...Creating A High Performing Virtual Team March 28, 2015 Northeastern University Creating A High Performing Virtual Team Abstract Project teams have changed from being collocated to being diverse, globally located teams of highly skilled, individuals. Virtual teams are generally brought together quickly to complete a project in the shortest time frame within a budget and schedule. The challenge for organizations is to create a high performing virtual team, which takes time to achieve. This paper outlines characteristics and qualities of individuals who comprise a high performing virtual team. The team building approach is laid out and the levels that a team and it’s leader progress through to becoming a high performing virtual team. Introduction Globalization has lead to organizations changing from project managers of collocated teams to project leaders of virtual teams. In addition to having the necessary skills and experience, the people who comprise a virtual team bring unique characteristics and qualities to build a strong team. Building a virtual team takes analyzing every aspect of the project including the people who will work on the project. The team leader is not just managing a project, but leading and coaching highly effective people to produce at their highest level and meet the project objectives. Areas of Concern for Creating a Virtual Team Dr. Ginger Levin (2009), found that the following areas are important to building a high performing virtual...
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...Unit5 - Individual Project Plan to Create Self-Directed, High-Performing Teams Dwayne A. Waller Building Teams and Resolving Conflict – MGMT340 AIU Online Abstract It's inevitable that there will be managers that struggle when building a team or just managing a team in general. However, it is the responsibility of the company to provide the tools and resources for the managers to become successful. A recent team meeting was held to identify why some of the managers were struggling and what plan could be put into place to allow them to become successful. The plan will incorporate the use of the Tuckman Model and the understanding of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team for team building purposes. This paper will also detail the characteristics of a successful manager and will outline a plan to assist the struggling managers, primarily in the area of negotiation and resolution conflict skills. In order to create high-performing teams, you have to understand the managers that you have in place and provide them the necessary training and tools to be successful. This information is an asset in being able to identify the successful characteristics of establishing self-directed, high-performing teams. In addition, it will help you understand why some managers struggle, while other managers are able to consistently exceed expectations. The paper will detail information discussed in the manager’s meeting and provide recommendations for success. The meeting started off...
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...developing high performing teams. The development of high performing teams can be involved within the workforce or within a team sport. What is a Team? A team is a group of individuals with complementary skills who depend upon one another to accomplish a common purpose or set of performance goals for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. What is Team work? Teamwork is work done when the members subordinate their personal prominence for the good of the team. Hoosiers (1986 film) is a classic tale of redemption, team development, and team building. A classic tale of redemption, based on the true story of a small-town Indiana team that made the state finals in 1954, the film features a volatile coach and a former star player-turned alcoholic leading a small-town basketball team on an improbable run to the Indiana high school championship game. Coach Norman Dale encounters several hurdles in his path; a feisty teacher determined to keep the best player from going out for the team, a town chock full of second-guessing fathers, and a group of undisciplined athletes. The small town basketball team just needed a second chance to finish first and that was exactly what they did. The team and coach Norman Dale was able to demonstrate the communication, cooperation and cohesiveness of units to make them more productive and effective, great examples of team building and team development. Team Development 3 Main Body Having a team of technically...
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...Abstract Self-directed teams are groups of individuals who work together without typical managerial supervision. These types of teams are an asset to companies because they by nature do not rely on direct administration to accomplish tasks. For an organization to establish self-directed teams, they need to understand the difficulties in in creating self-directed teams, be able to identify the characteristics of these teams, encourage the success of self-directed groups, and have a plan to assist struggling teams and managers. Self-directed teams are a way to maximize the human resources of a company by reducing the workload of managers and by increasing the personal responsibility and accountability of employees. Self-directed teams are autonomous work groups that solve problems, implement solutions, and take full responsibility for outcomes (BOMI). Establishing this type of work team is crucial to the success of an organization. These teams function without direct supervision, thus leaving managers free to focus on other tasks. Sometimes managers struggle with implementing these teams. A few difficulties a manager may encounter when working to create self-directed teams are a lack of trust among team members, uncooperative members, lack of team training, vague goals, an absence of corporate support for teams, or hostile corporate atmosphere (individually competitive or manager-controlled). The corporate atmosphere is the first thing that must be addressed. If the...
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...Avenues of High Performing Teams Tami Durling MGMT340-1501B-02 -5th IP Abstract High Performing Teams help organizations to succeed with their goals, short, and long term plans. Internal and external High Performing teams organize the company within a moral, virtue, innovative, positive, and kind atmosphere (Institutionalism). The culture of the business takes on a highly driven positive behavior of conflict and resolution. With these teams there is perseverance and healthy compromise to get the task at hand finished, and its everybody’s responsibility. The stress and responsibility of getting the job done is on the shoulders of the team as a whole not just one person. High Performing Teams organizational management has no chain of command, however the team is considered one unit. Avenues of High Performing Teams Difficulties managers are having establishing self-directed High Performing Teams.- Global information technologies pertaining to being proficient in computer hardware and software is a must in the twentieth century. Everyone is connected globally throughout every nation through the Internet. Businesses market and hire all over the world to trade, service, and sell to different cultures around the world. It is important to know how to video conference, email, research credible sites, and operate applications such as excel and Microsoft word. High Performance functioning teams need to be equipped with virtual teams and e-leadership...
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...Leading high-performance teams The team working is an important concept of the society wherein few people work together towards a common goal. In American culture, working in teams often considered contrary. Marvin Weisbord, author and organizational development expert, mentioned that, “Teamwork is the quintessential contradiction of a society grounded in individual achievement.” Still building, leading and organizing successful teams considered as a critical leadership task. It is always challenging to have people work together closely to achieve specific tasks in any team environment. The team is “a group of individuals who work together to produce products or deliver services for which they are mutually accountable.” -- Mohrman et al. The team is “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” -- Katzenbach and Smith The team is “two or more people who must coordinate their activities to accomplish a common goal.” -- Shonk High Performance Teams are always working collaboratively and effectively across the organization to accomplish given team tasks and objectives, delivers the competitive results quickly enough to remain as top performers. There are challenges such as team conflicts, obtaining maximum results from the teams and managing highly diverse teams – maintaining teamwork mentality as well capitalizing on the diversity of talents...
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...What is a High Performance Team? A high performance team, simply put, is an efficient, high-output team. These teams require a significant amount of time and development to achieve high performance results. It is not enough to only hire team members that are good at their jobs, but they also need to have personality traits that complement the other group members. When formed correctly and in higher concentrations, high performance teams within an organization can result in a high performance organization as a whole. Figure 1 - Lao Tzu Quote Another key to high performance teams is that all team members must invest in the success of the team. If only one team member is focused on getting ahead at the expense of unethical behavior (such as taking another team member’s credit or lying about an incident), the trust of the team can easily be breached. Without trust between all of the team members, the team will never operate at its highest performance. How to Build High-Performance Teams (Weiss, 1991) states that, “High-performance teams operate in an atmosphere of mutual respect (reciprocity) in which team members identify with each other and with the team as a whole.” To sum up the AMA’s approach on high performance teams, teams that are empowered and hold each other accountable are the teams that perform the highest. Figure 2 - Logo, Denver Broncos How are High Performance Teams Created? A well known theory of team building is Tuckman’s group developmental...
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...How are High Performance Teams Created? A well known theory of team building is Tuckman’s group developmental model. In this model, there are four stages of team development: • Forming – The initial stage of team development where team members meet each other or a newly hired employee. This phase is characterized by the new team member wanting to be accepted into the group. • Storming – An often times contentious phase where team members’ ideas vie for adoption. This phase determines each team member’s pecking order in the group. • Norming – Some teams never make it to this phase. In Norming, the team members learn to work with each other and the competition between the team members begins to subside. • Performing – When the team finally begins to appreciate each other’s input and truly help each other towards a common goal, the team is now in the Performing phase. The quality of work continues to continuously increase to higher levels. This model demonstrates the phases in basic team building. So what is the difference between a team that reached the performing phase and a high performing team? Teams in the performing phase are characterized by synergy, that is, the team operates at a higher level than the sum of the individual contributors. In a high performance team, a high level synergy is present that is a result of a truly collaborative environment where the team is able to share and refine each other’s ideas without ego or trust issues hurting the process...
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...High Performance Teams Waseem AL Rousan J3 M2 Assessment1 30675904 Waseem Al Rousan High Performance Teams Content J3 M2 Assessment1 30675904 Waseem Al Rousan Contents Introduction: ................................................................................................................................................. 2 What is a group ............................................................................................................................................. 2 Team Development Stages: Group Formation Theory (Tuckman’s 4/5 Stage Model) ................................. 3 Group performance theories ........................................................................................................................ 3 The T7 Model of Team Effectiveness ........................................................................................................ 3 Rubin, Plovnick, and Fry Model—The GRPI Model of Team Effectiveness .............................................. 4 Katzenbach and Smith Model—Focusing on Team Basics........................................................................ 6 High performing team case study/Umniah’s IT Infrastructure team ........................................................... 6 Team Performance Measurement and Management .............................................................................. 8 Team Behaviors and Values ...........................................................................
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...Introduction Research carried out on 48 virtual teams that had different effectiveness depicted that there were five characteristics and practices that distinguished between the highest and lowest performing virtual teams. These differentiators include; commitment and engagement, collaboration, information flow, shared decision making processes and trust. Below I will discuss four of the differentiators. Differentiator 1: Commitment and Engagement From the research, it shows that high performance virtual teams as being proactive, engaged and very initiative. They have a score of around 3.6 from a possible 4 points as compared to their counterparts that have a score of 3.06. These top performing teams always tend to go above and beyond so as to make sure they achieve their successes. Another reason for success would be the use of team leaders who help to motivate the others members and hence play a role in commitment and motivation. Most of the top performing teams had members that would take on leadership responsibilities and hence reduce the leader’s burden, but the low performing teams would not do so. It is crucial for virtual team members to help in sharing the official leader’s responsibilities this is because it means that they can work under less supervision and hence will be very effective in carrying out their other responsibilities than those members who cannot share the leader’s responsibilities. Teams that coordinate their day to day activities to the...
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...Day Two: Stages of Team Development (Troop Presentation) Time Allowed 50 minutes Learning Objectives As a result of this activity, participants will • Develop the ability to recognize the stage of development associated with a team. • Understand the characteristics of each of the four stages of team development. • Understand the concepts of productivity and morale and how they relate to the four stages of team development. Materials Needed • Overhead projector and transparencies or posters illustrating the team development graphical models • “Stages of Team Development” handout (a copy for each participant) • Key points of the session, presented as PowerPoint slides, overhead projections, or flip-chart pages • A hat and a set of patrol medallions Recommended Facility Layout Troop meeting area Delivery Method Presentation and discussion References • National Youth Leadership Training, Boy Scouts of America, 2005. • K. Blanchard, D. Carew, and E. Parisi-Carew, The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams, Morrow, 2000. • P. Hersey, K. Blanchard, and D. Johnson, Management of Organizational Behaviot?, Prentice Hall, 1996. Note to presenters:Thorough preparation is essential...
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...Tuckman’s Team Development Model • Achieve effective and satisfying results • Members find solutions to problems using appropriate controls TASKS PERFORMING • Members work collaboratively • Members care about each other • Members agree about roles and processes for problem solving • The group establishes a unique identity • Members are interdependent NORMING • Identifying power and control issues • Gaining skills in communication • Decisions are made through negotiation and consensus building • Identifying resources STORMING • Establish base level expectations • Identify similarities • Agreeing on common goals FORMING • Expressing differences of ideas, feelings, and opinions • Reacting to leadership • Members independent or counterdependent BEHAVIORS • Making contact and bonding • Developing trust • Members dependent • Each step builds on the previous one. • Each step prepares for the performing stage. • Skipping any step effect performing negatively. • With every new challenge, the process repeats Stages of Team Development Stage 1: “Forming” Stage 2: “Storming” Stage 3: “Norming” Stage 4: “Performing” • Individuals are not clear on what they’re supposed to do. • The mission isn’t owned by the group. • Wondering where we’re going. • No trust yet. • High learning. • No group history; unfamiliar with group members. • Norms of the team are not established. • People check one...
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...Leading High Performance Teams – Larry Allen For our organization to become and remain successful, our teams must perform at a high level. We are committed to empowering and equipping our teams to successful, to become high performing teams. This approach is outlined well by Howard M. Guttman, in his article in CEO Magazine, Leading High-Performance Teams – “Horizontal, high performance teams with real decision-making clout and accountability for results can transform a company” (Guttman, 2008). Individuals perform better when they a part of a high performing team, and high-performing teams make successful organizations. Our organization’s application of Guttman’s concept of horizontal teams, are staff functioning not as hierarchical groups, but organic cross-functional, high-performance teams. As a new manager, you are leader not of only those that report to you, but you are a though leader. Think of yourself as a leader who happens to have people reporting to you, because that is exactly what your new role entails. Your first few days as a new manager can be a little intimidating, but be assured you’re not alone. Perhaps you can recall your first few days of high school. Those beginning days were likely not very productive. Most of your time, energy, and focus was probably spent figuring where your locker was, how to get to class, and not doing something to embarrass yourself. Likewise, the early days of leading your new team can be equally unproductive as team members...
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...this essay is to explore high performing work team by analyzing a survey or questionnaire provided by Professor Dr. Nicholas J. Scalzo in Week 3 from the class of Managing Virtual and Global Teams (HRMD/665). High performing work team is important because it operates in an atmosphere of mutual respect in which team members identify with each other and with the team as a whole. According to Moldjord, and Iversen, (2015), high performance teams have members whose skills, attitudes and competencies enable them to achieve team goals, make tough decisions, communicate under stress, manage conflict, and solve challenging task. By the end of this essay, it will be determined if this survey or questionnaire is sufficient to measure a high performing work team and if it can be utilized as such. High Performing Work Team Team performance is what contributes to a team success of failure. According to Thompson (2014), team performance analysis consists of productivity, cohesion, learning, and integration. This analysis identifies the factors on how team performance effectiveness should be evaluated. Productivity measure whether the team achieve their goals. It requires the team to have a clear goal and adapt accordingly as new information arrives, if the goals changes, and if the organizational priorities has shifted. Productivity is what evaluates the team’s output meets the standards of those who have to use it. It is imperative that each members of the team accept the identified goals...
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...Knowledge Management and Information Systems Strategy Table of Contents Knowledge Management and Information Systems Strategy 1 Executive Summary: 3 Three distinctive characteristics of Toyota approach to knowledge management 3 Learn local: 3 Act global, Learn local: 3 Learn local, act global: 4 British Petroleum (BP’s) approach to KM: 4 Business objectives of British Petroleum to KMS: 4 Developing better ideas: 4 Organization wide best practice: 4 Greater collaboration among entities: 5 Generating new ways: 5 Reduces cost: 5 Challenges of KMS implementation in BP: 5 Transferring best practice: 5 Train modest performing teams: 6 Management tools to avoid failure of KMS in BP: 6 Build a Case for Change Management: 6 Visionary Leadership: 6 Communication: 6 Time: 7 Deploy agents: 7 Proper performance measures: 7 Culture changes: 7 Social media in reconsidering the previous KM approach: 7 Socialization: from tacit to tacit: 7 Externalization: from tacit to explicit 8 Combination: from explicit to explicit 8 Internalization: from explicit to tacit 8 Conclusion: 8 References: 8 Executive Summary: Knowledge management is a multi-disciplined process of creation, developing, improving and disseminating the knowledge in the organization (Unc.edu, 2014). Toyota is one of the largest car manufacturing companies around the world. It produces car not only in its originated country but also different countries around the world. To be competent, Toyota puts much...
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