The cross-training goes both ways between all three departments. PDT can complete industrial design, housing mechanical design, tool design, and tool building of a complex housing in about eight weeks. Use A Virtual Team Increasingly, managers are turning to virtual teams to develop new products. There is a more effective alternative co-location. But first, we must understand why virtual teams have become so popular.
Virtual teams sprout from two sources.
One is new communication technologies everything from overnight express to the Web that allow activities to be carried out at a distance. The other factor is subtler but more disturbing. In my experience, many companies are fragmenting their operations geographically. Through acquisitions and mergers, they unwittingly split their product development resources among dispersed sites, believing that technological patches will cover any gaps created. Even without acquisitions, most manufacturers are becoming more global.