The human side of virtual collaboration

The human side of virtual collaboration
Advances in virtual control technology have shown scientists just how important humans are after all. Although scientists can now essentially operate a particle collider from anywhere in the world, having members of a team work well remotely is just as significant a challenge.

The Global Accelerator Network Multi-Purpose Virtual Laboratory system has everything needed for remote control, servicing, repair, and fault analysis. But an extra component makes it radically different from other virtual control systems: It takes into account the human aspect of teamwork around the world. How do you get a virtual team to be as efficient as a real one? Why do we have problems working together over distances when it seems so easy when we're all together? For these questions, the physicists and computer scientists sought the help of two psychologists who specialize in human-computer interfaces.

"The biggest obstacle is trust," says psychologist Markus Hodapp from Mannheim University. "In a normal working environment you know your colleagues and have an estimate of the level of trust you have in them. In the virtual team, you sometimes have to trust your opposite blindly—people are not happy with that."

But how do you build up trust? Apparently there's no avoiding face-to-face meetings. "This is especially important in the start-up phase of a project," says Hodapp. Videoconferences help, because a lot of information is transmitted non-verbally in body language, facial expressions, or gestures, and seeing them is already a step up from telephone conferences. "Ironically, in our virtual team working on virtual [collaboration] we have the same problems as everybody else," says Hodapp. Informal things, "like virtual coffee breaks, for example," seem to be another solution because social interactions help build the needed trust.

Barbara Warmbein, ILC Global Design Effort