Just like we have been discussing in the past week, one of the major difficulties encountered when managing and coordinating virtual teams is the difficulty generated by virtual communication for negotiations with customers, internal and external. Despite cultural differences, such as language and values can negatively impact communication between team members, these problems can be minimized by setting a default language and values shared by the company.
The main differences between virtual teams and collocated teams are in the distance and the form of communication, however, the main issue of this new type of team is not the distance itself, but the impact that this cause during any operation.
CARACAS & FONSECA (2006), point out other characteristics
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Trust in teams collocated is developed through face to face meetings. In virtual teams, trust is created through actions that demonstrate competence and commitment of team members to share information and answer the communication.
Silva (2007) also shows the importance of motivation in virtual teams through recognition and feedback in meetings by telephone or e-mail, among the factors raised to increase the performance of virtual teams.
Human factors are also relevant, and - near or far - everyone wants to feel valued, supported and motivated. Outside the maintained daily contact with each employee - by email, phone, messaging and other support tools. The adoption of weekly meetings adds a great value to the work, and it is the moment that everyone feels comfortable coming and where a realignment of activities for the whole week occurs.
Indeed, communicating effectively is one of the biggest challenges. When managing and coordinating virtual teams, the success basically have three main components of which the development of a solid communication plan, choice and availability of suitable technologies for implementation of the project, and finally, management of the members of the project
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When creating a communication plan, the Project Manager needs to be aware of the five "c" of communication. (Clear, concise, considered from the perspective of the speaker, concrete and complete).
Therefore, and in short, in order to effectively communicate and coordinate a virtual project team is required to have in mind the following aspects, RODRIGUES (2011).
The Infrastructure - that should contain precisely all the means to access the internet as well as the necessaries hardware equipment.
Language - should implement a standard language for use within the project and who knows the in the entire organization. Considering that there are various expressions in different localities.
Cultural diversity - must take into account the variety of habits, customs, and values of each people. Thus respecting and being able to understand the behavior and principles that each of the individuals brings to the team.
Time zone - should be able to negotiate, because someone will probably have to work late. And the Project Leader should always seek to find the best time frame to be able to schedule the meetings. The meetings should be scheduled in the period that all parties can both feel
In 1865 the beginning of the end of the Civil War was in effect called “Reconstruction”. The purpose of Reconstruction was to make the United States a unified nation once again. Reconstruction was a success in the sense of the southern states ratified the constitution and chose not to secede. The southern states also agreed to pledge loyalty to the union and ratify the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments. On the other hand, with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, by pulling the troops out of the South white slave owners regained power and the south slowly went back to the ways of the “old south”. The end of Reconstruction was influenced by specific causes such as: the northerners exhaustion with fighting the south and trying to punish the Klu Klux Klan, Radical Republicans being struck down by the Supreme Court, and white unionists, carpetbaggers, and scalawags being pushed out of the South by the Klu Klux Klan (Reconstruction (1865-1877)).
Communication, conflict resolution and geographical issues play an important role in enabling team leaders to lead effectively. Kouzes and Posner (2012) outline that good communication allows members of both virtual and non-virtual teams and their leader to exchange ideas that foster collaboration among members. This actually enables team leaders to resolve conflicts that often arise from conflicting ideas, and hence this enhances the development and adoption of solutions to geographical issues like cultural conflicts. A team with good communication, limited conflict and a few issues can excel in nearly every sector of the global economy.
Attaining results from a team consisting of members likely spread across vast distances is an increasingly difficult task without taking advantage of the necessary resources available for distance collaboration. Several factors are taken into consideration when building an effective team. Creating a team out of a group of people who come from a variety of backgrounds is not an easy task because group members must first learn how to collaborate as a team before they can even consider completing a project together. Teams have a clear purpose with defined roles for each of its participants. Collaboration with the use of technological resources comes into play when a team consists of members spread out geographically. Realizing the strengths of each team member as well as the resources that are available is essential to a team’s success.
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.
People tend to have different ideas of what constitutes good communication. It is important to define communication and ways to build effective communication within teams, in order to have a successful team output. Some people think of communication solely as speaking, but it should be stressed that up to 90% of communication can be listening to fellow team members, and only 10 % talking (Lay, 2008). There are different aspects of effective communication that should be discussed by the group when it is initially formed. In order for teams to be successful, they should define how they will communicate with each other, and define the tasks that will set out by the team.
Communication is a must. Without it, a team will not function. Teams are brought together for various reasons, and must work under different circumstances each time. The Swift Trust Partnership Experiment recommends that a team first develop a contract in which they will abide by. “The Swift Trust Exercise provides students with the opportunity to frame an organizational contract based on perception of the future business partner” (Alder, T. 2005, 717).
“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind” a famous quote about our goal by Seneca. It is a metaphor about the achievement goal and objectives by good planning skills. One has to plan for what one wants to achieve and where one wants to go. One of the most important things is to have good planning, before taking any project the first think you should do is to create project plan. Planning can be defined as preparing a sequence of action to achieve specific goals and objectives. According to Kerzner (2009), “project planning is desirable that the project manager is involved from project conception through execution. It must be systematic, flexible to handle, closely disciplined through reviews and control and capable of accepting multi functional inputs (pg. 412)”. The importance of planning a project is to describe the work so that it will be easily identifiable to the project team member.
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.
Thomas, D., Bostrom, R. P., & Gouge, M. (2007). Making knowledge work in virtual teams. Communications of the ACM, 50(11), 85-90. Retrieved June 13, 2008, from EBSCOhost database.
During a company project, some projects require a group or team effort in order to complete the company’s objectives. Building Teams is a group of individuals with different abilities, ideas, cultural backgrounds, ethnicity and way of thinking. Based on these differences, the team will inevitably have disagreements on the projects
“Human beings have always functioned in face-to-face groups. While the use of teams is on the rise the Wall Street Journal reports that two-thirds of American companies employ them – the face to face aspect of normal working relationships is changing. Electronic communication and digital technologies give people a historically unprecedented ability to work together at a distance.” (Lipnack, J., & Stamps, J., 1997).
Communication in work teams differs from that in traditional organizations due having different communication patterns; establishing trust is a key factor; open meetings are a vital approach for improving communication; shared management is common; listening, problem solving, disagreement resolution, negotiation and compromise are significant factors; and information flows in all directions to all associates of the organization.
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.
Introduction Section Background A team is defined as a group of members who collaborate on tasks, and shares liability involving performance outcomes (as cited in Wakefield, Leidner, & Garrison, 2008). In organizations these days, virtual teams are becoming essential (as cited in Mukherjee, Lahiri, Mukherjee, & Billing, 2012). When it comes to definitions associated with virtual teams, many exist. Peters et al. (2007) defines a virtual team as a team consisting of members who reside in various locations and utilizes computer technology to communicate and exchange information (as cited in Pinar, Zehir, Kitapçi, & Tanriverdi, 2014).
Videoconferencing in Virtual Teams, The Business Review, 7(1) p.164-170.