Working as a Virtual Team – The Positives & Negatives
I thought I’d do an interesting post today, to discuss how it has been for me working as a virtual team. For those who are first time readers of my blog, I am part of a small startup that has been working diligently in the mobile/sticker & GIF industry. My team, a small team of 3, has created and developed a one-of-a-kind Sticker search engine, called STKR.us. We’ve been in the mobile/sticker creation business for quite some time now. Throughout our time, we’ve studied the market, created various sticker packs for clients, and listened to what end users and artists/designers want. Thus, we created STKR.us.
Wahoo STKR via http://stkr.us
However, we are a complete virtual team. This means, we are not at the same spot. How we communicate with one another is vital. Some of the resources we use are: Skype, Slack, and Asana. Some might think how is it even possible for a startup to be completely remote? When I first joined, I thought the same as well. However, as I started to get acquainted with my 2 co-workers, it became clear to me, that this was the best way for us to function as a unit. Just because we aren’t physically next to one another, doesn’t mean we can’t effectively communicate with one another. We have our usual weekly team meetings, pow-wows, brain storm sessions, and occasional breaks where we just talk about funny tech news, entertainment, sports, and more :).
Because of this, I wanted to quickly summarize my positives and negatives working as a virtual unit. So here goes…
Positive:
- Ability to give each other space
- Real-Time communication tools readily available
- Consistent team collaboration via various methods
- Effective product timeline flow processes
Negative:
- Lack of personal human communication
- Misunderstanding of certain communications as there is no physical hands-on-meetings
- Lack of physical office
Overall, working in a virtual team has been nothing but positive for me. I’ve grown and learned a lot from this experience. I hope that I can continue to grow along with my co-workers, as we strive to work hard in growing our company. I’m curious to see your responses, whether you’ve worked virtually or in an actual office.
Cheers~
geeky_yang 