Tobias Mayer on distributed teams

Distributed teams are not teams; they are at best a collection of people who communicate regularly. But communication is not collaboration; it is a poor relation, feeble and flat in comparison. A distributed team cannot create the kind of energy that comes from human eye contact, from shared spontaneous laughter, from physical touch. True collaboration requires all five senses, not just a voice over the telephone or a second-hand video image. Distributed teams require coordination and management and thus can never be truly self-organizing. Time differences and delayed response times inevitably slow down conversation, hold up decisions and ultimately cripple agility.