8.2.1 Trust

As with conventional teams, the building and maintenance of trust between members is vital.

Ways to facilitate the building up of trust include:

  • initial face-to-face start ups (with team-building activities) periodic face-to-face meetings
  • visits to each other’s workplaces
  • establishing clear codes of conduct and ground rules
  • recognising and publicly rewarding performance
  • taking care with the tone and language used in emails to reduce the risk of being misunderstood
  • ensuring that team roles are made clear to everybody
  • discussing and clarifying team goals
  • making use of conference calls for in-depth discussions.