How to create a communication plan for your virtual team?

Recently there has been a lot of talking about virtual teams. Virtual teams continue on as an increasingly essential development in modern business (particularly businesses trying to reach an audience on a global level) to help gather the best ideas for your projects from around the world.

Working with a team of highly specialized consultants and employees from offices on the other side of the world can add dynamics and native perspectives to your project's results that you could not replicate with on-site staff without the expertise. But virtual team communication isn't always easy.

Designing and Implementing a High Calibre Virtual Team Communication Plan for Your Business

Bright Hub Project Management notes that “virtual projects often fail due to the improper communications," so your focus on improving the way your team interacts is a huge step toward getting the results that you and your team anticipate.

If designing a virtual team communication plan is a new concept for you, we have gathered three essential ideas that might help you get started in your communications planning, potentially offering a new wave of high-impact collaboration between your project's team members, no matter where they are in the world or the office.

1. Assess Your Current Strategy: If you don't have a strategy yet, an honest appraisal of your current plan is as good a place to start as any to move forward toward successful communication planning. Note all of your team's members and where they are, what is the primary type of communication you use or plan to use, the communication tools — whether landlines, smartphones, tablets or laptops — the majority of your team uses and the general opinion on the effectiveness of the current means of connecting.

2. Design Your Communication Plan With Your Team: Who can be better to design a high-functioning and streamlined virtual communication plan than the team you plan to entrust to use it each day? Use the data from your assessment, as well as regular meetings, to create a plan perfectly suited to your project and its invaluable team members. Gather essential information like geographic locations, telephone numbers, email addresses, local time zones and social media addresses for each team member, as well as their preferred means of communication.

3. Choose the Right Tools to Smooth the Communication Process. With this step, you not only focus on hardware, such as laptops and smartphones, but you can also explore various software packages and mobile apps, CBS News shared in a 2010 article. Many of these tools already offer a variety of features you are trying to figure out how to implement on your own, such as simplifying multiple party video conferencing. There are many free video chatting apps like YapApp available in the market that can help you sort through any complications you experience with a broad array of useful features that create and nurture a collaborative, professional and confidential environment for your team in the office and around the world.

CIOs Juggling Collaboration Technology

2016 drastically marked change to business communication technology, especially in light of new mobile apps used for business. Today's CIOs, CTOs, and IT Managers are facing more challenges than ever. In fact, a recent survey of over 500 tech executives found that 88% believe their role is more challenging than ever. 71% of the same executives found it especially difficult to drive efficiency and innovation while trying to balance data security.

Despite these challenges, it's possible to implement collaboration technology without leaving yourself vulnerable to any additional security threats. Here's are some suggestions for those responsible for business communication and security protocols:

Don't Go Overboard

Your job isn't to shut down everything that looks like it's even remotely insecure. Your goal is to figure out what tools will generate the best performance for your organization and then figure out how to make sure everything is secure. According to Forbes, these are the important points to keep in mind when you find a way to improve operational efficiency:

• Is it a reasonable or tolerable amount of risk?
• Will there be a reasonable way for us to manage or mitigate the risk?
• What are the specific benefits of this new tool or process and what kind of revenue will it drive?
• As we grow and continue to focus on security, will the new system be able to scale with us?

Once you've answered these critical questions, finding the balance will be much easier.

Secure the Most Important Threat

The Wall Street Journal cites the biggest threat to corporate security isn't hackers or faulty systems. It's employees. Take the time to make sure your staff is trained to make security a priority. Make sure systems require strict authentication and require additional security for especially critical information.
If you're able to keep your staff from making security mistakes, all of your processes will be much more secure. You'll be left to focus on improving operations and actually adding value to the company.

Less is More With Regards to Collaboration Technology

One of the best ways to keep your organization safe is by simply limiting the amount of exposure you have. Each program or mobile application that you use to transfer information or collaborate is one more tool you need to secure and develop best practices for. That's why it's important to use the same application for multiple processes whenever it's possible. YapApp is one such communication app that allows you to do many important things for your business in a simple small package. It offers free video conferencing, video chatting and calling. The secure application design ensures that nobody has access to your messages and files except for you. For a CIO worried about the security of collaboration technology, it's the perfect balance between efficiency and security.

Source:- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cios-juggling-collaboration-technology-yap-app