INTRODUCTION
TRUST
Challenge
The most important prerequisite for rapid trust is that the short-term time pressure of the team's project will hinder the ability of team members to socialize and learn about each other's behaviors, abilities, and goals. This is similar to the transfer process, where members import positive expectations about trust from other settings they are familiar with and categorically impose them on team members.
Solution
The victim acknowledges forgiveness and specifies "unreasonable" acts of restitution and/or trust to be fulfilled by the offender. The victim acknowledges forgiveness and specifies "reasonable" acts of restitution and/or trust to be observed by the offender.
TELEPRESENCE
Challenge
Solution
Teleconferencing (video and web conferencing), which combines different means and modes of communication, offers several opportunities to replace face-to-face meetings. The four levels of real-time desktop conferencing progress from simple and inexpensive to expensive with full data, audio, and video exchange capabilities (Dutta-Roy 1998, 49).
Virtual reality potentially offers a simulated world defined by computer-mediated sensory input involving visual images, sounds, smells, and possibly tactile stimulation. Usually virtual reality offers only an abstract replacement of reality, for example a tour of a city or museum, but sometimes and increasingly often it is a real working environment that provides the opportunity to carry out a joint assignment.
TEAM DEVELOPMENT
- Challenge
- Solution
- References
- Appendix for team development
Team members define their individual contributions to the team and begin to interact as a group to develop the team's charter and work plans. The team addresses issues regarding the allocation of resources and power that arise from the team's activities or from specific approaches to problems. This stage can be contentious if the team contains members from many different interest groups.
The team members are familiar with how different solutions affect power allocation to different functions, sites and countries. It has been said that there are two periods of predictable turbulence: the launch moment for teams, and the testing period for the team's work. Lack of clarity about goals, tasks and leadership disturbs the team in the performance phase.
SUCCESS FACTORS FOR CO-WORKING
Challenge
Solution
Consider the aspects above when building the virtual arrangement. 1) Using MS Netmeeting at Boeing.
TEAM BUILDING
Challenge
Solution
A project plan is one of the official documents issued by, for example, a product development team. The plan is updated in face-to-face and virtual meetings as the project progresses. Meetings are necessary, especially if the project has sub-teams, then the content of the contract is taken under closer control.
The contract is concluded, for example, regarding decision-making and meeting management procedures, e.g. on the number of personal meetings. The draft is based on the final goal of the project or group as determined by the steering group. At the meetings and before the deadline of the next milestone, especially if the project has sub-teams, the content of the contract will be taken under closer control.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM MULTI-SITE PROJECTS
- Challenge
- Solutions
- References
- Appendix
The virtual team must be visible, and the members must know the common goals, roles and responsibilities (see the module 'Kick-off meeting'). In the context of virtual teams, there are several leadership responsibilities given to all members of a virtual team. Each virtual team member should be responsible for establishing and maintaining his or her own personal relationships.
Collaboration between people from locations in distributed, virtual organizations - A qualitative case study in some Nokia Networks product lines. For example, the success of collaboration in a distributed, multi-location environment could be estimated by measuring the common identity and cohesion of the virtual team, the effectiveness of collaboration, the smoothness of communication, and the given importance of collaboration (prioritization, support). It is also necessary to distinguish between different types of virtual teams, and to pay attention to the dilemma between autonomous knowledge workers and the dependence on individuals in a distributed, virtual organization.
THE ROLE OF KICK-OFF MEETINGS FOR VIRTUAL TEAMS
Challenge
Solution
Train team members in the methods and software needed to work together, such as problem solving, database management, and project planning. Plan and organize a kick-off meeting together with the sponsor, team leader, facilitator and team members. The team sponsor also has a big role to play in the formation of a new team.
It is the sponsor's responsibility to ensure that the team can see the connection between their own efforts and the organisation's strategic goals. During this meeting, you develop a clear direction and plan for what the team intends to do and how it will achieve its goals. This creates the "same tone" for the team and allows for individual decision making and action to move the team forward appropriately.
FACE-TO-FACE MEETINGS
Challenge
Solution
Many virtual team leaders prefer to have face-to-face performance reviews with team members. When resolving conflicts within the team and between the team and other parties, face-to-face interaction is recommended. When few face-to-face meetings are possible, it is necessary to consider their timing and protocol with extra care.
Due to differences in shared experiences, personal and cultural background, type of project, etc., there is no single strategy for using face-to-face meetings for the best possible outcome. It may not be the best strategy to always commit resources to face-to-face meetings in the initial phase of the project. Then there may be stronger needs, bases, and more expected outcomes for face-to-face meetings.
Potential problems due to virtual distance can be considered and mentioned to prepare for their later significance. Milepost meeting is necessary because virtual team members are difficult to keep focused and coordinated. In addition to reviewing milestone results, mid-project reviews also provide a forum for addressing current or potential issues.
Closing or celebration meetings at the end of the project or team life cycle are important from the point of view of future projects.
AWARENESS
Challenge
Informal awareness of a work community is the general sense of who is around and what they are up to: the kinds of things people know when they work together in the same office. CSCW researchers have attempted to bring this sense of social presence to distributed groups through the use of media spaces. Media rooms use long-term links that continuously show video or snapshots of offices and common areas at a remote location.
Social awareness is the information that a person maintains about others in a social or conversational context: things like whether another person is paying attention, their emotional state, or their level of interest. When interaction takes place in a workspace, it becomes highly relevant to maintain knowledge about others' interaction with the space and its artifacts. Some workspace awareness features are implemented in tools that allow for collaborative writing or drawing, e.g. MS Netmeeting.
Solutions
Group structural awareness includes knowledge of things such as people's roles and responsibilities, their positions on an issue, their status, and group processes. Research has looked at support for boardrooms, group decision-making, representation of arguments and positions, floor control and clear roles. For example, common background - can encourage the development of casual and potential dialogues and the easier creation of common understanding.
In a virtual environment, it is essential that a person is active in communication, i.e. visible to others all the time. At the beginning of the project, it is essential to familiarize ourselves with the responsibilities of others and build the so-called "quick trust". It is normal to sometimes support the telephone conversation with e-mails or to exchange video conferences and telephone conversations.
COLLABORATION TOOLS
- Challenge
- Solution
- References
- Appendix
MS_Netmeeting and telephones can be used to edit documents and plans together synchronously. Videoconferencing systems (e.g. PictureTel) can be used for synchronous planning of joint tasks and decision-making. For asynchronous coordination, a joint team or project calendars, project plans and project documents on the intranet can be used.
Personal information (eg photos, biographies) in web and individual presentations in video conferences can be used to develop trust and rapport. The choice of ways and tools for communication and interaction depends on the degree of two dimensions of virtual work: space (same place – dispersed) and time (synchronous – asynchronous). The collaborative support technology should thus facilitate communication and interaction and individual or group access to information and knowledge base for codified knowledge in organizational memories.
PHYSICAL SPACE FOR VIRTUAL TEAM MEMBERS
Challenge
Solutions
Although the division of labor is not directly a matter of physical arrangements, it has an important connection with it. Since a virtual team member's work activities are focused on remote collaboration, his role may become invisible at the local site and his workload may also be invisible. If this workload is neglected, there is a risk of overloading virtual team members with local activities and responsibilities or interfering with their virtual team schedules.
Interaction between the local site and the virtual team management is necessary to address this potential problem. Access to internal support services should be as easy and functional as for all local staff. The ability to give and receive feedback from local sites is important, as this is typically at risk for virtual teams.
Feeling of togetherness and togetherness is a matter of well-being and a necessary condition for trust and smooth cooperation.
NEW ROLE OF VIRTUAL TEAM LEADER, A WEAVER
Challenge
Solution
DESCRIBING A VIRTUAL TEAM
- Challenge
- Solution
- References
- Appendix
It is easy to characterize the types of virtual teams using the same categories as traditional teams, but they can be much more complex. Existence of trust, identification, cohesion and commitment in virtual teams and what they are based on. We need to understand the effective leadership styles and contrast virtual teams with and without initial face-to-face contact.
How do these tools and artifacts really support virtual organizations and what is their usefulness? What are the necessary conditions for virtual teams to learn dynamically and participate in team processes that allow the teams to refocus their activities midway or at a similar logical point in their lives. What types of change models are needed to help managers transform hierarchical organizations into virtual organizations?
TASKS, ROLES, AND COMPETENCES IN VIRTUAL TEAMS
Challenge
Solution
Virtual team members must have six key competencies (see list below) in addition to traditional team competencies that ensure success in collaboration and coordination and in autonomous roles: see the knowledge, skills and experience of team members needed in different competencies below).
