Part of the problem is that people working in a virtual team often assume that trust will come about automatically. 'The teams that were more successful put in an effort to try and build trust,' she says. 'They had short-term activities for people to work in pairs or threes, getting to know each other in smaller groups.'
A face-to-face group meeting at the start is important. 'The teams that got together once could kick off that trust-building much more quickly. With the ones that didn’t meet face to face, it was slower.'