Accountability is necessary on virtual teams in order to ensure work flows between team members to accomplish goals. Here are just a handful of best practices to enable for and foster accountability among virtual team members:
- Ensure roles and responsibilities are set and clear
Roles and responsibilities on the team should be agreed to at the start of the initiative and each virtual team member should understand the roles and responsibilities of the other team members and how they interact with each other.
- Enable for decision making and problem solving within the team
By collaborating with the team members to develop processes and parameters around making decisions and solving problems, the team leader can enable for decision making and problem solving within the team.
- Schedule regular status meetings and enable for communications between meetings
Alternative status meeting times so that at some point everyone on the virtual team is convenienced. Most team members are fine when they have meetings that happen very early in the morning or later in the evening when they know that at some point the meeting time will be convenient for them. Have a set agenda for status meetings focusing on status on tasks. In between meetings, enable for communications and sharing of information using an internal site or project portal.
- Processes around review and finalization of tasks.
Be sure that there are processes around who reviews work completed on task and how tasks are finalized, as well as who on the team is notified when tasks are completed. It is important that virtual team members know the path (from whom to whom) of tasks so they feel increased accountability. They will realize that someone is waiting on them to get work done and therefore are more likely to meet deadlines and ensure quality work.
The next article will focus on the need to build trust on the team to enable for accountability on the team.
