Managing performance barriers in virtual teams

textTechnological developments and the modern economy have changed the way teams operate. Most professionals today are mobile and equipped with everything they need to work from anywhere at any time, including blackberries, laptop computers, email, video conferencing and other personal productivity devices. Doing work this way, allows for a wide range of benefits such as flexibility, diversity and an increase in productivity. However, these virtual teams require specific conditions to help them reach their full potential. This paper will identify the four major characteristics of virtual teams (geographic dispersion, electronic dependence, dynamic structure and national diversity) and use a model of virtual team effectiveness to examine the three team processes (transactive memory, work engagement and collective efficacy) that are most strongly affected by these characteristics. It will further suggest ways in which leadership can help to overcome these process losses through the establishment of trust, psychological safety and conflict management.Engineering Managemen

Team Performance and Project Success

Project Teamwork is a worthy objective aimed at accomplishing high level cooperation, productivity and success but often times this is not so. The level of performance applied towards a project work has a direct impact on the project success or failure. Teams are the basic structure of how project activities and tasks are being organized and managed within companies and organizations. Therefore, the success or the failure of a project depends largely on the overall performance of the teams assigned to the project. This increased attention towards teams has forced many organizations to focus on improving the overall performance of the global nature of businesses and projects. The question then is - How do we get a team to play well together at maximum effectiveness that would deliver success, given a wide range of factors which tends to affect individual team members; factors like – Individual differences resulting from cultural values, beliefs, norms and work practices. Organizational culture Leadership style Emotional Intelligence. This study has two main objectives - first.is to examine the vast literature on Team Performance with the view to uncover the factors that enable optimal team performance. And second. is to use a survey tool to determine which of these factors are more responsive in driving higher frequency of team performance that produces repetitive project success

Enhancing Quality Assurance using Virtual Design Engineering: Case Study of Space Shuttle Challenger

Virtual Design Engineering is an emerging method of increasing quality of systems. Including Virtual Design as a part of the traditional established Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis process greatly enhances hazard and risk analysis while reducing overall costs. In this study these enhancements are explored and expanded upon to discover how overall system quality could be increased and all stakeholders could more accurately understand the hazards involved. Stakeholder misunderstanding or misapplication of hazards is of great importance to complex systems. An illustrative example of how these factors could have changed the outcome of a real-world engineering failure is provided

Informal Control in Open Source Project: An Empirical Assessment

Control of open source projects is problematic because of the very nature and ideology of the open source paradigm. In contrast to commercial software projects, there are no formal control mechanisms in place and participation is generally voluntary in open source projects. However, despite this apparent lack of control of the project, open source software development has become a viable and cost effective way of developing high quality software. This paper reports on a quantitative study which tested the impact of informal control on the effectiveness of the core group of software developers in open source projects. The findings indicate that clan control and self control impact positively on the various dimensions of the group effectiveness of the core group of software developers in open source projects

Extending the Classroom through Second Life

Second Life is a three-dimensional (3D) electronic environment where members can socialize, hold virtual meetings, or conduct economic transactions. Utilizing virtual environments like Second Life is believed to provide educators with a new medium for teaching and information dissemination that bypasses the normal boundaries associated with traditional online and face-to-face interactions. This unique platform not only provides educators with traditional online teaching conventions but also allows for simulated social interactions, which are essential to student-teacher relations in the classroom. This paper presents a series of field trials and focuses on one recent case study of the integration of Second Life into an introductory computer course. The benefits, lessons learned and effective practices of integrating the technology are provided. The case study findings are supplemented with results from student surveys. The study found that the integration of Second Life activities improved students’ learning experience. Furthermore, students participated in the Second Life activities in the case study showed higher learning motivation and better performance. Limitations of this study and future research directions are also provided

“Choice of Service, Choice of Cost”- A Transformational Change Program in IT - The Case of a Global Consumer Products Company: Case Study

This paper presents a framework for development of a transformational change management program (Flamholtz and Randle, 2008) in an information technology (IT) organization of a global Fortune 200 consumer products company. The goal of the transformation was to build leading edge global IT service offerings, to internal and ultimately external customers. The program played a pivotal role in the company’s Path to Growth Strategy. This strategy included very specific targets for sales, margins and earnings growth over a five-year period. The case illustrates how a well conceived change program, integrated with an organization’s overall strategic plan, is a competitive advantage

Conceptualizing technology influence on job characteristics and work outcomes of instructors in institutions of higher learning

This article conceptualized the framework of the possible impact of using different levels of technology on the roles and responsibilities of instructors in institutions of higher learning. Based on the literature reviewed, there is an indication that employees who use different types of technology in performing their tasks experience different degree of job attributes. This resulted in different levels of personal and work outcomes. This paper aims to examine any similar relationships among instructors who use different levels of instructional technology by employing Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) JDS instrument to measure core job characteristics and work outcomes. A conceptual framework and several propositions speculating the relationships between levels of technology, job characteristics and work outcome were forwarded

A Transformational Change Program in IT - The Case of a Global Consumer Products Company

This paper presents a framework for development of a transformational change management program (Flamholtz and Randle, 2008) in an information technology (IT) organization of a global Fortune 200 consumer products company. The goal of the transformation was to build leading edge global IT service offerings, to internal and ultimately external customers. the program played a pivotal role in the company\u27s Path to Growth Strategy. This strategy included very specific targets for sales, margins and earnings growth over a five year period. The case illustrates how a well conceived change program, integrated with an organization\u27s overall strategic plan, is a competitive advantage

E-profiles, Conflict, and Shared Understanding in Distributed Teams

In this research, we examine the efficacy of a technological intervention in shaping distributed team members’ perceptions about their teammates. We argue that, by exposing distributed team members to electronic profiles (e-profiles) with information emphasizing their personal similarities with one another, distributed teams should experience lower levels of relational and task conflict. In turn, reductions in conflict should facilitate a shared understanding among team members, which should increase their team effectiveness. The results of a laboratory experiment of 46 distributed teams generally support these assertions. Specifically, we found that a simple, technological intervention can reduce task conflict in distributed teams, which, in turn, improves shared understanding and team effectiveness. We also uncovered important differences in the antecedents and impacts of relational and task conflict. Although we found that the e-profile intervention was effective in accounting for variance in task conflict (R2 = .41), it was quite poor in accounting for variance in relational conflict (R2 = .04). The model accounts for 33% and 43% of the variance in shared understanding and team effectiveness, respectively. Taken together, the results of this research suggest that the information shared about team members in distributed team settings has important implications for their ability to collaborate, achieve a common understanding of their work, and accomplish their task effectively. We suggest that e-profiles may be a useful intervention for management to enhance effectiveness in distributed teams

Examining the Difference Between Asynchronous and Synchronous Training

For my project, we chose to do a thesis so that it would better help me out in the future in the case I wanted to get my PhD. My thesis so far has been to develop software that will help POD sites better be able to train their volunteers in the case of an emergency. We have already collected some data for our research from a test POD site that was constructed. We took data on the amount of time it took each volunteer to get an individual actor through the line depending on whether they learned via teacher or by my software. The data helped to prove how beneficial teaching via software could be, due to the fact there wasn’t any missing information, and there was a greater retention rate. Currently I just work at Lowes as a customer service administrator, mostly so I get to interact with customers every day to better understand how to communicate and give the information I would have on my software. The general are that my research has been taken so far is in emergency preparedness, and I would like to continue heading this direction until other opportunities arise