Best Practices in Building Global Capacity for Corporate Teams

This primary research study addresses the micro view of global teams, versus the macro view of overall global organizational design, including how to help people work together more smoothly and efficiently.

Vice presidents, directors and managers associated with organizational effectiveness can use the valuable insights and supporting quantitative data to restructure the internal organization of global teams, adjust resources such as budget and headcount, and assess and implement best practices for communicating and working together.

Study Snapshot

Primary research was conducted through an online survey instrument with 59 representatives from 56 companies. Respondents have an average of 11 years of experience in working with global teams or in helping people work better together globally.
Key topics include:

• Why companies establish global teams
• How companies measure progress toward globalization
• Tools and practices that accelerate progress
• Practices that facilitate working with other cultures, time zones and workplaces
• How progress of individual global teams is measured
• Top improvement objectives for global teams
• Key lessons learned for managing global teams
• The biggest pitfalls to avoid in global team management

• Practices to accelerate progress towards becoming a global organization
• Global team operating mechanisms most successful in working with other cultures, other time zones and conflicting workplace practices
• Technologies found to be successful in enabling a global work environment
• Percentage of companies that formally measure performance of global teams
• Metrics used by benchmarked companies to evaluate the performance of global teams
• Biggest pitfall to avoid in global teams management

More than 50 percent of the tools, practices and techniques participants listed that accelerate progress toward becoming a global organization involve establishing and following common global team processes such as: Annual meetings, Open communications, Project management.

• Why companies establish global teams
• How companies measure progress toward globalization
• Tools and practices that accelerate progress
• Practices that facilitate working with other cultures, time zones and workplaces
• How progress of individual global teams is measured
• Top improvement objectives for global teams
• Key lessons learned for managing global teams
• The biggest pitfalls to avoid

• Years taken to “go global” from the time benchmarked company began the global organization effort in earnest
• Metrics used to measure company’s progress towards becoming a global organization
• Three practices, tools, or techniques that have helped most to accelerate the benchmarked company’s progress towards becoming a global organization
• Three global team operating mechanisms or processes that enable an effective global working environment
• Global team operating mechanisms found to be most successful in working with other cultures
• Global team operating mechanisms found to be most successful in working with other time zones
• Global team operating mechanisms found to be most successful in working with conflicting workplace practices
• Technologies found to be successful in enabling a global work environment
• Best practices discovered to manage virtual team meetings
• Top five training techniques used to help prepare individuals for working in global teams and their effectiveness ratings
• Techniques or practices that have proved most successful in managing global team communications
• Percentage of companies having a formalized program for measuring the performance of global teams
• Metrics used by benchmarked companies to evaluate the performance of global teams
• Three top improvement objectives in global team operations planning
• Area of greatest success/disappointment throughout the progress period
• Most important lesson learned from the work in global team management
• Biggest pitfall to avoid in global teams management