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"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein
Games are a fun but serious way of helping humanity tackle the complexities, volatilities and uncertainties that could be hallmarks of the "new normal" for the global climate. Five reasons for using games in learning and dialogue:

1. They encourage active learning and active engagement in dialogues.

2. Games allow you to simplify complex systems.

3. In games, you have to take decisions and receive feedback on the result of that decision.

4. Games provide opportunity for reflection, discovery, exploration and challenge.

5. And .... they are fun! Considering that emotions matter in learning - this is also a serious goal.

Games and the Climate Centre
In recent years the Climate Centre and its partners have designed at least 45 games about humanitarian issues like disaster preparedness, gender, food security, health, migration. Across five continents, Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers, goverment officials, farmers, schoolchildren, meteorologists, students and climate-policy negotiators have used our games.

Want to learn more? Read Pablo Suarez, our Associate Director for Research and Innovation, article on how games can support the development of better governance systems.
Resources by the Climate Centre and partners
Our Games for a New Climate video shows how games speed up learning, dialogue, and action on climate risks: they involve decisions with consequences, enabling players to inhabit the reality of climate-risk management and test possible future scenarios in a captivating and fun way.
December, 2019 Brief report for Climate-KIC's Deep Demonstration on "Forging Resilience" An overview of serious games for disaster risk management-Prospects and limitations for informing actions to arrest increasing risk. September, 2018 From Darkness to Illumination: Climate grief and resilience in a sea of warnings Ready! Lessons in the design of humanitarian games February, 2014
This paper reviews serious games/simulations addressing issues related to disaster risk management (DRM) and serving as educational and engagement tools for affected communities, policy-makers, and other stakeholders.

This detailed look at best practice for using games in disaster risk reduction, using the example of Ready! in Namibia, documents what's been learned by humanitarian organisations, designers, and practitioners interested in the potential of games.
November 6, 2012

Can games help people manage the climate risks they face?
27 July, 2015 Loss and damage in a changing climate November, 2012 Games for a new Climate August, 2017 Handwashing with Ananse - Evaluation Partners
Games with an underlying serious purpose can speed up learning, dialogue and action on climate risks, engaging people's minds and emotions, in sharp contrast to unidirectional learning through traditional lectures and PowerPoint presentations. Learn how with this working paper, the first in our series.

Support offered
This paper examines the role of games in improving communication and spurring learning, and improving decision-making capacity about climate risk management amongst diverse stakeholers. Among other aspects, it discusses challenges associated with communicating the concept of loss and damage and the implications post-2015.

Humanitarian and development practitioners are confronting an irrefutable challenge: the past no longer elucidates the future. This book explores how we can accelerate learning and dialogue for climate-compatible development in a changing world among very diverse stakeholders.

The results of an evaluation of the effectiveness of a game-based handwashing curriculum to generate learning and behavior change.

For questions, please contact: games@climatecentre.org
Our top tips:
Would you like to explore how serious games can enrich your organisatinal learning processes? You are very welcome to explore any of our materials. As with any game, it is typically easier if someone can show you how to run something first, so do not worry if from the materials alone some activities may seem cryptic. We are happy to provide support where needed:

1. Ad hoc game support: We can support you with specific questions on our games.

2. Game design: We can (co-)design new games that contribute to better dialogue / learning around climate resilience.

3. Training support: We can organise Training of Trainer sessions. Please find an example here of a tried and tested 3 day agenda. We can adapt the agenda to cater to specific needs.

1. Safety first - make sure physical and/or emotional risks are minimised.

2. Give out instructions step by step. Don't explain all at once. And where possible, let people experience the outcomes of decisions.

3. Practice makes perfect! Try your games a few times with a safe audience (e.g. friends and family), before you try them with a 'high stake' audience.

4. Enjoy! If you show you are enjoying the experience, people playing the game are also likely to enjoy the process.

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"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein Games are a fun but serious way of helping humanity tackle the complexities, volatilities and uncertainties that could be hallmarks of the "new normal" for the global climate. Five reasons for using games in learning and dialogue: They encourage active learning and active engagement in dialogues.

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Findings on using improv / embodiment online

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Findings on using improv / embodiment online

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Petro and Christian at the Applied Improv Network conference in Paris 2018

Petro Janse van Vuuren and Christian F. Freisleben have been working together since 2015. Based on a steadily deepening friendship they explore possibilities how to use methods and the mindset of Applied Improvisation also in Online-Rooms. Petro invited Christian to her flying pig-sessions. "When pigs fly" is a figure of speech that says something is completely impossible, even unthinkable. For example: "Can people really change for good?" "Yes, when pigs fly." For Petro and Christian a flying pig is the moment of insight that brings shift and transformation in our clients, students, participants...

As academic at Drama for Life, University of the Witwatersrand school of Arts, Petro contributed her research, findings and experiences with Strategic Narrative Embodiment SNE). This is an Applied Theatre methodology that has been developed for application in leadership and organisation development contexts (you can find more background information here).

Christian added his know-how as a teacher and trainer using Applied Improvisation, as a expert on the didactics of higher education and blended learning e. g. out of his work at the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten.

Petro and Christian offered various Online-Workshops with participants from all over the world and evolved a process combining Applied Improv, SNE and the embodiment of the flying pig. 2015 was also the year in which Christian started with the work on his doctoral thesis on using Applied Improvisation in the field of higher education online and offline. Petro and Christian realised during the year 2016, that they have embarked on a journey of action research. They started to look more closely at their didactic designs, recordings of various sessions and of reflections of participants in order to critically evolve their processes and record their discoveries.

Findings of this journey can be found online here http://www.playingmantis.net/applied-improvisation-exercises/. Together they wrote a paper and presented it online at the 9th International Drama in Education Research Institute ( IDIERI, 2 - 9 July 2018, Auckland New Zealand). In addition they facilitated a 90 minute workshop at the conference using a live-unline tool (see this review). This paper , now including findings from this experience will be published within this year.

Join us in Paris!

Here is the ZOOM Link to join online;

if you are not participant of the conference and want to join please send an application to Petro at the latest till 23th of August

Note: the session will be recorded an used as data material for the ongoing research.

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Online improvisation and embodiment in Paris

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Petro Janse van Vuuren and Christian F. Freisleben have been working together since 2015. Based on a steadily deepening friendship they explore possibilities how to use methods and the mindset of Applied Improvisation also in Online-Rooms. Petro invited Christian to her flying pig-sessions.

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Please sign-up for our Slack channels so we can start the conversation before the workshop and continue it after.

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Pre-Reading: Applied Improv and Disaster Preparedness

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Pre-Reading: Applied Improv and Disaster Preparedness

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Virtually Amazing! Learning Journey Welcome Survey

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Web survey powered by SurveyMonkey.com. Create your own online survey now with SurveyMonkey's expert certified FREE templates.

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PLACARD interchange - exploring the links between CCA & DRR

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PLACARD interchange - PLAtform for Climate Adaptation and Risk reDuction - is a hub for dialogue, knowledge exchange and collaboration between the climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) communities. Find out more...

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In 2017, the Swiss NGO DRR Platform developed a basic course on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) for self-paced e-learning consisting of four modules in the form of power point presentations ready for download. The course is open to everybody, particularly addressing practitioners new to the fields of DRR and CCA.

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Using Games to Experience Climate Risk

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Need to get in touch with us? Contact Info Coming soon!

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Allies and Partners: Applied Improvisation Network

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Allies and Partners: Applied Improvisation Network

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You are officially invited to the Applied Improvisation Network World Conference in Paris on 23-26 August 2018!

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Reflecting in Teams with a Focus on Solutions

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We Adapt, Learning from Failures in Communication

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Although they may not identify as such all adaptation practitioners are communicators at some level.

Adaptation is primarily about action in a constantly changing context. Forums where people can communicate openly about what does not work in a way that supports learning is thus key to supporting adaptation action.

There is a need for different forms of communication that are tailored to specific stakeholder groups and align with their interests and values.

Researchers may need to think differently about their research, the role of communication and the stakeholders they work with.

Using inspiring and entertaining narratives are key to developing adaptation communication practice, but do not always support deeper learning between researchers and practitioners.

Communicators need to develop new and more inclusive approaches that address the specific needs of different stakeholder groups to create shared understandings.

"Being humble about your findings allows for reflective dialogue."

Overal, this workshop highlighted that communication of and engagement with adaptation research is a difficult and sometimes thankless task, and a specific skill that needs to be learnt. It is an emerging area of practice in adaptation and ultimately, not everything will succeed. Sharing and learning from what has not worked is on ongoing process that can be used to enhance current practice and build new knowledge. The creation of spaces which support these open discussions and ongoing learning between diverse stakeholders, is an important part of progressing adaptation agendas.

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Learning from failures in communication: sharing lessons from research & practice workshop

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Although they may not identify as such all adaptation practitioners are communicators at some level. Adaptation is primarily about action in a constantly changing context. Forums where people can communicate openly about what does not work in a way that supports learning is thus key to supporting adaptation action.

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Host meetings and webinars

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Modernize workflows with Zoom's trusted collaboration tools: including video meetings, team chat, VoIP phone, webinars, whiteboard, contact center, and events.

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Share information in a visually compelling way

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98, rue Didot - 75 694 Paris Cedex 14

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Coming soon!

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Allies and Partners: Improv for Humanity

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Allies and Partners: Improv for Humanity

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We build relationships and support actions to promote behavior which helps humanity AND reminds us that we all share this planet and its resources.

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Allies and Partners: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre

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Allies and Partners: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre

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Resilience and adaptation

Guide to climate-smart programming

The IFRC and the Climate Centre have published a comprehensive new guide to climate-smart programming and humanitarian operations for all Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies.

Available in full and summary versions, the guide focuses on how to use climate-related information to reduce risk and human vulnerability, and includes detailed annexes and user-friendly tools.

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Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre - The Climate Centre supports the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its partners in reducing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on vulnerable people.

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The Climate Centre supports the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its partners in reducing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on vulnerable people.

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Free Online QR Code Generator to make your own QR Codes. Supports Dynamic Codes, Tracking, Analytics, Free text, vCards and more.

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All Our Ideas - Bringing survey research into the digital age

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All Our Ideas is a platform that enables groups to collect and prioritize ideas in a transparent, democratic, and bottom-up way. It's a suggestion box for the digital age.

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Getting Virtual Teams Right. Another helpful article from the HBR. Note the section on establishing rules.

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Anna Parini
"Virtual" teams-ones made up of people in different physical locations-are on the rise. As companies expand geographically and as telecommuting becomes more common, work groups often span far-flung offices, shared workspaces, private homes, and hotel rooms. When my firm, Ferrazzi Greenlight, recently surveyed 1,700 knowledge workers, 79% reported working always or frequently in dispersed teams. Armed with laptops, Wi-Fi, and mobile phones, most professionals can do their jobs from anywhere.

The appeal of forming virtual teams is clear. Employees can manage their work and personal lives more flexibly, and they have the opportunity to interact with colleagues around the world. Companies can use the best and lowest-cost global talent and significantly reduce their real estate costs.

But virtual teams are hard to get right. In their seminal 2001 study of 70 such groups, professors Vijay Govindarajan and Anil Gupta found that 82% fell short of their goals and 33% rated themselves as largely unsuccessful. A 2005 Deloitte study of IT projects outsourced to virtual work groups found that 66% failed to satisfy the clients' requirements. And in our research, we've discovered that most people consider virtual communication less productive than face-to-face interaction, and nearly half admit to feeling confused and overwhelmed by collaboration technology.

There is good news, however. A 2009 study of 80 global software teams by authors from BCG and WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management indicates that well-managed dispersed teams can actually outperform those that share office space. Similarly, an Aon Consulting report noted that using virtual teams can improve employee productivity; some organizations have seen gains of up to 43%.

So how do you create and lead an effective virtual team? There's a lot of advice out there, but through our research and our experience helping organizations navigate collaboration challenges, we've concluded that there are four must-haves: the right team, the right leadership, the right touchpoints, and the right technology. By following simple high-return practices for each, managers can maximize the productivity of teams they must lead virtually.

The Right Team

Team composition should be your starting point. You won't get anywhere without hiring (or developing) people suited to virtual teamwork, putting them into groups of the right size, and dividing the labor appropriately.

People.

We've found that successful virtual team players all have a few things in common: good communication skills, high emotional intelligence, an ability to work independently, and the resilience to recover from the snafus that inevitably arise. Awareness of and sensitivity to other cultures is also important in global groups. When building a team, leaders should conduct behavioral interviews and personality tests like the Myers-Briggs to screen for all those qualities. If you inherit a team, use the same tools to take stock of your people and assess their weaknesses; then train them in the skills they're lacking, encourage them to coach one another, and consider reassignment for those who don't make progress.

Size.

Teams have been getting larger and larger, sometimes even exceeding 100 people for complex projects, according to one study. But our work with companies from large multinationals to tiny start-ups has taught us that the most effective virtual teams are small ones-fewer than 10 people. OnPoint Consulting's research supports this: Of the virtual teams the firm studied, the worst performers had 13 members or more. "Social loafing" is one cause. Research shows that team members reduce effort when they feel less responsible for output. The effect kicks in when teams exceed four or five members. As groups grow, another challenge is ensuring inclusive communication. The late Harvard psychology professor Richard Hackman noted that it takes only 10 conversations for every person on a team of five to touch base with everyone else, but that number rises to 78 for a team of 13. Thus to optimize your group's performance, don't assemble too many players.

Roles.

When projects require the efforts of multiple people from various departments, we devise appropriate subteams. Our approach is similar to the X-team strategy advocated by MIT professor Deborah Ancona, who defines three tiers of team members: core, operational, and outer. The core consists of executives responsible for strategy. The operational group leads and makes decisions about day-to-day work but doesn't tackle the larger issues handled by the core. And the outer network consists of temporary or part-time members who are brought in for a particular stage of the project because of their specialized expertise.

Ferrazzi Greenlight worked with a large multinational manufacturing company to help a dispersed team make better cross-division decisions, particularly when product output from one area fed others. The group was composed of more than 30 members-a mix of HQ, operational, and divisional leaders, some of whom reported to others. While many had knowledge vital to the work at hand, a fair number were included on an honorary basis. By the time we were asked to help, teammates openly acknowledged that they were in disarray and unable to achieve their financial goals. We brought everyone together for a face-to-face summit and then broke the group into smaller constituencies to brainstorm short-term wins. Those subteams continued to meet virtually after all parties were back in their respective offices. One group, made up of five divisional GMs, latched onto the goal of greater cross-selling and had a near-immediate success story: As a small, narrowly focused team, they were able to recognize that a plentiful stabilization agent used in ice cream could be repurposed to replace a scarce agent needed by other customers, including makers of hairstyling products and fracking fluids.

The Right Leadership

A recent study of engineering groups showed that the best predictor of success for managers leading dispersed teams is experience doing it before. That said, we've seen even novices excel by practicing some key behaviors that, while also critical in face-to-face settings, must be amplified in virtual ones:

Fostering trust.

Trust starts with respect and empathy. So, early on, leaders should encourage team members to describe their backgrounds, the value they hope to add to the group, and the way they prefer to work. Another practice, utilized by Tony Hsieh and Jenn Lim at their entirely virtual organization, Delivering Happiness, is to ask new hires to give video tours of their workspaces. This allows colleagues to form mental images of one another when they're later communicating by e-mail, phone, or text message. Remember too that relationship building should be an ongoing process. While employees who are in the same office commonly chat about their lives, virtual teammates do so much more rarely. Try taking five minutes at the beginning of conference calls for everyone to share a recent professional success or some personal news. This is probably the easiest way to overcome the isolation that can creep in when people don't work together physically.

Encouraging open dialogue.

If you've established trust, you've set everyone up for open dialogue, or "observable candor"-a behavior that professors James O'Toole and the late Warren Bennis described as a foundation of successful teamwork. Our own recent study of 50 financial firms confirmed that leaders of dispersed groups, in particular, must push members to be frank with one another. One way to do this is by modeling "caring criticism." When delivering negative feedback, use phrases like "I might suggest" and "Think about this." When receiving such feedback, thank the person who offered it and confirm points of agreement. A tactic for conference calls is to designate one team member to act as the official advocate for candor-noticing and speaking up when something is being left unsaid and calling out criticism that's not constructive. On the flip side, you should also occasionally recognize people for practices that improve team communication and collaboration.

Geographic separation is just one challenge facing 21st-century work groups. Karen Sobel Lojeski of Stony Brook University and Richard Reilly of the Stevens Institute of Technology calculate the "virtual distance" among teammates by charting three types of distance:

Physical -geographic or temporal separation, or affiliation with different departments or organizations

Operational -variations in team size, the extent of members' other commitments, the amount of face-to-face interaction, or technical skills and support

Affinity -differences in culture, rank, or the level of interdependence and preexisting relationships

When rating teams on a five-point scale in each subcategory, Lojeski and Reilly found that teams with high virtual-distance scores overall showed drops in:

Trust -down 83%

Innovation -down 93%

Satisfaction -down 80%

Performance -down 50%

Even colleagues on different floors in the same building might be considered physically distant, and operational and affinity distance can certainly affect colocated workers. But the associated problems are more common-and more acute-for virtual teams.

Clarifying goals and guidelines.

Management gurus from John Kotter to Chip and Dan Heath acknowledge the importance of establishing a common purpose or vision, while also framing the work in terms of team members' individual needs and ambitions. Explain to everyone why you are coming together and what benefits will result, and then keep reiterating the message.

Specific guidelines for team interaction are equally vital; research shows that rules reduce uncertainty and enhance trust in social groups, thereby improving productivity. Agree on how quickly team members should respond to queries and requests from one another, and outline follow-up steps if someone is slow to act. Virtual teammates often find themselves saying, "I thought it was obvious that..." or "I didn't think I needed to spell that out." So also insist that requests be specific. Instead of saying "Circle back to me," state whether you want to give final input on a decision or simply be informed after the decision is made. If you have a conference call about project details, follow up with an e-mail to minimize misunderstandings.

Also make it clear that multitasking on calls isn't OK. According to a recent study, 82% of people admit to doing other things-from surfing the web to using the bathroom-during team calls. But virtual collaboration requires that everyone be mentally present and engaged. Explain your policy, and when the group has a virtual meeting, regularly call on people to share their thoughts. Better yet, switch to video, which can essentially eliminate multitasking.

Delivering Happiness finds that using video also reinforces one of the company's core values: having fun. At the start of videoconference calls, participants pretend to make direct eye contact as their images appear side by side on-screen, much like the opening of the hit 1970s TV show, The Brady Bunch. New agenda items are often introduced with music-for example, to lead into a discussion on driving the firm's long-term growth, the emcee might play "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees, causing everyone to burst into dance. The fun and camaraderie match anything coworkers experience in person while ensuring that people are engaged in the conversation and focused on the specific tasks or topics at hand.

The Right Touchpoints

Virtual teams should come together in person at certain times. Here are the stages at which it's most critical:

Kickoff.

An initial meeting, face-to-face if possible and using video if not, will go a long way toward introducing teammates, setting expectations for trust and candor, and clarifying team goals and behavioral guidelines. Eye contact and body language help to kindle personal connections and the "swift trust" that allows a group of strangers to work together before long-term bonds develop. This is when you can assess team dynamics and work to bridge specific gaps-for example, by assigning an achievable task to a pair of dissimilar colleagues, allowing them a "small win"-as HBS professor Teresa Amabile calls it-together.

Onboarding.

Too often, plans for bringing new people onto a virtual team consist of a short e-mail or conference-call introduction to the rest of the group and a dozen or more documents that the newcomers are supposed to read and digest. A much better approach is to give them the same in-person welcome you gave the group. Fly them into headquarters or another location to meet with you and others who will be important to their success. Encourage them to videoconference with the rest of their teammates. We also recommend pairing newcomers with a mentor who can answer questions quickly but personally-the equivalent of a friendly colleague with an office around the corner.

Milestones.

Virtual team leaders need to continually motivate members to deliver their best, but e-mail updates and weekly conference calls are not enough to sustain momentum. In the absence of visual cues and body language, misunderstandings often arise, especially on larger teams. Team members begin to feel disconnected and less engaged, and their contributions to the project decline. So get people together to celebrate the achievement of short-term goals or to crack tough problems.

Ritesh Idnani, founder and CEO of Seamless Health, a health care start-up that relies on dispersed teams of managers, is adamant about bringing everyone together in person at least quarterly. Also, whenever someone new joins the team, he allocates two weeks for that individual to talk to colleagues deemed "important to know," who can share information about the company and the job. "After that, I ask the person to sit down with me and tell me what he or she learned," says Idnani. Not only does the new hire gain valuable insights, but Idnani does too. "You end up learning a lot from someone coming from the outside with a fresh pair of eyes."

The Right Technology

In our experience, even top-notch virtual teams-those with the most-talented workers, the finest leadership, and frequent touchpoints-can be felled by poor technology. We recommend using platforms that integrate all types of communication and include these key components:

Conference calling.

Look for systems that don't require access codes (helpful for team members who are driving) but do record automatically or with a single click and facilitate or automate transcription. The best systems even help monitor the time that each individual spends talking versus listening. Also consider one-on-one and group videoconferencing, since visual cues help establish empathy and trust.

Direct calling and text messaging.

By supporting real-time conversation between two remote participants, direct calls are one of the simplest and most powerful tools in the arsenal. And as teenagers know, texting is a surprisingly effective way to maintain personal relationships.

Discussion forums or virtual team rooms.

Software ranging from Microsoft SharePoint to Moot allows team members to present issues to the entire group, for colleagues to study or comment on when they have time. Scholars refer to this sort of collaboration as "messy talk" and say it's critical for completing complex projects. People can even weigh in on topics outside their domain and still offer useful input; research has shown that the best solutions to problems often come from unexpected sources. All interaction is documented and therefore becomes a searchable database.

When collaboration platforms combine all the elements above, they become the center of team activities, and using them brings greater efficiency, not extra, unnecessary work.

Further Reading

Collaboration Article

Avoid imposing single-culture-based approaches on multicultural situations.

John Stepper, a managing director at Deutsche Bank, created the bank's Communities of Practice electronic discussion forums, in which 100,000 employees now converse with colleagues in similar roles around the world. Stepper calls this collaboration "working out loud." All the activity is open and searchable, making it easy for existing teams to find subject-matter experts or review their own work and for ad hoc teams to form around business-related passions. For example, when Stepper made data on employee resource use available, a few interested parties self-organized into a virtual project team to create a system that documents individuals' cost savings over time. As people began to compete for the biggest savings, the company benefited. "What's important is that you're identifying common niches and connecting people toward some purpose," he explains.

The earliest virtual teams were formed to facilitate innovation among top experts around the world who didn't have time to travel. Today teams of physically dispersed employees are more often just a necessity of doing business. Companies can boost such groups' productivity, though-even beyond that of teams who share office space-by following the practices we describe here.

A version of this article appeared in the December 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Anna Parini "Virtual" teams-ones made up of people in different physical locations-are on the rise. As companies expand geographically and as telecommuting becomes more common, work groups often span far-flung offices, shared workspaces, private homes, and hotel rooms. When my firm, Ferrazzi Greenlight, recently surveyed 1,700 knowledge workers, 79% reported working always or frequently in [...]

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We are thrilled that you will be joining us in Paris.  We created this Padlet to put all the information that you might need in one place. Here you will find:

the pre-readings (blue),

the pre-conference survey (green),

a map to the venue and our contact information (pink),

links to different  tools (yellow),

links to our allies and partners websites (white), and

additional readings and resources in case you want to take a deep dive (purple)

We look forward to seeing you in Paris!

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It's how you include everyone
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Slido is the ultimate Q&A and polling platform for live and virtual meetings and events. It offers interactive Q&A, live polls and insights about your audience.

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Making Virtual Teams Work

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Consider this now familiar view from the field:
"I've run a virtual team for the past 18 months in the development and launch of [a website.] I am located in Toronto, Canada. The website was designed in Zagreb, Croatia. The software was developed in St. John's, Newfoundland; Zagreb, Croatia; Delhi, India; and Los Angeles, USA. Most of the communication was via email with periodic discussions via Skype. I had one face-to-face meeting with the team lead for the technology development this past December."
Could this be you? Virtual teams have become a fact of business life, so what does it take to make them work effectively? On June 10, 2013, I launched a discussion around this question on LinkedIn. The result was an outpouring of experience and advice for making virtual teams work. (I define "virtual teams" as work groups which (1) have some core members who interact primarily through electronic means, and (2) are engaged in interdependent tasks - i.e. are truly teams and not just groups of independent workers). I distilled the results and combined them with my own work, which focuses on how new leaders should assess and align their teams in their first 90 days. Because that's really when it's most important to lay the foundation for superior performance in teams - virtual or otherwise. Here are ten basic principles for making this happen:

1. Get the team together physically early-on. It may seem paradoxical to say in a post on virtual teams, but face-to-face communication is still better than virtual when it comes to building relationships and fostering trust, an essential foundation for effective team work. If you can't do it, it's not the end of the world (focus on doing some virtual team building). But if you can get the team together, use the time to help team members get to know each other better, personally and professionally, as well to create a shared vision and a set of guiding principles for how the team will work. Schedule the in-person meeting early on, and reconnect regularly (semi-annually or annually) if possible.

2. Clarify tasks and processes, not just goals and roles. All new leaders need to align their team on goals, roles and responsibilities in the first 90 days. With virtual teams, however, coordination is inherently more of a challenge because people are not co-located. So it's important to focus more attention on the details of task design and the processes that will be used to complete them. Simplify the work to the greatest extent possible, ideally so tasks are assigned to sub-groups of two or three team members. And make sure that there is clarity about work process, with specifics about who does what and when. Then periodically do "after-action reviews" to evaluate how things are going and identify process adjustments and training needs.

3. Commit to a communication charter. Communication on virtual teams is often less frequent, and always is less rich than face-to-face interaction, which provides more contextual cues and information about emotional states - such as engagement or lack thereof. The only way to avoid the pitfalls is to be extremely clear and disciplined about how the team will communicate. Create a charter that establishes norms of behavior when participating in virtual meetings, such as limiting background noise and side conversations, talking clearly and at a reasonable pace, listening attentively and not dominating the conversation, and so on. The charter also should include guidelines on which communication modes to use in which circumstances, for example when to reply via email versus picking up the phone versus taking the time to create and share a document.

4. Leverage the best communication technologies. Developments in collaborative technologies - ranging from shared workspaces to multi-point video conferencing - unquestionably are making virtual teaming easier. However, selecting the "best" technologies does not necessarily mean going with the newest or most feature-laden. It's essential not to sacrifice reliability in a quest to be on the cutting edge. If the team has to struggle to get connected or wastes time making elements of the collaboration suite work, it undermines the whole endeavor. So err on the side of robustness. Also be willing to sacrifice some features in the name of having everyone on the same systems. Otherwise, you risk creating second-class team members and undermining effectiveness.

5. Build a team with rhythm. When some or all the members of a team are working separately, it's all-too-easy to get disconnected from the normal rhythms of work life. One antidote is to be disciplined in creating and enforcing rhythms in virtual team work. This means, for example, having regular meetings, ideally same day and time each week. It also means establishing and sharing meeting agenda in advance, having clear agreements on communication protocols, and starting and finishing on time. If you have team members working in different time zones, don't place all the time-zone burden on some team members; rather, establish a regular rotation of meeting times to spread the load equitably.

6. Agree on a shared language. Virtual teams often also are cross-cultural teams, and this magnifies the communication challenges - especially when members think they are speaking the same language, but actually are not. The playwright George Bernard Shaw famously described Americans and the British as "two nations divided by a common language." His quip captures the challenge of sustaining shared understanding across cultures. When the domain of team work is technical, then the languages of science and engineering often provide a solid foundation for effective communication. However, when teams work on tasks involving more ambiguity, for example generating ideas or solving problems, the potential for divergent interpretations is a real danger (see for example this Anglo-Dutch translation guide). Take the time to explicitly negotiate agreement on shared interpretations of important words and phrases, for example, when we say "yes," we mean... and when we say "no" we mean...and post this in the shared workspace.

7. Create a "virtual water cooler." The image of co-workers gathering around a water cooler is a metaphor for informal interactions that share information and reinforce social bonds. Absent explicit efforts to create a "virtual water cooler," team meetings tend to become very task-focused; this means important information may not be shared and team cohesion may weaken. One simple way to avoid this: start each meeting with a check-in, having each member take a couple of minutes to discuss what they are doing, what's going well and what's challenging. Regular virtual team-building exercises are another way to inject a bit more fun into the proceedings. Also enterprise collaboration platforms increasingly are combining shared workspaces with social networking features that can help team members to feel more connected.

8. Clarify and track commitments. In a classic HBR article " Management Time, Who's got the Monkey?" William Oncken and Donald L. Wass use the who-has-the-monkey-on-their-back metaphor to exhort leaders to push accountability down to their teams. When teams work remotely, however, it's inherently more difficult to do this, because there is no easy way to observe engagement and productivity. As above, this can be partly addressed by carefully designing tasks and having regular status meetings. Beyond that, it helps to be explicit in getting team members to commit to define intermediate milestones and track their progress. One useful tool: a "deliverables dashboard" that is visible to all team members on whatever collaborative hub they are using. If you create this, though, take care not to end up practicing virtual micro-management. There is a fine line between appropriate tracking of commitments and overbearing (and demotivating) oversight.

9. Foster shared leadership. Defining deliverables and tracking commitments provides "push" to keep team members focused and productive; shared leadership provides crucial "pull." Find ways to involve others in leading the team. Examples include: assigning responsibility for special projects, such as identifying and sharing best practices; or getting members to coach others in their areas of expertise; or assigning them as mentors to help on-board new team members; or asking them to run a virtual team-building exercise. By sharing leadership, you will not only increase engagement, but will also take some of the burden off your shoulders.

10. Don't forget the 1:1s. Leaders' one-to-one performance management and coaching interactions with their team members are a fundamental part of making any team work. Make these interactions a regular part of the virtual team rhythm, using them not only to check status and provide feedback, but to keep members connected to the vision and to highlight their part of "the story" of what you are doing together.

Finally, if you are inheriting a team, take the time to understand how your predecessor led it. It's essential that newly appointed leaders do this, whether their teams are virtual or not. Because, as Confucius put it, you must "study the past if you would define the future." It's even more important to do this homework when you inherit a virtual team, because the structures and processes used to manage communication and coordinate work have such an inordinate impact on team performance. You can use these ten principles as a checklist for diagnosing how the previous leader ran the team, and help identify and prioritize what you need to do in the first 90 days.

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Making Virtual Teams Work: Ten Basic Principles

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Consider this now familiar view from the field: "I've run a virtual team for the past 18 months in the development and launch of [a website.] I am located in Toronto, Canada. The website was designed in Zagreb, Croatia. The software was developed in St. John's, Newfoundland; Zagreb, Croatia; Delhi, India; and Los Angeles, USA.