Developing Virtual Work Teams Essay, Research Paper

Abstract As a consequence of planetary competition, the computing machine age, and inordinate travel disbursals, many people now work in & # 8220 ; practical squads & # 8221 ; that transcend distance, clip zones, and organisational boundaries. Virtual squads have evolved as a manner to do working across continents and states an easy, practical manner to accomplish superior consequences & # 8211 ; people must no longer be co-located, or in the same topographic point, in order to work together. Planning and design are cardinal to practical squad success. The design of the organisation, the squad, and the occupation is the footing for constructing a successful practical squad. In add-on to these factors, the work must be coordinated through engineering and the stakeholders in the undertaking must interact and maintain each other updated. Last, when the employee finishes a undertaking and must re-enter the host organisation or another practical squad, planning by both the squad member and the host organisation is indispensable. Virtual Teams & # 8220 ; Until late, when you said you worked with person, you meant by deduction that you worked in the same topographic point for the same organisation. Suddenly though, in the wink of an evolutionary oculus, people no longer must be co-located & # 8211 ; or, in the same topographic point & # 8211 ; in order to work together. Now, many people work in & # 8216 ; practical squads & # 8217 ; that transcend distance, clip zones, and organisational boundaries & # 8221 ; ( Lipnack, 1 1997 ) . The term & # 8220 ; practical & # 8221 ; was born in the computing machine industry, depicting practical memory, which is difficult disc infinite used as impermanent memory. When a package plan knows there will non be adequate memory to execute a certain undertaking, alternatively of halting the user from finishing the undertaking, it will utilize the difficult thrust as impermanent memory. This enables the user to execute complex undertakings that could non be achieved on standard memory ( George, 1996 ) . The term & # 8220 ; practical & # 8221 ; applies to squads in a similar manner. Alternatively of organisational or geographic boundaries forestalling employees from working on complex undertakings needed to derive a competitory border, practical squads fool the organisation into believing that the squad members work together in the same infinite and clip with the same set of organisational norms ( George, 1996 ) . Virtual squads are like undertaking or natural work squads with added constituents. The latter may dwell of members with cross-functional backgrounds from the same company, in the same location. They work together to work out jobs in their daily occupations. However, squads become practical when you add any of the undermentioned three constituents: Different geographics or locations of squad members: Virtual squad members can be located in different parts of a metropolis or in different parts of the universe. As the distance additions and more clip zones are crossed, the window of synchronism in the working day narrows. New England is six hours behind Europe, and people in California leave work merely as their opposite numbers in Japan start their following twenty-four hours ( Lipnack, 1997 ) . Team members from different organisations or parts of the organisation: Team members can be from different organisations or from different parts of the same organisation. For illustration, a semi-conductor industry research organisation in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, uses practical squads to prioritise undertakings. Associating people from across North America, undertaking squads from 12 semi-conductor companies, 60 universities and 24 authorities bureaus focus on the sorts of research clients need most. Team members use computing machine engineering to portion informations, run presentations and rank classs of research ( George, 1996 ) . Different continuances or lengths of clip that members work together as a squad: Depending on its mission, a practical squad may unify for a undertaking that lasts a few yearss, months, or old ages. For illustration, the semi-conductor organisation referenced above created their squad in order to prioritise 200 research plans. The practical squad & # 8220 ; met & # 8221 ; for two yearss and prioritized the plans at a cost of 10 million dollars alternatively of at a cost of twenty million dollars in two hebdomads ( George, 1996 ) . The teams become more practical as each constituent is expressed to a greater extent. The squad becomes more and more practical as the squad is made up of members from different geographicss and companies and the more they form and reform for ongoing work ( George, 1996 ) . Virtual squads are on the brink of detonating in companies around the universe. Global competition, the computing machine age, and inordinate travel disbursals have evolved to do working across continents and states an easy, practical manner to accomplish superior consequences. Using a combination of engineering and squads, many companies are prosecuting practical squads to increase engineering and cognition transportation, increase the velocity of solutions and lessening constrictions or holds between clients and providers or geographically spread employees ( George, 1996 ) . However, in the huffy haste to implement practical squads, companies may undervalue the demand to be after and plan around the differences inherent in practical squads. Assuming that employees who have been team members in the yesteryear can do the passage to a practical work squad environment without planning and design, is like directing them on a hit class with catastrophe ( George, 1996 ) . Making practical squads is non every bit easy as drawing together a cross-functional squad to work out a job. Because the makeup and locations of the squad can be rather heterogenous, unprepared squad members collide with misgiving, unrealistic or unequal outlooks, cultural differences, co-ordinating work logistics, group kineticss and leading issues ( George, 1996 ) . Trust: Employees from different locations, civilizations, and proficient backgrounds are likely to distrust how their information will be used. Whether their parts will be good represented outside the squad, or the grade to which other squad members will do an equal part. Expectations: Without the usual organisational walls to function as general parametric quantities, practical squads need guidelines up front. These enable the squad to put personal every bit good as squad outlooks for what they are and are non allowed to make. Pull offing outlooks up front is necessary in a originative environment like a practical squad to countervail defeat with the system and other squad members. Cultural differences: Without turn toing cultural differences, even those between different sections within the same organisation, group kineticss & # 8212 ; coherence, engagement, committedness, etc. ? are likely to damage productiveness and willingness toward working together in the hereafter. Work Co-ordination: Response and coaction are paramount to accomplishing superior velocity to market or complex concern job solutions. Virtual squads need advanced computing machine and communicating engineering to portion databases, spreadsheets, proposals, and presentations. Then they need an expedient manner to discourse options and prioritise options without holding to pass their most productive clip in expensive face-to-face meetings. Group kineticss: Because practical squads frequently operate over the telephone or computing machine alternatively of in the same office at the same clip, they have less face clip which builds resonance. Thus, group kineticss are more hard to pull off and conversations over electronic mail can be easy misconstrued. Leadership: Virtual squad leaders are less able to maintain ocular checks on their employees because of different locations. Leaderships must act upon employees they do non see on a day-to-day or hebdomadal footing and who may non describe to them or even belong to their organisation. The leader & # 8217 ; s occupation is to proactively pull off the factors of the hit class mentioned above without making position differences within the squad. Prefering members of a peculiar civilization, organisation or proficient background disrupts work co-ordination and may cut down group procedure and productiveness. An car maker tried to implement practical squads as a agency of conveying a new auto to market more rapidly. Team members came from two companies with radically different runing doctrines? one was extremely entrepreneurial and the other traditional. The consequence was that they really doubled developmental clip. Why? They failed to incorporate the corporate civilizations of the two organisations, top direction did non pass adequate clip concentrating on the squad & # 8217 ; s way, the squad met excessively infrequently and, as a consequence, there was excessively much turnover among team members. How so do you construct practical squads and avoid the hit class ( George, 1996 ) ? Planing and design are cardinal to practical squad success. These of import elements should be considered when developing and implementing successful practical squads: Organizational DesignJob designTeam DesignCoordination of work through technologyInteraction with stakeholdersRe-entry Organizational Design Organizational design refers to the overall way squads will take, the construction of how they are configured, and the systems that support them. Companies interested in constructing practical squads, within their ain company or with other clients and providers should concentrate on at least the undermentioned of import constituents of organisational design: Define the concern goals the squad will work within: Heterogeneous and spread squads, like practical squads, may necessitate more aid with concentrating on concern ends or the context in which they operate. Virtual squad members need to be involved in developing undertaking ends that meet the demands of the whole organisation. By being involved in developing the larger ends for the undertaking, squad members are more likely to concentrate on reciprocally understood concern demands, instead than single dockets ( George, 1996 ) . Behavioralize squad values that will steer how the squad works together: Anterior to start-up, practical squad members need to acknowledge how each squad member behavioralizes their value set. Especially where values pattern spreads exist, team members should develop patterns that support multi-cultural, multi-functional work ( George, 1996 ) . Develop an substructure for engagement: Once the concern drivers and values for the squad are developed, organisations should develop an substructure for the engagement of members themselves and other employees from the host organisation ( George, 1996 ) . Plan the constellation and boundaries of the squad to heighten productiveness: Peoples that really do the work can by and large plan squads and their support systems more accurately so direction entirely. Furthermore, people who design squads normally have the most ownership for their success ( George, 1996 ) . Job Design Job design is a profile of what work squad members are expected to make in their & # 8220 ; no walls & # 8221 ; universe of the practical squad. Organizations must plan the practical squad members & # 8217 ; occupations as tangibly as possible. Important occupation design stairss for practical squads include: Specifying a realistic occupation prevue: A realistic occupation prevue is an history of how the practical employee will pass his/her clip and describes in deepness how the working environment will be. Realistic occupation prevues help the practical employee understand what he/she is acquiring involved in, therefore assisting the employee header better with the practical environment ( George, 1996 ) . Realistic occupation prevues typically include the harsh or negative facets associated with the occupation, excessively. Planing occupation answerability: One of the concealed dangers ever skulking on the out of boundss of practical squads is the ethic that everyone needs to be involved in everything. You can avoid this formula for catastrophe by clear uping which undertakings need everyone & # 8217 ; s input and which do non. A simple duty matrix captures the set of relationships between members and undertakings ( Lipnack, 1997 ) . Giving decision-making authorization to the squad: Teams are better able to do timely determinations when organisations take the clip to stipulate decision-making authorization. This authorization is best clarified through duty charting for determinations ( Mohrman, 1995 ) .

Discoursing compensation issues with squad members: This is regarded as the ultimate quandary in redesigning occupations for practical squads. Virtual work necessitates pay based on part to, and completion of, complex undertakings. Members are me

asured on their ability to collaborate with others and solve problems with little direct supervision, using more data and expertise than ever before (George, 1996). Providing feedback for employee development and recognition: It is important to remember that virtual team members need, and deserve, feedback from supervisors too. Virtual team members do not have the benefit of receiving feedback from supervisors on a daily basis, therefore, special times should be set aside during which supervisors provide this feedback. Team Design Identify the Players: People or purpose, which comes first? The natural impulse is to immediately come up with a list of people. The more practical approach is to first draft an initial purpose and then identify whom you need to involve (Lipnack, 1997). For instance, if the goal of the team is to build a new sports car, you would need to involve people from design, marketing, finance, and manufacturing. Create an Identity: A team’s name is its smallest mental model. Names may be dull but descriptive, creative expressions of a mission, or wild things that capture people’s imagination. Consider using a formal name that clearly communicates what the team is about. For example, one of the teams at California-based Sun Microsystems uses the formal name “Sun Services Live Call Transfer Team” and uses a short tag for internal use – LCT (Lipnack, 1997). Statement of Purpose: The act of writing a vision or mission statement and then hanging it on the wall has become the well-deserved object of ridicule in many organizations. However, when the exercise of writing a purpose statement becomes the basis for the group’s work, it is a powerful source of energy. The importance of a virtual team going through a process to make its purpose tangible cannot be overstated. Ultimately, this means writing down the purpose and charter, however informal. Construct a prose statement of intent that answers the question “Why are we doing this?” Make explicit the team’s mission — its top-most goal and motivation to action. Although it may be difficult, it is essential that the virtual team gets the purpose right and makes it clear to everyone (Lipnack, 1997). Name the goals: To get from abstract vision to concrete realization, you need to organize and decide who is going to do what. Start by naming the key goals of the team. Keep the major categories to a handful or two at the most. Assess whether the set of goals covers the statement of purpose and the overall result. Well-conceived goals become the major components of the team’s work and the seeds around which subgroups form to actually do the work (Lipnack, 1997). Make connections: To reach people in the virtual world, you need to know their many addresses. Contact and location information is central to the team directory. Collect the many addresses that people and organizations have including office locations, traditional postal addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail accounts, Web page addresses, server names and meeting places (Lipnack, 1997). Coordination of Work through Technology Virtual teams benefit enormously from face-to-face meetings and these are particularly important in the early phases of development (Lipnack, 1997). Some experts suggest that 25% of team interaction should be spent in face-to-face meetings (George, 1996). If meeting face-to-face is too costly or otherwise constrained, the many interactive technologies available to virtual teams will be even more crucial to the communication process. Electronic communication and digital technologies in particular are providing a historically unprecedented ability to work together at a distance (Lipnack, 1997). In addition, virtual teams are unlikely to capitalize on their members’ collective experiences or complete their project fluidly without the use of appropriate technology tools (George, 1996). Four kinds of technology can assist in making work coordination for virtual teams relatively simple and highly effective: In addition to “traditional” video conferencing, desktop video-conferencing is now being used. In desktop video-conferencing, a camera is mounted on the top of a person’s computer monitor and team members are able too see and hear one another, as though they were gathering informally in a colleague’s office (Lipnack, 1997). Groupware software enables teams of people to work on the same document at different times. Software programs such as Lotus Notes allow team members to share ideas and information, work together on projects, and take part in group discussions with all team members. It also allows team members to create and share documents that include text, presentation graphics, scanned images, sound, video and more. Most importantly, this software offers several levels of security so that sensitive information is not compromised when collaborating with people outside of the organization (Lotus, 1997). Newsgroups, bulletin boards and electronic mail on the Internet linking to a world-wide, networked computing community with millions of users from government, business, research, industry and education (George, 1996). Intranets are essentially communication tools that operate by linking an organization’s computers in a way similar to the Internet. It is a closed network, however, which is accessible to people within the organization (and maybe approved outsiders). Like the Internet, its users access it by means of a piece of software called a “browser,” which allows them to look at pages of text and images which are hosted on a company server. The user clicks on links written into these pages to go to other pages. The potential for collaborative work is enhanced by Intranets, it provides a means for team members to have a “window” on each others’ progress and assist each other in troubleshooting (Lake, 1997). Design of Interaction with Stakeholders In the case of temporary virtual teams, losing regular contact with the members’ host organization can be problematic for the team member, the team, and the organization. For the team member, losing contact can mean a lack of information to a direct supervisor about contributions to the virtual team. As a result, the team member’s performance review contains a black hole where all the effort put into the team remains an unknown and is not a career enhancement (George, 1996). For the team, losing contact can mean straying off-course into the ditch. Virtual teams are highly creative and can quickly lose focus based on individual members’ interests. Staying in touch with the larger organization(s) can ensure that the team does not stray off-course, losing valuable project development time (George, 1996). For the organization, being out of touch with the virtual team can mean missing key lessons about how the team forms, coordinates its work, and disbands. Other employees will certainly be less interested in participating in a virtual team if the organization is perceived as looking the other way when it comes to virtual teams (George, 1996). Each of these entities should develop ways of interacting and staying in touch that best fit their own needs. Identifying a liaison, whose duty it is to communicate and stay in touch with the other teams, is one option. Virtual Team Re-entry For the virtual team member who is part of a temporary team, re-entry into the host organization or to another virtual team can be like astronauts re-entering the earth’s atmosphere in a space capsule. When returning to earth after being in orbit for weeks, astronauts face extreme heat, may feel disoriented, and fear that their parachute will not open. Virtual team members face the same conditions and fears when re-entering their own organizations or joining another project team (George, 1996). Re-entry is a double-edged sword. For the organization, speed of re-entry or speed to quickly re-form new project teams is paramount to their competitive edge. Team members, on the other hand, are concerned with making the transition to another meaningful job assignment and receiving credit for contributions to the last assignment (George, 1996). Planning from both the team and the host organization(s) are especially useful in the re-entry phase. Virtual team members need to alert their respective organizations that members are on the verge of re-entry, which helps leaders more effectively plan how to utilize the knowledge and skills gained by the virtual member (George, 1996). Team members can also chronicle lessons learned about forming and work coordination based on the type of work done, customer or supplier organization requirements, etc. Lessons learned compiled in a virtual team handbook or computer database can drastically reduce the ramp up time for entry into a subsequent project teams. Organizations must also design re-entry or rotation schemes that address the re-entry concerns for performance management, compensation, and career development. This allows re-entering employees to better cope with the needs of the virtual organization and not burn up upon re-entry (George, 1996). This is essential for maintaining the employee’s motivation and acceptance toward working in virtual teams. If the employee perceives that negative aspects of working in virtual teams outweigh the benefits, he or she will be less willing to work on a virtual team in the future. Results The results of virtual work teams are as revolutionary as the teams themselves. Clearly, there are special concerns and risks involved with implementing virtual teams but, there are also obvious rewards. When targeted to the right kind of interdependent project and when properly designed, virtual teams can revolutionize the workplace by providing customers with faster, more innovative and previously unheard of business solutions (see Appendix). Also, they create new ways for employees to make outstanding contributions while enhancing their quality of work-life (George, 1996). Appendix Dallas-based Maxus Energy is an oil and gas exploration and production company. The company is operating a contract for Pertamina; the Indonesian government’s oil company, to develop the country’s massive oil resources. In 1985, the two organizations knew that oil production would decline rapidly after the first few years. The complex business dilemma Maxus needed to solve was to find a way to maximize oil and gas production and offset the typical drop in production that occurs after the first few years of oil field operation. This problem could not be solved with business as usual methods. Maxus formed a team of geophysicists, geologists, engineers, and oil drillers whose British, Dutch, Indonesian and American team members had vastly different backgrounds. In addition to their difference in technical background, team members also had diverse values and cultural norms. Americans are usually direct, task-oriented, and loyal to one company, whereas Indonesians tend to be more relationship driven, subtle and indirect, and have multiple loyalties to the company and the government. How did Maxus organize the team? Planning was key. By planning the role of team members and leaders, establishing clear parameters and goals, and by developing team norms around time required for meetings and deadlines for reports, Maxus was able to capitalize on the team’s differences. Maxus Energy’s multi-functional, multi-cultural teams avoided a 15% reduction in oil production and actually added to oil reserves (Solomon, 1995). BIBLIOGRAPHY George, J. A., “Virtual Best Practice,” Teams Magazine, November 1996, pp.38-45. Lake, A. “Flexibility: The Interactive Forum on New Ways of Working.” http://www.flexibility.co.uk [27 October 1997] Lipnack, J. and J. Stamps. Virtual Teams: Reaching Across Space, Time, and Organizations with Technology. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1997. Lotus. “Lotus Notes Network.” http://www.lotus.com [10 November 1997] Mohrman, S., Cohen, S., & Mohrman, A., Jr., Designing Team-Based Organizations: New Forms for Knowledge Work. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995. Solomon, C.M., Global Teams: The Ultimate Collaboration, Personnel Journal, 1995. ————————————————————————