Case Study : Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Kaye, B., & Hogan, J. (1999). Improve teamwork. Executive Excellence, 16(6), 17. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/204610635?accountid=458

| Employees in geographically dispersed locations can work together in virtual teams using video, e-mail, and the Internet.

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

Hertel, Guido, Susanne Geister, and Udo Konradt. 2005. “Managing virtual teams: A review of current empirical research.” Human Resource Management Review 15 (1): 69-95. doi: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2005.01.002.

Having played a variety of team sports throughout my life, I saw a lot of parallels throughout the class work on team building between positive teamwork and success. Reading Five Dysfunctions of a Team and then applying what we learned from the reading into several team building exercise gave me a unique perspective on how to create and identify key team building skills.

When analyzing the case, we decided that there are many areas that should be explained better and need additional training in order to have an influence on the team members. The first step in the training process that we decided on would be implementing a reward system that would incentivize the members so that they will not have the feeling that it is not in their job description. They should informed that the team process is part of their job and that they will each be held accountable for performance. Management also should set up team building exercises for each team. The teams do

As it is being stated earlier that this paper will be discussing about team development and it will then explain the theories of teamwork and team development. Team development is defined as the improvement of the efficacy of working in teams or groups by advancing goal progressions (Eyre, 2015). Bruce Tuckman firstly identified the four stages of team development in the mid 60s (Eyre, 2015). These stages are; Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. In the 1970s Dr Bruce Tuckman added the fifth stage, which is Adjourning (Businessballs.com, 2015). Dr Bruce also mentioned that this theory is a helpful and beneficial description of team development (Businessballs.com, 2015).

“Team building is an investment in the “people” resource of an organization. Important to any investment decision is an assessment of how effective are the outcomes in relation to the money and time spent. So it is vital to measure effectiveness, and this can be done through the use of case studies and questionnaires. Team development should not disguise the fact that a team contains individuals. Rather, it should highlight that it is individualism that provides a team with tremendous amounts of power, and should help to develop the individuals to improve their contribution to the team.”

Teambuilding videos are easy to find on the internet. There are numerous different techniques and opinions on training and teambuilding throughout the web. I found three videos to be the most interesting and will explain the different ideas throughout this paper.

Team building is not something new. However, the ways that it is done today more often than not does not achieve its goals. The reasons for this are

Beaudin, J. A., & Free, L. (1999, August). Building Teamwork. American School & University , 71 (12), p. 101.

First, it is very challenging to build trust within virtual teams. It is very hard for you to trust people who you do not know well or those whom you have not observed working over time. Secondly, in virtual teams, it is difficult to obtain group-process gains (positive synergy) that many times accompany face-to-face communication. Process losses (negative synergy) are more likely. It is difficult to create team synergy and to overcome the absence of informal, interactive learning. Thirdly, there is a feeling of isolation and detachment associated with the virtual teamwork. There is no physical interaction which is associated with verbal and non-verbal ques and thus, there is absence of social interaction with supervisors and coworkers. Virtual team members may be less productive and satisfied than their counterparts working face-to-face due to feeling of isolation and detachment. Fourthly, it is tricky to balance technical and interpersonal skills among the virtual members. There is a challenge for a virtual teal leader to recruit, select and retain team members who have a good balance of technical and

This manual is intended as a reference for projects managers managing projects in a virtual team environment. Our company is moving towards a virtual organization setup. Current project managers who operate in traditional project management environment setup should be trained in aspects related to managing projects planned for execution in virtual environments. Projects that operate in a virtual team environment face

Today’s leaders face many challenges in the creation of a high-performing team. Effective leaders are able to assemble a high-performance team with good hierarchical balance, measurable and attainable goals, and appropriate communication expectations across the team. They promptly address conflict resolutions and break down all physical barriers in managing multi-city offices and dispersed employees. By paying close attention to team demographics and diversity, good leaders will establish a solid group foundation which will result in a high-performance team.

The science of team building is an art. The uncontrollable variables are people. Just putting a group of talented individuals together for the sole purpose of goal achievement can be met with disastrous results. It can leave individuals left feeling unfulfilled and lead to costly mistakes in the long run. While team building can be considered an art, there are some methods and approaches that can assist with successful builds. While no approach is full proof, taking time to acclimate oneself with human