Building And Managing Effective Virtual Teams

Virtual teams have emerged to mitigate the challenges of managing teams that are distributed across different regions, and are a sustainable component of global business. A project manager managing a virtual team would have to integrate communication strategies, project management techniques including human and social processes in order to support the team, (Kimball, 1997). The author is a project manager assigned to lead a virtual team of 300 volunteers located across the globe to develop recommendations for regulating carbon emissions in the world. As indicated Kimball (1997), this kind of a virtual team usually supports people working in the same professional field and most of the

Communicating in Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Teams consist of personnel with varied backgrounds, experience, education, and intellectual ability. These differences will, by nature lend themselves to varying perceptions in business, its problems and solutions, which result in

| Employees in geographically dispersed locations can work together in virtual teams using video, e-mail, and the Internet.

Part of being a manager for a company is managing teams. These teams can be created for many different reasons and can have various goals put upon them. Companies want managers that are capable of constructing teams that can effectively meet goals and set standards. The four types of work teams most commonly found in organizations are: problem-solving, self-managed, cross-functional, and virtual. In completing the simulation for this course, I will use cross-functional work teams as a foundation for my investigation of effective team management.

Executives refer to business as a team sport for a variety of reasons. First, many business organizational structures arrange departments either in cross specialty teams or task oriented teams based on operational design and expected outcomes. These teams are designed with members who are assigned roles that increase overall team productivity. The team members bring talents, knowledge and a skill set that uniquely contributes to collective intelligence and resourcefulness. Through collaboration and team work, Successful teams achieve synergy, or “exceeds the sum of each individual’s contribution”.

These groups rely on technology to communicate with one another and to accomplish the tasks allocated by the organization. One benefit of a virtual team is that they use technology and this can help increase efficiency and productivity of the members. The virtual teams also assist in the development of intellectual capital. The composition of the virtual groups helps improve quality as well as the outcome. The other benefit is the efficiency of communication. Some of the challenges include the distance between the members. The significant distance may dilute leadership, weaken human relations as well as amplify dysfunction. Virtual teams are hard to manage especially when it comes to goal setting, task distribution, coordination and member motivation. Virtual organizations rely on trust that the other members will fulfill their roles since it is not possible to monitor them closely (Hoppe, 2011). The virtual teams may face some internet challenges such as slow internet or disconnection. This problem can be handled through the use of alternative methods of communication such as mobile phones. While making a virtual team, the team members should address all challenges which may hinder communication by coming up with all possible substitutes of means of communication. These organizations rely heavily on the internet for video conferencing and sending emails. However, when the internet fails, they

Co-location is an approach to team building that employs the strategy of placing team members in the same place for the purpose of improving their performance as a team. This strategy uses the benefit of a face-to-face interaction to build up a team relationship, sharpen communications and generally increase productivity. A Co-located team, work together in a team room (the Big room), their focus may range from improving on a design quality, curbing errors, and working towards a positive outcome in the projects. (A. Porter, 2016)

The essence of this article is noting the fact that virtual teams are only going to be effective when technology is involved. When virtual teams first started, there wasn’t much effective meeting technology available, but now there

Virtual and mobile teams (also known as distributed teams) are individual members or groups of a team working independently without a common work location, to meet collective organization goals. Virtual and mobile teams can be spread out as far as across town, to all the way around the world. Virtual and mobile teams allow businesses and teams can work effectively work apart, and achieve the benefits of being in different key locations. Some benefits of virtual and mobile teams are the ability to bridge organizational and geographical boundaries and offer organizations the ability

To pave the way for effective knowledge sharing between salespeople and Product Managers, emphasis should be placed on building the relationship between the two parties. Their geographical dispersion is an obstacle, however, the growing use of computer-mediated communication and virtual teams is seen as an efficient way to combat such challenges. (Hertel, Geister and Konradt 2005) To support these virtual interactions, management might also consider sporadic face-to-face meetings (Al-Ani, Horspool and Bligh 2011), workshops and other team building exercises (social activities, for example) to foster positive exchanges and trust between the relevant staff. (Labrosse 2008)

Globalisation has led to many changes in the international marketing and global advertising industry. Many international companies have projects spanning a variety of nationalities, involving great geographical distances and a range of time zones. In this scenario, companies are forced to make virtual teams - which are comprised of members who are located in more than one physical location (Peters and Manz, 2007). This virtual team trait has fostered extensive use of a variety of forms of computer-mediated communication that enable geographically dispersed members to coordinate their individual effort and inputs (Attaran, 2002). In addition, commitment to a virtual team goal may be further complicated by the single or coherent line of

Teams are by definition a group of people all working towards a common goal. Increasingly teams are both in-person and virtual, as evidenced by the use of cloud computing-based technologies to unify diverse workgroups and teams across broad geographic distances (Braun, Michel, Martz, 2012). The foundation of any effective technology support team is the ability to stay focused on a common goal, charter or mission, which is the purpose for working together (Kezsbom, 1993). The highest performing teams have a shared sense of interdependency and also a recognition that unity is necessary for the success of the

Hastings, R. (December 3, 2008). Set Ground Rules for Virtual Team Communications. SHRM Online. Retrieved August 8, 2011 from http://www.shrm.org .

In the business world, organization is a “systematic grouping of people brought together to accomplish some specific task.” (Robbin, DeCenzo, & Robert, 2013) An organization can be made of workgroups and work teams. While in a work team, members help create and gather information, accomplish different tasks, and meet common goals; whereas work groups interact to share information. “Today, more and more companies are incorporating teams—of a variety of sizes and types—into their workflows” (Miller, B.) There are so many different teams, but the following will be discussed self-directed work teams, cross-functions teams, problem-solving teams, and virtual teams. It is also important to be aware of the obstacles that exist while trying to construct an effective team and the overcoming of the challenges that teams face.