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

During the last decade, organizations have been working more with technology making it their master. Technology is not only about new equipment; it is mostly about new ideas and techniques used. Virtual team is a new approach used today. Virtual groups or teams have been used from parent to keep contact with teacher to corporations to create new international business relationships. How far can virtual team be more efficient than face to face relationships? Society incorporates this method to different activities not only at work, so virtual team seems more beneficial these days. If we are going to incorporate virtual teams to our system, we have to know its advantages and disadvantages, and how it can affect our organization.

Advanced Technologies. Lockheed Martin is bringing decades of experience of developing cutting edge technologically advanced systems to the marketplace. Through their legendary Skunkworks program, they have developed the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter, U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane and the SR-71 Blackbird. These are craft were operational long before the public even knew of their existence. The SR-71 developed in the 1960s still holds many speed and altitude records. The F-35 takes this experience and incorporates it. It is a fully stealth aircraft that uses advanced geometrical shape and electronic methods to remain undetectable. Each F-35 is fully linked to all other aircraft, being able to “see” what they see. The pilot wears an advanced helmet that allows them to see “through” the aircraft using 6 infrared cameras mounted around the aircraft, virtually eliminating any blind spots.

The fact that motivation is the most important factor for productivity and quality is not something new. Job satisfaction is critical to high productivity, motivation and low employee turnover. Today employers face the challenges of finding ways to increase job satisfaction that their businesses can stay competitive. Employers face the challenges of maintaining productivity, profitability and also try to keep their workforce engaged as well as satisfied with their jobs. In general companies who fail to improve job satisfaction are at risk of losing their top talented people because of competition. Supervisors or managers who maximize the potential creative abilities and talent of entire workforce have a greater competitive advantage then those who don’t. Also, employees that are engaged in their work have a higher level of job satisfaction. This is a reason why leaders of the organization have responsibility for creating high level of job satisfaction. A motivating environment is one that gives workers a sense of pride in what they do ( Dr. Edward Deming ). Leaders can improve motivation within their organizations by following steps like: provide a positive working environment, reward and recognition, involve and increase employee engagement, develop the skills and potential of your workforce and

After taking 25 years to develop the F-22 Raptor from conception to operational certification, the United States Air Force (USAF) produced the world’s first 5th generation air superiority fighter. This revolutionary fighter plane leveraged its very low observable stealth (VLO), thrust-vectoring and digital fly-by wire capabilities, and other cutting edge technology to produce an extremely fast, agile and lethal air-to-air combatant. Less than five years after operational certification in 2009, Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, (SECDEF) convinced the President (POTUS) and Congress to truncate the F22 program, leaving the USAF with fewer than 187 operational F-22 Raptors. This number was well short of the 381 aircraft the USAF’s

Another research by Nader, Ahmed and Zahari (2009) on “Virtual teams for new product development as an innovative experience in research and development engineers” also shared the same observations by noting that, organizations in automotive industry can gain insights on product launching through free knowledge that can be obtained from internet sources, before executing their internal plans. According to him, this knowledge should first be synthesized by the employees through special meetings and compared to their internal strategies. In this case, a meeting is used as a platform or tool of exchanging or transferring knowledge in an organization, by comparing and contrasting what the organization has and what the employees understand

A team comprised of international components presents an interesting challenge in regards to management. Various problems can potentially arise in regards to organizing the team, developing rules that govern the team and assigning tasks. One method in which to mitigate all of the above mentioned rules is by setting performance standards for the entire team to adhere (Alexander, 2000). One such standard involves the use of a balanced scorecard. A balanced scorecard allows each individual irrespective of their position within the team to have a core set of standards in which to abide by. These standards will also include the job function and the roles of each member with the job function. The scorecard provides an ideal medium in which to judge performance as well. By viewing the scorecard management can easily pinpoint areas of opportunity and improvement (Blair 2010).

Job description is not just a piece of paper that sits in an employee’s file. It is living document that will help you hire, manage, encourage, review, and, if necessary, discipline or terminate employees.

Something really struck me was the Motivation factor amongst employees which could play play a pivotal role in organization that helps in reaching goals set. A real instance that comes to my mind is ‘New United Motor Manufacturing Inc’(NUMMI), a joint venture initiative between General Motors and Toyota located in Freemont, California. In 1981, NUMMI was initiated for operation and was shiut down in an year. Toyota on the other hand was looking to built a facility in USA. Toyota was interested in General Motors Freemont facility. GM sensed the opportunity to learn Toyota’s practces of making good quality vehicles with wise utilization of resources. GM shut down its Freemont operation because of its worst workforce where labours were behaving terribly bad. After, Toyota took over the Management, it rerecruited the same workforce that was laid off by GM. It was interesting to see that the once tagged worst workforce, was working at their best and the quality achieved was at high class. It was really surprising how Toyota could manage to motivate the worst workforce to build better quality products. The answers which I got for that question was that Toyota listened to oits workforce and considers them as precious asset. It didn’t really made sense to me then. How could an assembly floor worker who was behaving bad and didn’t comply to GM had undergone a drastic shift to become best worker? It was evident from reading this article that

Quite simply, a team is by the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as a “group of individuals working together to achieve a common pre-defined goal.” Traditional teams consist of individuals working in physical proximity, the same office building or city. A virtual team refers to “a group of individuals who are geographically dispersed, but are united by a shared goal through the use if informational technologies.” (McShane, p. 208) A virtual team consists of talent across cities, provinces, cultures and time zones. Like all with all team structures there are advantages and disadvantages to working in a virtual team for both the individual and the organization.

The concept of job enrichment emerges from Herzberg 's theory, as employees ' higher order needs should be the focus of organizational leaders interested in improving motivation. These include giving employees more control, responsibility, and permission to use their own discretion in order to get good results (Raza and Nawaz, 2011; Uduji, 2013). When this method is being applied, employees are more often entrusted with responsibility, given opportunities to experience a sense of achievement, opportunities for growth, appropriate recognition, a higher level of professional autonomy, more importance, more control, and the ability to influence the work place circumstances and practices (Yasdani, Yaghoubi, Giri, 2011). These characteristics suggest a very specific characteristic of human nature

The idea behind job enrichment is to increase the degree of responsibility a worker has over a job by means of empowering, encouraging, and allowing employees to monitor their own performance. This gives the employee enhanced feelings of responsibility and achievement which have been shown to increase overall satisfaction in their job as a result. Job enrichment, when properly applied, can motivate employees find challenge at work to satisfy their needs and create a positive work attitude; benefiting management’s role in division of labor and low employee turnover.

Having a good job description is important for the HRM. When you are explain the job description you are giving an overview of the job, the duties and responsibilities, and what requirement you would need for the job. This important because when you post a job you want to make sure that potential candidates understand the job and duties before applying for the position.

Software development teams are always encouraged for healthy communication such as stand-up meetings, conferences and demo (if done according to agile) .but the toughest part is of the scrum master or the group leader to confront all the challenges related to these and manage them effectively.

Selecting the right person for the job can be done by a neat job description then it comes to screening, interviewing and the decision process. Job description is that in which it describes position, timing, type of work, requirements & pay. Job description gives almost exact overview of the job and helps in selecting specified candidates from the applicant side.