...RUNNING HEAD: COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY CASE STUDY 2 Introduction I have been tasked with facilitating the launch of a virtual team that will collaborate on an important and highly confidential project. The team will be made up of primarily senior leaders, managers and directors coming from all major business units of the organization. The orientation meeting will occur in two weeks and will present the finished outcomes to the executive team approximately 90 days following the orientation. My current focus is to provide the team with the guidance necessary to assist with the launch, specifically in two areas. I will be offering recommendations for the team charter, specifically focusing on ground rules, setting expectations and conflict resolution within the team and leadership. The second focus will be on recommendations for technology to assist in communication and collaboration for this national team. We will assess both synchronous and asynchronous technologies as well as recommendations for technology that will assist in brainstorming and problem-solving and conflict resolution. Team Charter Recommendations A fully functional team spanning across the United States of America can be a difficult process to maintain. It is vital that we as a team come together to create and honor a specific charter that will be devoted to our team. While we will still be working under the main Mission Statement of our company...
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...Electronic Communication with Virtual Teams Tia Taylor CMC260 August 23, 2014 The term Virtual teams are used loosely among the average person, especially young adults. However, everyone at one point in their adult life has been a part of a virtual team and did not even know it. A virtual team is a group of people whose members communicate primarily through electronic and digital tools. Members of a virtual team may be within the same city or even across the world. (WebFinance, 2014) Whether you have had experience or are going to be new to a virtual team, the best way to familiarize yourself with the expectations are to compare the communication you have within social media to your new adventure with business partners. Your communication will be professional at all times yet; you will most likely not meet any of your teammates in person or face to face. Some of the platforms that you may often use within the team include emails, video conferencing tools such as the program Skype, and social media tools like those within LinkedIn or Facebook. Virtual teams allow organizations to bring people together to combine the best expertise, regardless of where they live. Take, for example, the countries Mexico, France, China and the United States and involve some representatives on a virtual team to conduct business. The individuals involved get to look forward to many benefits including working from the comfort of home and never having to take a flight...
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...Communication Challenges in Global Virtual Teams Abstract This paper approaches some of the communication challenges in global virtual teams, such as diversity understanding, asynchronous communication, behavior, language barriers, lack of trust, and technological problems. This paper groups the challenges into five main categories and describes the common issues leaders and team members need to address and overcome in order to succeed. The five categories are time zones, cultural differences, language, trust and relationship building, and technology. The purpose of this division is to help a better understanding of different type of issues in global virtual teams. Knowing these challenges allows leaders and team members to increase team’s performance through good planning and training, and avoid problems other global virtual teams had in the past. In addition, cases study showed communication and technology usage norms play an important role in global virtual teams, these norms or rules are more important in global virtual teams than collocated teams. Communication Challenges in Global Virtual Teams Global virtual teams “work across space, time and organizational boundaries” (Montoya, Massey, Hung, & Crisp, 2009, p. 139). A global virtual team is a group of people located in different geographic regions that communicate via telecommunication technology and share a common set of tasks to accomplish when completing a project. Virtual teams working...
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...sciencedirect.com International Journal of Project Management 28 (2010) 422–427 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman Effect of a virtual project team environment on communication-related project risk April H. Reed *, Linda V. Knight 1 Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business, East Carolina University, United States College of Computing and Digital Media, DePaul University, United States Received 25 March 2009; received in revised form 13 July 2009; accepted 4 August 2009 Abstract Over 150 Information Technology practitioners participated in a study of differences in communication risk between traditional project teams and those that operate virtually, with some team members physically remote. Contrary to prior research, results indicate the level of risk from inadequate communication is not significantly greater when team members are not grouped in one location. Further, despite increased dependence of virtual teams on technology for communication, there was no evidence of significantly more project risk due to technological failure. However, virtual team projects exhibited notably more risk due to insufficient knowledge transfer. A plausible explanation is decreased implicit or informal knowledge transfer in virtual environments. We conclude that the possibility of insufficient knowledge transfer should be included in virtual project risk management plans, and consideration should be given in such projects to the extent to which knowledge that is traditionally...
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...MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS A research project submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Business Administration by Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco, California December 11, 2003 Copyright (c) 2003 by Bryan Trautsch. CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT by Bryan Rolf Trautsch, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a research project submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Business Administration degree at San Francisco State University. ________________________________________ Dr. Robert C. Nickerson Professor of Information Systems ________________________________________ Dr. Sam S. Gill Professor of Information Systems ABSTRACT MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco State University Fall 2003 The purpose of the project is to explore the communications and collaborations issues associated with managing virtual project teams. In order to establish a better understanding of the problem, the paper evaluates virtual teams against more traditional collocated teams to provide some background and depth to the research. The method used in the research was in the format of a questionnaire consisting of six questions. The questionnaire was delivered via e-mail to various project managers with virtual project team experience dispersed through...
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...MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS A research project submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Business Administration by Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco, California December 11, 2003 Copyright (c) 2003 by Bryan Trautsch. CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT by Bryan Rolf Trautsch, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a research project submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Business Administration degree at San Francisco State University. ________________________________________ Dr. Robert C. Nickerson Professor of Information Systems ________________________________________ Dr. Sam S. Gill Professor of Information Systems ABSTRACT MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco State University Fall 2003 The purpose of the project is to explore the communications and collaborations issues associated with managing virtual project teams. In order to establish a better understanding of the problem, the paper evaluates virtual teams against more traditional collocated teams to provide some background and depth to the research. The method used in the research was in the format of a questionnaire consisting of six questions. The questionnaire was delivered via e-mail to various project managers with virtual project team experience...
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...Running Head: Virtual Teams and Face to Face Teams Virtual Teams and Face to Face Teams Research Paper March 4, 2012 Introduction As organizations continue to expand globally and increase the use of internet/web technologies to conduct their business, virtual teams continue to increase significantly. In today’s business world, virtual teams are more common in the workplace as opposed to face to face teams. There are various differences between virtual and face to face teams and thus the advantages and disadvantages of each team will be discussed. Comparison and Contrast Nonetheless, teams are defined as a group of people with complementary skills that are committed to achieve a common purpose. The author Gregory Berry further explains that teams interact interdependently and are bought together or come together voluntarily; to achieve a certain outcome (Berry, 2011). The members of teams are jointly responsible for the outcomes (Berry, 2011). It is important to understand the dynamics and structure of teams. Such an aspect is important because each team possesses different advantages and disadvantages and one must choose the most effective type depending on the purpose or task that needs to be attained. A virtual team is able to work anywhere and is linked by web communication to achieve organizational tasks (Cummings, 2011). A face to face team is a group of people who work in an organization in the same environment and communicate directly...
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...Issues in Business, Management and Education 2013 Virtual teams: opportunities and challenges for e-leaders Snellman Carita Liliana* a Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Business, Leiritie 1, Vantaa 01600, Finland Abstract In the globalized world with crucial technological changes, leaders are facing unforeseen opportunities as well as challenges while striving to reach their objectives. Such changes have led to organizational restructurings and implied rethinking of leadership functions and practices. Changing organizational structures, from traditional hierarchical towards lower and more flexible ones, have made leaders organize work in new ways. Teams account for one new way of organizing work and reaching organizational goals. Likewise, globalized markets have made leaders search for new solutions to meet the needs of customers. In consequence, organizations strive for competitive advantages through downsizing, subcontracting, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and other collaborative and network-based alternatives which are typically facilitated by virtual teams. Virtual teams are geographically and organizationally dispersed teams that function over time zones. Due to such dispersion, physical contact in virtual teams is reduced or lacking altogether which means that collaboration is enabled by IT-solutions such as computerbased communication. This kind of electronically facilitated team work is known to imply opportunities as well as challenges...
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...Virtual Teams: A Review of Current Literature and Directions for Future Research1 Anne Powell Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Gabriele Piccoli Cornell University Blake Ives University of Houston Abstract Information technology is providing the infrastructure necessary to support the development of new organizational forms. Virtual teams represent one such organizational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide organizations with unprecedented levels of flexibility and responsiveness. As the technological infrastructure necessary to support virtual teams is now readily available, further research on the range of issues surrounding virtual teams is required if we are to learn how to manage them effectively. While the findings of team research in the traditional environment may provide useful pointers, the idiosyncratic structural and contextual issues surrounding virtual teams call for specific research attention. This article provides a review of previously published work and reports on the findings from early virtual team research in an effort to take stock of the current state of the art. The review is organized around the input – process – output model and categorizes the literature into issues pertaining to inputs, socio-emotional processes, task processes, and outputs. Building on this review we critically evaluate virtual team research and develop research questions that can guide future inquiry in this fertile are of inquiry. ACM Categories:...
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...companies tend to choose global virtual team with members of different cultural backgrounds because leaders gradually promote their company to the world. Global projects with using virtual teams are primarily linked through computer and telecommunications technologies across national boundaries. Globalization of the construction industry has brought unique challenges such as coordination among project participants from different countries, and individual’s preferences in decision make and communication. As economic borders between countries come down, cultural barriers will most likely go up and pose new challenges and opportunities for business. Solving the cultural issues has been found to be of crucial importance for the success of virtual teams. This research attempts to characterize cultural differences along the dimension of cultural values and cultural practices Keywords: Virtual global project; Cultural diversity; Project management. Introduction Traditionally, a team-based project requires all team members physically present in a specific location for a period of time. But virtual global project requires a virtual team that members can engage in and deliver projects with limited or no direct physical interaction with other members. It allows multinational enterprises to draw on the widest talent pool available among their global employee base. Team members typically don't need to meet face-to-face, they can use several different virtual meeting applications to conduct...
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...OF MANAGING VIRTUALIZED TEAMS Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. Why Virtual Teams? 3 III. Are Virtual Teams For Me? 4 IV. Virtual Team Challenges and Best Practices 4 1. Communication Challenges 5 A. Cultural and Global Communication Challenges 6 2. Management and Leadership Challenges 7 V. On The Flip Side: Virtualized Project Managers 9 VI. Conclusion 9 Appendix 1: Source: Solomon, 2010, p. 10 11 Appendix 2: Source: Solomon, 2010, p. 12 12 I. Introduction As globalization becomes more prevalent in organizations and telecommunications infrastructure improves, virtual teams are becoming more and more of a reality. Collaboration of work and sharing of knowledge is becoming increasingly important as businesses promote more agile and just-in-time production. Many businesses realize that virtual teams can provide them with these competitive advantages. However, as virtual teams grow in popularity (Cascio et al., 2000), the challenges that come with managing these teams become more apparent. This is due to problems that naturally come from a virtual environment, such as communication deficiency, lack of motivation, and non-transparent management. This report is intended to inform project managers and IT professionals about the challenges of virtual team management and provide best practices for handling these challenges. In this paper, we will be looking at managing three different configurations for virtual teams: virtualized workers with...
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...Introduction Virtual project team has been the new trend in the global environment. It has been accepted by increasingly enterprises in recent years. Ariss, Nykodym, and Cole-Laramore [1] define a virtual team as a group of skilled individuals who communicate electronically. Through modern communication tools, a project can recruit team members around the world despite of geographically distant locations. All the members in the virtual project teams share a common project purpose like traditional project teams. Both traditional project teams and virtual project teams are conducted in the same model basically. However, as virtual teams generally have few physical interaction and separate in diverse locations, increasing risks are cultivated. In this case, it requires the project manager of virtual team with special competence to lead his/her team. Virtual managers need training for virtual skill sets, including management strategies and styles, communication techniques, and cross-culture skills [2]. To keep adopting traditional leadership, traditional management skills, and traditional communication skills in virtual project often causes poor-quality results and unhappy, frustrated project teams [3]. Therefore, when virtual managers enjoy the benefits from the virtual teams, they have to suffer the challenges as well. In this article, the challenges and benefits of leading a virtual team is discussed. Majority challenges and benefits are like two sides of a coin. They are...
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...Importance of Communication in Resolving Team Conflict John Cathey 50023176 Manuscript Assignment MGT 567.01W: Managing Groups & Teams Abstract Organizations have been creating teams in an effort to improve communications, processes, respond to customers, or develop new processes or services. Conflict within teams is not new nor is it unexpected or always destructive. Organizations are looking at new ways to form teams and technology has increased the ability to form teams from diverse locations. Teams no longer must be formed from a single location, there are now virtual teams. These teams may be made up of members from different time zones or countries. There is also a new form of team to explore, communities of practice, a group of people that share information, insight, tools, and experience about a subject or area of interest (Kerno & Mace, 2010). What types of conflict arise in these types of teams, do managers need to manage the conflict differently, or does conflict affect these teams differently? This paper looks at the types of conflict found in each of these teams as well as the impact conflict can have on team productivity. It is important for those managers responsible for teams understand the impact of conflict and how to successfully manage it to ensure the team meets or exceeds the goals set by the organization. This paper will provide some insight to assist managers with that task. The Importance of Communication in Resolving Team Conflict ...
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...Managing a virtual workplace The article Managing a Virtual Workplace focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of virtual workplaces and the tools needed for managers. There are many business reasons for a virtual workplace: reduced real estate expenses, increased productivity, higher profits, improved customer service, access to global markets and environmental benefits. There are also many disadvantages of a virtual workplace: set-up and maintenance costs, loss of cost efficiencies, cultural issues, feelings of isolation, and lack of trust. Virtual teams are not appropriate for every job or company. This article is about how to overcome the disadvantages and emphasizes the advantages of a virtual workplace and hoe managers will adapt to the new challenge of managing a virtual workplace. Critical success factors for global virtual teams This article focuses on the success and failures of virtual teams. There are several factors that determine the success or failure of virtual teams and they are: • Team Formation • Trust and Collaboration • Team Communication Within the team foundation, there has to be a clear sponsorship, agreed goals, awareness of cultural influences, and the right competencies and skills. Trust and collaboration are key skills in having a successful virtual team. Team communication is also a very important key in the success of a virtual team. You must stay connected with the members on your team and meet on a regular basis via e-mail...
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...Virtual teams Name: Institution: Virtual teams 1. Virtual networking is one of the phenomenal innovations of the modern technology. People in different geographical location can now communicate in real time and can access and share important resources as they work as a team. By using and properly coordinating his virtual team, Lockhead Martin was able to leverage on a pool of experienced human resource from all over the world, all working as a team to develop a modern fighter aircraft. The virtual team ensured that the development costs declined as a result of the reduced operational costs such as logistics and communication. By creating a common platform, the virtual team was able to work around a common goal and each member of the team was able to carry out his/her responsibilities without overlap or any incidence of duplication. 2. Virtual teams are important in bringing together people from different geographical locations. However, they pose a few challenges in terms of social-cultural backgrounds. The virtual team may be constituted by people from different cultural or social backgrounds who may differ in terms of ideologies and fail to work as a team. There is also the danger of language barrier which may slow communication or lead to misunderstanding. Technological problems may also arise and interrupt communication and throw the project into jeopardy particularly if the project is time sensitive. 3. To successfully participate...
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