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Importance of team building in projects
Importance of team building in projects
Fostering team collaboration
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Introduction
A virtual team refers to a collection of collaborating persons in geographically dispersed means. This group of persons do work across space, time and organizational boundaries and are connected together via information and telecommunication technologies in order to accomplish one or more organizational goals. The virtual teams do require new array of ways to work across boundaries through processes, systems, technology and people. This does require effective leadership in order to be a success.
The increasing number of knowledge intensive research and development companies have turned to virtual teams in the recent past in order for them to generate the greatest competitive advantage from limited resources and labor. The geographically distributed teams must communicate via technology, and this has grown in prevalence as compared to the traditional teams in which all members were collocated and communicate face to face. Thus many organizations turn to virtual teams to reduce operational costs, embracing faster problem solving and innovate.
Formation of virtual teams
The process of forming virtual teams is very crucial and plays a significant role in the success of a virtual team, since the team members can be formed from virtually anywhere. As such, the management of the particular organizations needs to take significant care in the formation of virtual teams. Lerner (2008), did say that the leaders of distributed teams should have a heightened sense of awareness of the various subgroup formations and their weaknesses”. Thus the formation of virtual teams is critical to ensuring the objectives for a given project are met and the chemistry of the team is proper to achieve given goals. Karayaz (2006) did define thr...
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...each other on the same page, which often means redundant discussions and missed dialogs as they wait for everybody to get started. Another thing that is challenging, the virtual teaming typically lengthens the work day for virtual team members, and time zone dispersion narrows the window for synchronous team interaction. Multitasking is a common strategy during meetings that can distract members to such an extent that they may miss an opportunity to provide valuable input. Equally, the focus of virtual team members is often diluted by their local tasks and priorities. If the local priorities override the time that the team members had planned to devote to team assignments or meetings, process loss may result in team work requiring more time than planned, and this is not so good to team bonding especially when there are members of the team who did their homework well.
Lojeski’s Virtual Distance Leadership Model As technology improves, businesses expand and recruitment pools decrease, organizations contemplate ways to, not only reduce the overhead costs of doing business but, to attract new talent in a competitive employment marketplace (Darleen, 2012). To do so, many organizations have redefined what it means to ‘go to work’, in terms of not only the act of getting there, but how work is accomplished and where (Lojeski & Yuva, 2008). A study conducted three years ago by the Society For Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported that almost half of the organizations surveyed utilized virtual teams (Minton-Eversole, 2012). Anyone who conducts business using mobile technology devices is considered
Giving team members the opportunity to discuss work progress means you can acknowledge each other’s achievements and celebrate success which is important as it will boost morale in the workplace making it a much better environment to work in and may also increase efficiency.
Seven tasks must be included in consideration of team dynamics and structure. The first of which is defining the goal, mission or function of a specific team. The team must know what it is being asked to accomplish. The second area of consideration is assessing what skills, abilities, knowledge or potential to acquire such would be needed amongst selected team members. Identification of potential team members should include an assessment of the skills, knowledge and abilities or the potential to acquire such so that ultimately the team has the building blocks with which to succeed in its mission, goal or function. This assessment must include an understanding of realistic potential contributions by potential team members with the included assessment of whether or not the acquisition of skills and knowledge can be made available through research and analysis.
Being able to communicate at the physical level compared to other means offers a better way to transfer information. Having a team be together for a long period of time also helps fade the problems faced by heterogeneous teams. One negative could be the moving to new locations which can cause some individuals to leave their families and friends. Another disadvantages is the cost which can be very expensive and disruptive considering some people may be hard to replace. Virtual teams can be hard to utilize considering the high amount of trust or the exchange of important loads of knowledge. Virtual teams would not work very good in my example of the development project of the locker rooms here at the University of Mary. The need to physically build and watch over the construction site would make a virtual team impossible because the workers and engineers need to be on the site to get the job
When we think of the word team, individually many different ideas may come to mind about what a team really is. Some may think of an NFL team (Tennessee Titans), an NBA team (Sacramento Kings), or a NASA astronaut team with such pioneers as Edwin Aldrin, Jr. and Neil Armstrong as members. You might even think of the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, or Marines as teams. In fact they all are, and they have a great deal in common as teams. However, for the purposes of this paper I will examine the characteristics of work teams, as they apply to organizations and I will supply answers to the following questions: What is a team? Where did the team concept come from? What are the types of teams? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having teams in organizations? What does it take to make a team effective?
A virtual team is a group of people working interdependently via various types of electronic media across organizational and geographical boundaries for a shared purpose (D’Souza & Colarelli, 2010). Research indicates virtual teams are becoming increasingly popular in organizations across the United States and the world (D’Souza & Colarelli, 2010; Rusman, van Bruggen, Sloep, & Koper, 2010). These teams vary in size, degree of geographic dispersion, prior shared work experience, nature of assignment, and expectations of a common future (Rusman et al., 2010). Although virtual teams have potential advantages like the removal of physical boundaries, the ability to form new partnerships, and optimization of competencies (Chinowsky & Rojas, 2003), they also introduce many challenges that may not be as prevalent in traditional teams.
The successful passing of information creates an important bond between virtual team members. “Without creating the connections, a virtual team can’t do what it needs to; function as a cohesive unit” (Thompson, n.d., Introduction section, ¶2). Information should be specific to the task at hand with a common goal in mind. Complete and accurate information not only helps a team reach its goal, but it also avoids problems and conflicts that arise between members. The importance of clear, concise information in a virtual team can not be stressed enough; however, timing should also be considered when sharing information. Information not received in a timely fashion also jeopardizes the cohesiveness of the team.
In conclusion, I believe despite the fact that virtual team member and leaders face unique challenges, they revolutionizing the global workforce. If done correctly and with strong leadership, virtual teams can increase productivity, lower costs and save precious time for organizations and businesses and their clients.
Virtual corporations have some major characteristics (Judith, 2002, quoted in Byrne. n.d.) as following state: technology, excellence, opportunism, trust and no borders. Technology makes distance no longer a problem while entrepreneurs or companies far away from, due to the computer networks link people all over the world. Excellence was showed by each partner bringing its core competencies to the corporation, which can exert all advantages. Companies make alliances for specific market opportunity and this is a more efficiency work way than any others. Members in a virtual organization must trust their partners due to they meet the need by cooperating. The new communication ways were brought by computer networks, which blur the traditional hierarchies and boundaries.
Effective teams work to establish common goals. These goals are usually the drivers of an effective team when all of the participants are communicating to develop the goals they would all like to achieve. In business, this can be seen when groups set a sales goal and develop a plan of action to achieve this goal. Individuals empowered to approach a goal with their interests in mind as well as the interest of the whole group.
Virtual teams – virtual team is one of the most popular teams in every organization because in virtual team the member are separated in different nation and use technologies to communicate to accomplish their goal on the time.
TEAMWORK The teamwork is usually defined as the process of working together in a group to achieve a common goal. These days, working in groups is inevitable. Whether it is a school assignment or working in a clinical setting, we have to work in groups to accomplish a task. We cannot expect to work in isolation all the time. As far as our team is concerned, they worked in an organised manner to accomplish the task within the deadline.
Videoconferencing in Virtual Teams, The Business Review, 7(1) p.164-170.
There are four different types of teams. These teams are problem-solving teams, self-managed work teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams. Problem-solving teams work together to help find methods to improve the work environment or have suggestions to increase employee’s morale. Self-managed work teams organize the responsibilities of the employee’s such as assigning tasks to individuals, scheduling conflicts, and evaluate employee performances. Cross-functional teams are individuals whom all have experience in the same work field. The individuals come together as a team to incorporate their thoughts, designs, and new ideas to accomplish what the company needs to improve or create. Virtual teams are individuals that work together, but only by technology such as the internet, emails, or web cam.
Many of the talents and skills they regularly use on a daily basis will transfer to the project tasks that they may to be assigned.