It is all a matter of emphasis:

Telecommuting is about using telecommunications to avoid commuting. This implies that somewhere there is a workplace where much of the business is carried out which the telecommuter links into.  If there are several telecommuters, the pattern can is like a star, with a central hub. The telecommunications are seen as a way of reducing the overhead, such as daily travel and the time it takes.

Virtual Teamwork is about the team being geographically distributed, whether there is a central workplace or not. This implies that the members are in contact with each other, not only with the workplace location.  This way of working frees teams from the constraints of geography while of course brings other challenges with it.  Whether it is worthwhile depends on the  situation.

Scatterwork® enables strategic improvements in team productivity, flexibility and green credentials by releasing knowledge-based work from the constraints of co-location. This means that:

• the unproductive time, cost and environmental pollution side effects of commuting and travel are hugely reduced.
• recruiting members regardless of their location globally becomes possible. As a result the best can be selected globally according to skills, availability and cost, not according to where they live.

In times of turbulence when there are mass redundancies, business will need to get the best possible benefit out of their resources (and I don’t mean “code for people”).  Virtual Teamwork can be used as follows:

• After a redundancy programme everyone is under pressure.  This pressure can be reduced for some by reducing the amount of commuting they have to do, e.g a couple of days a week.  Not only is significant time released but experience shows that employees who are trusted in this way actually deliver more!
• Another way of getting the best out of resources is to allow redundant/ retired/ ill employees to participate in Virtual Teamwork.  In this way the company retains the contact with an eye to better times in the future.

What other situations lend themselves to Virtual Teamwork? What are your experiences?