual project. In Knights of the Tele-Round Table (1994), she documents the unique issues faced by project managers who must manage such a virtual or distributed project. The issues she defines are shown in Table 1.