Dick Sblog

I’ve just read an interview with with Jill Nemiro, Author of “Creativity in Virtual Teams”. She makes some interesting points about making space for creativity to take place, as well as about the ways in which virtual teams operate. Here are a few quotes from the interview:

“…most people do not take the time to allow their creative thoughts to spring forth. And creativity takes time. It takes silence; it takes us to create space between the constant chatter of our daily thoughts.

…Of course, we all need to work to meet deadlines. But there has to be enough time scheduled into these deadlines to allow for creative thoughts to develop.

The fact is that people have been working virtually with less advanced technology for many years.

A team is first and foremost defined with the characteristics of interdependence, shared values and common goals. Without those, whether you are working virtually or not, I don’t consider you a team.

…When I started interviewing virtual team members, I learned from them that creativity and efficiency do not always go hand in hand. That sometimes there are tasks where creativity can actually be a waste of time, and eat up energy that should be saved for a task where creativity is really necessary.

In creativity research, there does seem to be some confusion around the terms creativity and innovation. Some refer to creativity as the thinking up of ideas, and innovation as the implementation of those ideas. …what I don’t like about leaving solution implementation out of the creative process is that it might imply creativity stops there, which it does not.

The iterative approach and modular approach can be used together, and at different stages of the project life cycle. I tell my student teams that they need to start by brainstorming together. Then once they have worked through the idea generation stage, they can assign parts of the project to be parceled out for development; thus use the modular approach here. However, it is also crucial to include iterative discussions and reviews during the development stage.

Not all individuals are comfortable, or even want to work in virtual teams. And of course there are many different forms that virtual teams take.Virtual teams require team members who are self-driven, responsible, and proactive.

It is imperative that team members are clear on what the team and organizational goals are, and on the tasks that need to be taken to accomplish those goals”.