Virtual Team success - Term Paper Example

?VIRTUAL TEAM SUCCESS Virtual Team Success Affiliation Table of Contents Why Virtual Teams are Effective? 4 Technology for VirtualTeams 6 Building High performance Virtual teams Profiles of Virtual team success 7 Proposition for Building High Performing Virtual Teams 8 Differentiators of great teams 10 Virtual team launch kit 11 How to lead a virtual team? 11 Team accelerating factors 12 Facilitating high impact Virtual team meetings 13 Conclusion 14 References 15 17 Introduction In an attempt to support project management globalization and compete in this ever-increasing competitive world, organizations are more and more building and implementing virtual teams. On the other hand, these teams have to perform their tasks within the limitations of the issues which are introduced to them by the distance, as a result not for all time supporting useful coordination and collaboration, visibility, communication and mutual cooperation to take place. In this way, the successful implementation and management of virtual teams is ensured in a different way from traditional teams (Casey & Richardson, 2006; Gould, 2006). Traditionally, a project team refers to a social group of individuals who are collocated and mutually dependent in their jobs. In fact, they carry out and organize their tasks to attain common objectives and contribute to task for effective results. Virtual teams have objectives similar to the traditional teams, however they use different infrastructure as compared to traditional project teams. In this scenario, they perform their tasks without having the limitations of time, organizational boundaries and geographical locations associated with communication technologies. (Casey & Richardson, 2006) define virtual team as “a team whose associates make use of the technologies such as the Intranet, Intranets, Extranets and a wide variety of other networks to coordinate, communicate and collaborate with each other on work tasks and projects even if they can carry out their tasks in different geographical regions as well as away from organizations.” Thus, the virtual team is considered as contradictory from the traditional team due to the fact that its members are located across geographical regions. Additionally, virtual teams are normally implemented and managed in multilingual and multicultural surroundings, which can be away from organizational boundaries (Casey & Richardson, 2006; Gould, 2006; DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010). In addition, a virtual team is normally composed of people who work from home or any other location however this is not for all time the case. Virtual team associates can work in offices also. There are a numerous reasons why virtual teams are turning out to be so popular these days. The basic reason is the reality that we live in the information age, as different to the industrial age. In view of the fact that the information travels at the speed of light, and those who have access to the most modern and fastest communication and collaboration technologies are capable to send data quickly. The capability to transmit data and information at fast speeds, combined with the power of the web, has caused the formation of "virtual corporations." However, the most influential aspect of the virtual team is that it is not limited to their physical location (Exforsys Inc., 2009). This paper presents an overview of virtual teams. The basic purpose of this research is to analyze some of the important aspects that are associated with virtual teams such as working, communication, collaboration, operational model, performance enhancement aspects and so on. Why Virtual Teams are Effective? Information technology (IT) has presented a wonderful support required to deal with the advancement of new organizational forms. The concept of a virtual team is a practical example of such organizational form. A virtual team can transform and modernize the infrastructure of the place of work as well as provide the organization with extraordinary levels of power and awareness. In view of the fact that the technology support required to manage virtual teams is at the present greatly on hand, however a great deal of research on a wide variety of issues associated with virtual teams is necessary in order to better gain knowledge of how to manage virtual teams successfully. In this scenario, the results of the researches carried out on team performance in the traditional infrastructure can offer helpful pointers (Powell, Piccoli, & Ives, 2004; DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010). At the present, to compete in the worldwide market companies require to put together discrete knowledge resources into effective solutions that can be implemented without restrictions to physical or organizational boundaries. In this scenario, the worldwide teamwork, comprising teams of mutual dependent cross-organizational, cross-functional team associates hired from different physical location and having different nationalities that hardly ever have face-to-face meeting, are an ever more well-liked organizational infrastructure for including different skills and expertise without limitations. However, in the past few years, virtual infrastructure to manage global virtual teams has turned out to be more and more modernized and extensively accessible commercially (for instance, Quad, Microsoft Sharepoint, and IBM products) (Malhotra & Majchrzak, 2012). In addition, virtual teams are as well extremely efficient for the reason that they do not have any "off" hours. For instance, in case of a traditional business environment, where all their staff members are available at the same location, has an 8 hour-work per day. On the other hand, in a virtual environment virtual team members have a 24 hour-work per day. For instance, when the workers in one time zone are inactive, the others are operational. Thus, virtual teams are able to get more done in a small period of time as compared to the traditional teams (Exforsys Inc., 2009). Technology for Virtual Teams At the present, there exist a wide variety of collaborative and communication technologies to support diverse goals and participants. In fact, the majority of business organizations are making use of their commercial Intranet to support cooperation and collaboration within a virtual team. However, it is as well significant to effectively supervise the communication between the teams and business and additional stakeholders similar to customers and suppliers. For this purpose, organizations must develop and implement an integrated communication policy to tackle all these critical factors. Though, there is currently no policy that must be used by the Internet, but the majority of Intranet supported virtual organizations and virtual teams make use of a suite of web based applications to provide the team members with an easy access to documents that can be searched, and can encompass graphics, text and multi-media. Additionally, they can also use web conferences to offer places for interactive conversation, e-mail (both interior and, if desired, associated to the public Internet); Listing of people and offices (Kimball, 1997; DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010). In addition, the terms "virtual group", "virtual conference" and "online group" are some useful technologies. They can be real-time tasks, similar to audio conferencing and video teleconferencing, where people are in diverse places contributing at the similar time; or, they can facilitate members to join in from diverse places at different times (Kimball, 1997). Building High performance Virtual teams Profiles of Virtual team success Many organizations have invested a lot of money in virtual teams and the tools and technologies to facilitate them, however, an astonishing number of these virtual teams did not get to their complete potential. According to a recent research conducted by OnPoint Consulting, they surveyed 48 virtual teams all through industries to recognize exact practices linked with the most successful teams. At this point there emerges a question “what is the profile of high performing virtual teams?” The aspects that distinguish top virtual teams and suggestions for organization that want to improve the performance of their virtual teams are presented below. All these guidelines can help organizations build a high performance virtual team profile for the project and organizational success: (Lepsinger, 2012; Borysowich, 2009; Pina, Martinez, & Martinez, 2008) One of the most significant aspects is the number of team members. In fact, a team with a fewer human resource work and communicate well and operate in a much better way as compared to a large team. Team members who apprehended an early face-to-face meeting within 90 days attained high performance as compared to those who never met face-to-face. A large number of team associates on low performing teams confirmed active participation in a lot of virtual teams, which delayed their general efficiency. Virtual team members with more than 3 years working experience achieve better results. It suggests that they have had time to improve their communication as well as execution performance. Cross-functional groups come into view to face unique issues, challenges and higher levels of difficulty that reduce performance in virtual surroundings. Associates of successful virtual teams were more probable to report that they had the suitable technology to ease working with other team members. In addition, successful virtual teams as well make use of video conferencing technology more frequently. Team leaders of successful virtual teams seemed struggling less with building association virtually, which was a main challenge reported by the lower performing team leaders. Virtual team members who had over 4 development sessions carried out considerably improved as compared to those who had one or less sessions. Effective communication augments the probability of team members having shared objectives and clear roles, as well as improves the capability of the leader to pursue and manage people accountable. Proposition for Building High Performing Virtual Teams Given below are 5 major actions that organizations can take in an attempt to improve the performance of their virtual teams: (Lepsinger, 2012; Borysowich, 2009; Pina, Martinez, & Martinez, 2008) First of all, for the virtual teams an organization must ensure the true fit of proficiency to task when choosing virtual team leaders. The majority efficient virtual team leaders are capable of balancing the implementation oriented, interpersonal performance, and the cultural aspects that are common in virtual teaming structure. In this scenario, it is essential for the business organizations to choose team leaders on the basis of the qualities necessary to administer virtual team and time to time assess their performance. The organizations must be familiar with the team association, team size, and make sure that their selected team has the suitable resources to work jointly virtually. For instance, follow principles for virtual team member assortment and judge who should be included in the team to make efficient quality decisions and ensure buy-in. However, if the size of the team exceeds, divide the team into sub teams. If it is possible for the organizations, carry out a face-to-face meeting in which invite the virtual team members to talk about team goals and objectives, personal functions, learn more about each other, build up team standards, plan a communication policy and carry out team development tasks. The organizations should also put into practice some reward strategies in order to encourage team members. In addition, they should put into practice programs that reward and encourage virtual team members for their collective efficiency and performance. While developing a virtual team, an organization must ensure that there is a common understanding as well as commitment to the goals and objectives that every person has to make. Differentiators of great teams This section outlines some of the differentiators of great teams: Goal-oriented: The great sense of importance in achieving the goal. Whether a virtual team is moving behind a new prospect or responding to a danger, they should be acquainted with as a team what they desire to achieve, and why it was significant to get it performed as well as independently they were absolutely determined to achieve the established goals, within the given time and place (Tye, 2012; DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010).. Integrity: Integrity should be achieved at a personal level that guides to reliability at the team level. For instance, if a team member said it, others should believe it. In other words, all the team members should depend on each other (Tye, 2012). Union and understanding: There should be an appropriate mechanism for communications to ensure that the message was recognized. In this scenario, the virtual team members should have accurate structure and timing prepared to achieve a specific objective and have truthful communications all through the business. In addition, virtual team associates must accurately understand what their task is, and they are extremely proficient at getting it done. Moreover, they should not be frightened of each other while asking for help whenever they need it, for the reason that being mutually dependent is an element of the virtual team structure and a cultural expectation (Tye, 2012). Self-healing: Virtual team members must have a practical viewpoint that focuses on quickly recognizing and fixing the fundamental reason of the issues. In addition, once the problem is fixed they should make sure that it does not happen again (Tye, 2012). Virtual team launch kit Every year a large number of organizations launch new virtual teams whose associates work in cooperation from different locations. In fact, the majority of these groups do well; however, others never achieve their defined aims and objectives. What is the reason behind this aspect? The reason is that; a number of businesses that make a decision to create virtual teams do not spend the resources essential to make sure their productivity and successful survival (DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010). Thus, before an organization decides to launch a virtual team for a project, they must identify the implications of this action. In addition, they must do some cost benefit analysis to know what benefits they will achieve by launching a virtual team. How to lead a virtual team? It is an admitted fact that the teams are a main unit of performance in an organization. However, these days the trend of virtual teams has emerged as a very attractive environment for the management of business organizations. Actually, the members of a virtual team do not meet, particularly in cyberspace. They appreciate the thought of sitting at their PCs in slippers and robe, the cat curled at their feet (Bell, 2002; Gould, Leading Virtual Teams, 2005). In order to better lead a virtual team, their organization must guide them to the right direction. They should be free and comfortable in presenting their ideas. In addition, a project manager must be supportive of virtual team members by helping them in their tasks and operations. There should be a proper check and balance mechanism for better managing a virtual team. In order to encourage team players an organization must implement some attractive reward strategies and benefits that are presented in a physical working environment. Team accelerating factors In case of virtual teams, high performance is mostly accelerated through the human element that involves constructing and sustaining significant connections between team members. In this scenario, it is a key responsibility of virtual team managers to determine people attitudes, performance, values and perspectives. It can be done by inquiring about a team player practically as a great deal as it could be performed in a global environment. It can be done through a number of evaluation tools and methods such as 360-degree feedback, scorecards and Walt-365 (DanaJarvis, 2012). As discussed above, an organization should implement some reward strategies to encourage their virtual teams. In addition, virtual team members should pay attention on a project, objective, technique, tool, communication, achievement or failure, amongst others. Additionally, virtual team members should keep a log and write their development down every day and update their development on the web based database. This kind of methods and technique can improve transparency, communication, engagement and contribution (DanaJarvis, 2012). Facilitating high impact Virtual team meetings Unluckily, one of the main challenges for the organizations in carrying virtual meetings is that a lot of leaders have never been skilled in most excellent practices for virtual meeting administration. In many cases, virtual meetings misplace focus and end up being a waste of everybody’s time. Though, successful virtual meetings are necessary to team working and performance, in this scenario given below are some of the important guidelines to facilitate virtual leaders to better administer virtual meetings and improve their performance (PitchEngine, 2012): Prepare for the virtual meeting: First of all, an effective plan should be created. It should be decided, who should attend the meeting and who should not. In order to make a virtual meeting a success, it is significant to summarize what has happened previously and after the meeting (PitchEngine, 2012). Keep virtual meetings on track: A project manager must ensure that there is no tangential debate. In this scenario, a project manager should ensure how top management keeps everybody on track all through the meeting (PitchEngine, 2012). Balance tasks and trust: In virtual team meeting, the project manager should ensure that everybody focuses on jobs with trust and communication with them is mainly significant for high performance (PitchEngine, 2012). Conclusion Information technology has presented a wonderful support required to deal with the advancement of new organizational forms. The concept of a virtual team is a practical example of such organizational form. A virtual team can transform and modernize the infrastructure of the place of work as well as provide the organization with extraordinary levels of power and awareness. Virtual teams have objectives similar to the traditional teams, however they use different infrastructure as compared to traditional project teams. They perform their tasks without having the limitations of time, organizational boundaries and geographical locations associated with communication technologies. In a virtual environment virtual team members have a 24 hour-work per day. For instance, when the workers in one time zone are inactive, the others are operational. Thus, virtual teams are able to get more done in a small period of time as compared to the traditional teams. At the present, there exist a wide variety of collaborative and communication technologies to support diverse goals and participants. In fact, the majority of business organizations are making use of their commercial Intranet to support cooperation and collaboration within virtual team. On the other hand, a lot of business organizations have invested a lot of money in virtual teams and the tools and technologies to facilitate them, however, an astonishing number of these virtual teams did not get to their complete potential. This paper has presented a detailed analysis of virtual team working, operations and collaboration. This paper has also discussed the ways that organizations can adopt for managing virtual teams. Virtual teams can offer numerous advantages to the organizations but before launching a virtual team an organization must identify the implications of virtual team structure. References Bell, M. (2002, January 11). Leading an International Virtual Team: Tips for SuccessLeading an International Virtual Team: Tips for Success. Retrieved April 14, 2012, from http://www.tarrani.net/shared/LeadingInternatVirtualTeams.pdf Borysowich, C. (2009). Project Control: Manage Team Performance . Retrieved April 16, 2012, from http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/project-control-manage-team-performance-5478 Casey, V., & Richardson, I. (2006). Uncovering the reality within virtual software teams. GSD '06 Proceedings of the 2006 international workshop on Global software development for the practitioner (pp. 66-72). New York: ACM Association for Computing Machinery. DanaJarvis. (2012). Virtual Teams. Retrieved April 14, 2012, from http://www.danajarvis.org/virtualteams/?cat=41 DeRosa, D. M., & Lepsinger, R. (2010). Virtual Team Success: A Practical Guide for Working and Leading from a Distance. Pfeiffer. Exforsys Inc. (2009, April 20). Virtual Team Definition and Concept. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.exforsys.com/career-center/virtual-team/virtual-team-definition-and-concept.html Gould, D. (2006, June 05). Fifth Generation Work - Virtual Organization. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.seanet.com/~daveg/vrteams.htm Gould, D. (2005). Leading Virtual Teams. Retrieved April 13, 2012, from http://www.seanet.com/~daveg/ltv.htm Kimball, L. (1997). Managing Virtual Teams. Retrieved April 11, 2012, from http://www.groupjazz.com/pdf/vteams-toronto.pdf Lepsinger, R. (2012). The Profile of Success: Building High Performing Virtual Teams. Retrieved April 11, 2012, from http://www.evancarmichael.com/Leadership/5219/The-Profile-of-Success-Building-High-Performing-Virtual-Teams.html Malhotra, A., & Majchrzak, A. (2012). How virtual teams use their virtual workspace to coordinate knowledge. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), Volume 3 Issue 1 . Peterson, B., & M, T. (2007). Motivation: How to Increase Project Team Performance. Retrieved 03 19, 2010, from http://www.allbusiness.com/management/management-theory/10205140-1.html Pina, M. I., Martinez, A. M., & Martinez, L. G. (2008). Teams in organizations: a review on team effectiveness. Team Performance Management, Volume 14 Isue 1/2, pp. 7-21. PitchEngine. (2012). Hello, Is Anybody Out There? Facilitating High Impact Virtual Meetings . Retrieved April 13, 2012, from http://www.pitchengine.com/onpointconsulting/helloisanybodyouttherefacilitatinghighimpactvirtualmeetings Powell, A., Piccoli, G., & Ives, B. (2004). Virtual teams: a review of current literature and directions for future research. ACM SIGMIS Database, Volume 35 Issue 1, pp. 6-36. Tye, R. (2012, April 09). Leadership Rule #12: The 4 Differentiators of GREAT Teams! Retrieved April 12, 2012, from http://leadershipruminations.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/leadership-rule-12-the-4-differentiators-of-great-teams/ Read More