Virtual Centers and Labs

I have long been interested in the prospects for virtual organizations, particularly as a strategy for accelerating change and innovation. LatrLab can serve as a proof of concept for this genre of organization. Centers, labs, and other project oriented units within organizations are typically established to mobilize effort around something new, and yet once they are formed, they can become difficult change and impossible to close. The result is that an initiative designed to move things forward ends up retarding progress.

Virtual centers and labs would seem to offer some benefits beyond place-bound units as well as some limitations. Let’s start with the obvious benefits. Virtual units are faster to setup and make operational than units needing physical arrangements. Moreover, they are typically less expensive which can mean that the financial risks involved are reduced. This may make it easier to take on riskier intellectual or business challenges.

Virtual units have some advantages in accessing talent. If there is no central place where everyone has to locate, the catchment area for talent is much greater with the possibility of engaging team members from around the world. This can improve the opportunities for matching individual skills and experiences with the needs of the unit. As the talent pool expands the result can be something more like a network than an organization with a central core.

A final advantage may be the ease with with a virtual organization can be closed down. The advantage in terms of innovation is not the closing of a particular unit, but rather the opportunity that such a closing opens for a new entity with a new mission and package of projects.

Of course, benefits are only one side of the equation in considering virtual organizational units. There are after all some good reasons why on-the-ground physical organizational forms have succeeded over the years. The opportunity to gather in the same physical location can facilitate communication and attachment to the group and its major tasks. It also provides time and a place for the less formal interactions that build bonds among fellow workers. Attempting to replicate these features in virtual organizations may prove beneficial and we might well see them in LatrLab moving forward.