Virtual Team Management - Research Paper Example

Virtual Team Management Plan Introduction The virtual team concept has become an essential factor in the modern business world. In the current business environment, organizations are urged to lower their operating cost to attain a competitive advantage in their industries. Nowadays, as many as 83 percent of employees in organizations ranging from small and medium businesses to large corporation often experience remote collaboration. These organizations are becoming increasingly global. This remote collaboration poses new opportunities and challenges for communication in the organizations. Therefore, it is important that IT employees develop the relevant skills to create effective communication and collaboration in this new business environment. This paper identifies the need for a virtual team for a medium sized manufacturing corporation. The paper presents a plan for organizing and leading this virtual team based on an assessment scenario. For a clear understanding, a virtual team is defined as a group of individuals working independently with a common purpose, across distributed geographical locations, and conducting their work activities using technology. Step 1 – Building the Team Creating a high-performing virtual team brings in an enormous potential for organizations to boost their sales, penetrate new markets, enhance business process as well as come up with innovations (Caya, Mortensen & Pinsonneault, 2013). The following functional areas have been identified as part of this virtual team. Production and Manufacturing – This area has been picked because personnel in this department help in managing projects and processes. These persons are also problem-solving and operate under a sense of urgency and schedule. A representative from this department would ensure that the right product is manufactured while lowering production costs. This way the team, and organization can get a competitive advantage over other businesses. Research and Development – virtual teams offer an environment for enhancing innovations in R&D and also bring in knowledge spillovers in the organizations bridging place and time. Therefore, involving the R&D functional area in a virtual team is not a choice but rather a requirement. The R&D representative conducts the research on the best way to improve the product, organization, and the entire project team. Sales and Marketing – This department operates with a sense of urgency, can create and conceptualize quickly. The sales representative will benefit the team and organization by ensuring that the product reaches its intended consumers in the most efficient manner while maximizing profits. Management – studies show that virtual teams perform well when executives support the social relationships development across the team and thereby enhancing trust among members. The executive management makes sure the team performs optimally and that it returns the expected outcomes. Collaborating with several functional areas in the virtual team have poses some challenges that may slow or inhibit the team’s performance. One of these problems is the differences in the cultural background such differing technical skills, and different styles of work. For example, a member from the production area may not have similar technology skill like those with a member from the IT department. This difference brings a challenge in adapting to new communication tools, systems and applications, as well as learning how to use them. Some of the characteristics of effective virtual team members include: The ability to effectively manage projects – members should be able to collaborate with others to complete projects in the most efficient way. This way, the team can attain its goals faster and more effectively. Efficiency in networking – Members should have skill in intercommunication with fellow member. They can be able to communicate their progress and help keep the team in sync for a common goal of success. Efficient use of technology – every member should be proficient in the use of communication tools, applications and systems as they are the backbone of a virtual team’s running. Self-management capability – since the team is dispersed across geographical disparities, then there is no supervision of one’s activities. As a result, every member should be able to manage themselves and ensure they attain the team’s objectives with no supervision. Have good interpersonal awareness – members should respect others and their opinions to ensure smooth running of the team with less conflicts. Can span boundaries – every member should be ready to work under different conditions and across boundaries. Member from the IT systems department should be capable of troubleshooting problems arising from communication tools used by the virtual team. These members are required to ensure the fluent flow of information across the team while ensuring its privacy and security. Step 2 – Organizing the Project Good communication is very essential for an effective working environment across virtual team members. A good communication brings a sense of belonging to the members, and portrays the feeling they work under a supportive environment. A bad communication exposes the virtual team to role overload, low individual commitment, absenteeism, social loafing, and role ambiguity. If not properly managed, loss of communication would lead to misunderstandings, frustrations, or even generate conflict among the members. Since members of this virtual team will be located across the world, the best communication strategy will involve the use of chat rooms where team members will interact formally and informally. An example of these chat rooms is the Skype video conferencing. This chat room will be open for every member of the team. Members can leave messages to others. Concerning the communication of team goals, objectives, and member expectations, the best mode of communication will involve the use of email, phone calls, short videos, and chat programs. Another important strategy is the use of screen sharing tools. These tools enable team members to share their activities so that others can view what they are doing. For example, the team will use remote computer control programs such as TeamViewer to share interactively and remotely control computer systems. The team will also consider using cloud computing and storage technologies. These technologies help when there are documents that are shared and edited by different members (Kauppila, Rajala & Jyrama, 2011). They also make it easier to keep records. Examples of cloud technologies to be used are Google Drive and Dropbox. It is important that every team member clearly understands their responsibilities in the team. This will be done by clearly indicating the defined team member responsibilities and explicitly stating who completes a particular task. Therefore, one way of ensuring that all members clearly understand their tasks and the projects goal is through regular face-to-face meetings. Face-to-face meetings are also effective in enhancing relationships and building trust. Furthermore getting the team together is essential. In our case, direct and physical face-to-face meetings would be difficult and costly. Therefore, the best option would be the use of regular video conference meetings. Tasks delegation will be done through direct phone calls, emails, video conferencing. Since this team involve members from multiple functional areas, then tasks shall be assigned on the basis of member experience in that particular area. This is to ensure that tasks are performed optimally. Team member conflicts can be dangerous. They can cause damage to productivity, diminished morale, and lowered creativity. Therefore, it is important to come up with protocols for resolving the conflict. One way of resolving conflict is through setting up of face-to-face meetings with conflicting members (Olariu & Aldea, 2014). Other strategies will involve creating a virtual site where members share common files, project updates, as well as discuss related topics. Assigning a key person for a particular issue helps when a problem arises. This person is responsible for seeing that this issue is resolved by keeping track of discussion threads, and involving everyone’s ideas. After having allocated every person sufficient time for contribution, the person then summarizes these arguments and comes up with a solution. Step 3 – Choosing the Right Technology Virtual team members are often at different levels of comfort for using the various tools of virtual meeting such as video conferences and chat rooms or the fully integrated virtual project management software. This project shall utilize the use of instant messaging, chat rooms, and video conference to make complex decisions. The team shall use emails and face-to-face video chats to resolve conflicts among members. This team shall implement both synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous (delayed-time) communication through technologies such as chat rooms, e-mails, data meetings, video conferences (Gladden, 2014). Synchronous technologies include the use of video chats, telephone, and direct face-to-face meetings. Synchronous tools help in engaging people instantly at the same time. However, one disadvantage of this tools is that they require same-time participation which would be difficult if communicating persons are in different time zones or at conflicting work/personal schedules. On the other hand, asynchronous communication technology involves the use of emails, fax, IM, and letters. One advantage of these technologies is that they can engage members from different time zones at any time. Another benefit is the ability to retain communication history. However, they have one major drawback that they require specific disciplines to use. For example, one would be required to login to an ongoing community every time they want to participate which may make them feel impersonal. The choice of a communication tool shall be determined by its ability to relay the information. For example, documents shall be sent via email while discussions shall be held via video chats or conference calls. The shared work platform to be implemented in this project shall be the cloud storage and computing platform. This platform offers both online storage, file sharing, and processing capabilities. Compared to other platforms such as desktop word processors, this platforms offers the sharing and synchronous editing of files from different geolocations. The team’s progress shall be reported to the executive management through presentations using video conferences. These presentations shall include every team member’s progress and the overall team’s outcomes. Also, the executive management shall be granted access to some of the shared files on the cloud where they can track the team’s activities. Conclusion Working with virtual teams has become a growing phenomenon and most businesses are positive about its benefits. It gives access to a wide pool of global talent and improves an organization’s competitiveness. In this paper, the concept of virtual teams has been discussed and its application in a medium-sized corporation. This paper, however, does not discuss the potential problems facing virtual teams. If well addresses, problems such as communication barriers would increase the team’s chances of success. References Caya, O., Mortensen, M., & Pinsonneault, A. (2013). Virtual Teams Demystified. International Journal Of E-Collaboration, 9(2), 1-33. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jec.2013040101 Gladden, R. (2014). Leading Virtual Project Teams: Adapting Leadership Theories and Communications Techniques to 21st Century Organizations. Proj Mgmt Jrnl, 45(4), e3-e3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pmj.21439 Kauppila, O., Rajala, R., & Jyrama, A. (2011). Knowledge sharing through virtual teams across borders and boundaries. Management Learning, 42(4), 395-418. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350507610389685 Olariu, C., & Aldea, C. (2014). Managing Processes for Virtual Teams – A BPM Approach. Procedia - Social And Behavioral Sciences, 109, 380-384. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.476 Read More