Despite all of the attention and accolades that organizations place on teams, they are not always the most efficient way to meet a business challenge. Its expensive and time consuming to launch a team, and its a full-time job to lead a team toward achieving organizational objectives. This guidebook was written to help managers determine if a team is the right tool for meeting a business goal, and explains potential obstacles and challenges to forming a team that can operate at its full potential.

This is a book about leading dispersed teams--teams that are made up of people who don't work in the same geographical area. Such teams don't often meet face-to-face. Usually their members are separated by time and distance, and they often bring different cultural views to bear on their work. Solving potential communication problems and devising processes for making decisions and managing conflict are challenges for leaders of dispersed teams. But before they can address those challenges, they need to analyze the support such a team will get from the organization as a whole.
Dispersed...

Team success doesn't start with results. It starts with the building of an effective team that can deliver on its promise. This book is for managers and leaders who have responsibility for the creation and success of teams. If you are a department head or project manager, or if you are the senior-level champion or sponsor of a proposed team, this guidebook will help you understand the five factors critical to building effective teams and show you how to use those factors to lay the groundwork for successful teams.