Managing Virtual Teams

Part of being a manager for a company is managing teams. These teams can be created for many different reasons and can have various goals put upon them. Companies want managers that are capable of constructing teams that can effectively meet goals and set standards. The four types of work teams most commonly found in organizations are: problem-solving, self-managed, cross-functional, and virtual. In completing the simulation for this course, I will use cross-functional work teams as a foundation for my investigation of effective team management.

| 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.

Virtual Team on the other hand is a group of people working across time, space, and organizational boundaries which communication links are strengthened by the internet. It should be noted that virtual teams can also mean individuals spread across different cultures and languages. (“Virtual Team - Origin, Definition and its Scope,” 2016). More so, this team of geographically dispersed professionals working together as a unit despite distance are committed to achieving a single objective, holding one another mutually accountable.

Robert Jones, Robert Oyung, and Lise Pace, authors of Working Virtually: Challenges of Virtual Teams (2005) state:

As a 69-year-old company, Lowe’s has a well-established organizational culture that long pre-dates the concept of virtual teams. As such, the company still has embedded in its culture certain concepts that impede its ability to be truly effective in the virtual team collaboration space. One such concept is the idea that decisions are made in meetings and not by individuals or through ad-hoc consensus. This notion generates obstacles to fast and effective decision-making, since it requires the coming together of global workers in a single meeting. That by itself creates logistical challenges due to time differences. Lowe’s can benefit from encouraging and supporting decision-making practices that utilize the knowledge and experience of

Ebrahim, A., Shamsuddin, A. & Taha, Z. (2009). Virtual Teams: A Literature Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Science, 3(3), 2653-2669.

The success or failure of virtual team collaboration in organizations is often reflected in the philosophies and support of its executives. For example, when company executives demonstrate collaborative behaviors and create collaborative environments where social interactions thrive, virtual team collaboration also thrives. Executives achieve this by establishing, encouraging, and maintaining strong social interactions throughout the organization. These practices are often tailored to the unique culture of the organization and are effective because of its unique signature or fit to the organization. By investing in signature relationship practices, executives can encourage collaboration across the organization (Gratton & Erickson, 2007).

During the last decade, organizations have been working more with technology making it their master. Technology is not only about new equipment; it is mostly about new ideas and techniques used. Virtual team is a new approach used today. Virtual groups or teams have been used from parent to keep contact with teacher to corporations to create new international business relationships. How far can virtual team be more efficient than face to face relationships? Society incorporates this method to different activities not only at work, so virtual team seems more beneficial these days. If we are going to incorporate virtual teams to our system, we have to know its advantages and disadvantages, and how it can affect our organization.

As a virtual team we are facing additional difficulties. According to Dyer, Dyer & Dyer special difficulties presented by virtual teams

Virtual teams are teams that work using the internet to communicate, using Skype for example. They are never in the same room to discuss issues.

One of the fastest-growing, high-tech office trends today is ‘virtual teams’. These teams cross time, space, and cultural boundaries and do so effectively with the use of technology.

Because your virtual team members don’t work in the same location, they may not communicate and collaborate as much as they need to.

A virtual group is a gathering of people who work crosswise over time, space and authoritative limits with connections reinforced by networks of correspondence innovation.