Attitudes Towards Face-To-Face Meetings in Virtual Engineering Teams: Perceptions from a Survey of Defence Projects

Modes of communication used in virtual defence projects have changed dramatically over the years with tools such as e-mail and video-conferencing dominating face-to-face (FTF) meetings. We conducted a survey at a defence firm with an aim to test current attitudes towards FTF meetings - with respect to significant problems faced, project success, transfer of technical requirements, preference for FTF vis-a-vis virtual meetings, differences between virtual and co-located environments, criticality of various forms of communication, and whether FTF meetings were scheduled as often as desired. Our survey participants, about one hundred in number, were experienced engineers, technicians, and program managers - working in a virtual product development team at a defence firm. The results suggest that despite significant advances in virtual communication technologies, FTF meetings remain critical and cannot be eliminated from defence firms. Further, it is also clear that FTF meetings can play a significant role in reducing chances of miscommunication.

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