Individual And Team Experience In A Virtual World And Physical Team

MGMT 1001

Everest Report - 30% of Final Mark

Sarah Zhou

Student Number: z5016963

Tutor: Phillip

Tutorial Time: Friday 1-2pm

Word Count:

Report Focus:

Critically analyse your individual and team experiences in a virtual world and physical team by using the results in Everest simulation using the following three course concepts.

1) Communication (including the Disinhibition effect); 2) Groups & Teams (including virtual teams); and 3) Leadership

Executive Summary

Chosen by the UNSW Australian Business School and designed by Harvard Business School and Forio Business Simulations, the interactive virtual game called Everest challenges each player with their assigned roles to undertake and confront specific challenges that occurred in the process of reaching the summit of Mount Everest as a team. By encapsulating the importance of collective teamwork and effective communication in order to achieve group and personal goals, the simulation facilitates a realistic experience of an environment with other team members, causing us to reflect upon methods and barriers towards communication as well as the disinhibition effect experienced by virtual teams. The development of our formal group, ‘Team Summit’ and group processes, in particular conflict management provide us with virtual examples of key issues experienced by managers within organisations to strive for success. Though team leaders were formally assigned prior to both simulations, essentially shared leadership that involved all group members proved to increase cohesion levels and minimize intragroup conflict contributing to consistent and successful results of both simulations.

Given two opportunities to complete the simulations in our designated group...

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... such as communication, leadership, and groups and teams including virtual teams. Its engaging experience allowed for interactive learning and a thorough analysis of the interrelationship between effective communication and the beneficial outcomes of shared leadership in groups and teams. Through my individual experience as an observer assisted with my experience as a group member, the development of groups according to Tuckman’s model and ineffective methods such as barriers to communication and shared leadership possibly reduced the inefficiency in the first simulation. By implementing specific strategies such as minimizing intra-group conflict, adopting positive leadership attitudes and assigning roles to team members, group cohesion and team dynamics can be optimized in order to increase individual and team performance as reflected through our results.