...task of having to effectively and efficiently manage the diverse natures of individuals in their particular workplaces. Managing diversity is planning and implementing organizational systems and practices to manage people so that the potential advantages of diversity are maximized while the potential disadvantages are at a minimum. Having people with different cultural backgrounds can sometimes be as equally important to an organizations success and it is crucial that the right types of leaders with the proper trainings are in place to be able to utilize each individual’s skills and abilities to create a good working environment. In this study, aspects of individual differences including: Heredity factors, abilities and skills, different aspects of individual’s attitudes, and individual personalities and behaviors will be observed to test my theory of why individuals of different diversities are an asset in the workplace. The study objective is intended to determine just how individual differences are an asset in the workplace. The article that influenced my question the most was the article titled “Investigating Cultural Differences in Virtual Software Teams”. This particular articles title actually caught my eye much due to the fact that I work in a similar environment on a software development team. I thought that comparing an actual virtual software team to a traditional in-house software team would be interesting mainly because virtual teams operate under a...
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...MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS A research project submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Business Administration by Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco, California December 11, 2003 Copyright (c) 2003 by Bryan Trautsch. CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT by Bryan Rolf Trautsch, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a research project submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Business Administration degree at San Francisco State University. ________________________________________ Dr. Robert C. Nickerson Professor of Information Systems ________________________________________ Dr. Sam S. Gill Professor of Information Systems ABSTRACT MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco State University Fall 2003 The purpose of the project is to explore the communications and collaborations issues associated with managing virtual project teams. In order to establish a better understanding of the problem, the paper evaluates virtual teams against more traditional collocated teams to provide some background and depth to the research. The method used in the research was in the format of a questionnaire consisting of six questions. The questionnaire was delivered via e-mail to various project managers with virtual project team experience dispersed through...
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...MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS A research project submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Business Administration by Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco, California December 11, 2003 Copyright (c) 2003 by Bryan Trautsch. CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT by Bryan Rolf Trautsch, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a research project submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Business Administration degree at San Francisco State University. ________________________________________ Dr. Robert C. Nickerson Professor of Information Systems ________________________________________ Dr. Sam S. Gill Professor of Information Systems ABSTRACT MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco State University Fall 2003 The purpose of the project is to explore the communications and collaborations issues associated with managing virtual project teams. In order to establish a better understanding of the problem, the paper evaluates virtual teams against more traditional collocated teams to provide some background and depth to the research. The method used in the research was in the format of a questionnaire consisting of six questions. The questionnaire was delivered via e-mail to various project managers with virtual project team experience...
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...breaking!their!flow!of!work!and!inadvertently!stopping!them!from! doing!something!that!actually!adds!value!to!the!company!and!for!what!they’re!paid!for.!Meetings!are! basically!mechanisms!that!managers!use!to!create!these!interruptions.!By!scheduling!meetings! Managers!tend!to!divert!the!attention!of!their!employees!from!the!work!that!they!were!actually! supposed!to!do!for!the!day.!Also!the!added!cost!of!having!many!employees!attending!the!meeting! cumulatively!sums!up!to!be!quite!substantial.!Jason!Fried!suggests!three!solutions!that!could!prevent! such!distractions!from!work.!They!are:! 1)! No!Talk!Thursdays:!Pick!the!first!Thursday!of!every!month!where!no!employee!can!talk!to!each! other.!This!will!prevent!unnecessary!distractions!and!employees!will!be!much!more!productive! in!this!case.! 2)! Replace!Active!Communication!with!Passive!Communication:!Use!of!IM’s!or!emails!instead!of! actual!in!person!communication!with!the!Manager!to!save!on!time!which!can!actually!be!used! for!getting!work!done.! 3)! Cancel!Meetings:!Jason!Fried!finally!adds!that!if!a!meeting!can!be!cancelled,!go!ahead!and!cancel! it.!Especially!Monday!morning!meetings!which!helps!people!clear!their!schedule!for!more! important!tasks!to!complete.! ! Ferrazzi,!Keith!"Getting!Virtual!Teams!Right",!Harvard!Business!Review,!2014!December! !...
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...Issues in Business, Management and Education 2013 Virtual teams: opportunities and challenges for e-leaders Snellman Carita Liliana* a Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Business, Leiritie 1, Vantaa 01600, Finland Abstract In the globalized world with crucial technological changes, leaders are facing unforeseen opportunities as well as challenges while striving to reach their objectives. Such changes have led to organizational restructurings and implied rethinking of leadership functions and practices. Changing organizational structures, from traditional hierarchical towards lower and more flexible ones, have made leaders organize work in new ways. Teams account for one new way of organizing work and reaching organizational goals. Likewise, globalized markets have made leaders search for new solutions to meet the needs of customers. In consequence, organizations strive for competitive advantages through downsizing, subcontracting, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and other collaborative and network-based alternatives which are typically facilitated by virtual teams. Virtual teams are geographically and organizationally dispersed teams that function over time zones. Due to such dispersion, physical contact in virtual teams is reduced or lacking altogether which means that collaboration is enabled by IT-solutions such as computerbased communication. This kind of electronically facilitated team work is known to imply opportunities as well as challenges...
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... Communicating effectively is important for any health care organization. Communication among staff is vital, without communication medical errors may occur and patients may be at risk. In fact, the Joint Commission cites communication failures as the root cause for medication errors, delays in treatment, and wrong-site surgeries. Lack of communication is also the second root cause of operative and post-operative events and fatal falls as cited by the Joint Commission from 1995 to 2004 (O’Daniel and Rosenstein, n.d.). Communication is important not only for the staff but also for the patients within a health care facility. Patients rely on the staff for quality medical care while in any medical facility. This paper will further elaborate on techniques most effective for sharing information and ideas, ineffective techniques, how these techniques are applied or modified in health care environment. In addition, elaborate on how technology can impact this process. The most effective technique for sharing important information is through a team collaboration approach and feedback. For example, I am a caregiver to a young adult female who relies on me for assisting her with eating, showering, and feeding. My client goes to an adult day health center daily so communicating with the workers at the program is important. Providing quality care for my client is important so a team of people or circle of friends for my client has been established. Within this team or circle of friends...
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...Manual for Virtual Teams Table of Contents So, You Want a Virtual Team, Huh? 3 Introduction 3 The Look of a Successful Virtual Team 4 The Leader's Relief 6 Establishing Team Purpose 7 The Virtual Team Start-up Meeting 8 Local vs. Virtual 9 Operating Principles 10 The Culture Thing 11 “The Safety Net" – Coping With Virtuality 12 Become An Effective Leader 12 Staying On Top Of Things 12 The Technical Needs of a Virtual Team 13 Learning and Technology 13 Selecting Technology 13 Examples of Real-Time Tools (Synchronous) 14 Examples of Asynchronous Tools 14 The Virtual Meeting 15 Planning Your Meeting 15 The Virtual Meeting, cont. 16 Facilitation Tips 16 Types of Virtual Meeting Software to Consider 16 Managing Issues In A Virtual Team 17 Conclusions and Closure for a Virtual Team 18 References 19 So, You Want a Virtual Team, Huh? An Instructional Manual for Virtual Teams Introduction John is so excited! He starts his new job on Monday. In his new job, John will take on a team for a Fortune 100 company. His new company is growing fast, and to keep up with the pressure of rapid growth, they have been expanding across the country. John is new to this matrix-type work culture and needs to adjust his style of work and leadership to accommodate. How will he setup technology and infrastructures to support his new team? What techniques can he use to build trust, agreement and purpose with his new team? How will he...
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...developing effective teamwork in organizations 4 4.1. Explain the nature of groups and group behaviour within organisations. 4 A. Definition 4 1. Group and group behavior 4 2. Group norms 7 3. Group decision-making 8 4. Group contribution 10 5. Formal and Informal group 11 6. Advantages and disadvantages of informal organisation 12 B. Apply in LG Electronics: 13 4.2: The factors that may promote or inhibit the development of effective teamwork in organizations 13 A: Definition 13 4.1.1: Inhibit the Group 14 4.1.2: Successful teamwork 16 B: Application for LGE 20 4.3 Evaluate the impact of technology on team functioning within a given organization 22 A: Definition 22 4.3.1 The importance of technology in business 23 4.3.2 The important of technology in team 23 4.3.3. Virtual teams of technology 24 4.3.4 Critical Success Factors of Virtual Teams 26 B: Application 27 CONCLUSION 30 Part III/ The usefulness of motivational theory for managers. 1. Distinction between Maslow’s Theory and Hertzberg’s Theory of motivation | Maslow’s Theory of Motivation | Hertzberg’s Theory of Motivation | Meaning | Maslow’s theory is based on the concept of human needs and their satisfaction. | Hertzberg’s theory is based on the use of motivators which include achievement, recognition and opportunity for growth. | Basis of theory | Maslow’s theory is based on the hierarchy of human needs. He identified five sets of human need (on priority basis) and their satisfaction...
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... Submission Date: TABLE OF CONTENT NO. | TITLE | PAGE NUMBER | 1. | Introduction | 3 | 2. | Question 1 | 4-5 | 3. | Question 2 | 6-8 | 4. | Conclusion | 9 | 5. | References | 10 | Working from Home: It's in the Details By Rachael King on February 12, 2007 Additional Assets The benefits include lower costs and greater productivity, but figuring out how to communicate with off-site employees is crucial. Traffic surrounding Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., has become so congested that Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire nearly missed a 9 a.m. speech at the company's main campus one recent morning. Roads leading to the software maker simply weren't designed to handle the 35,000 commuters who report for work there each day. The gridlock that greeted Gregoire was just the latest reminder that Microsoft needs to tackle its commuter crisis—and quick. So Microsoft (MSFT) has embarked on a program aimed at getting more employees to work from home and other off-site locales, joining the growing ranks of companies to catch the virtual-workplace wave. About 14% of the U.S. workforce gets its job done at a home office more than two days per week, says Charlie Grantham, executive producer of consulting firm Work Design Collaborative. That's up from 11% in 2004, and is set to grow to 17% by 2009 (see BW Online, 03/12/07, "Telecommuting Now and Forever"). Pros and Cons Benefits of letting employees work from outside the office...
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...Team Synergy’s Top Ten Guidelines 1. Choose the right team members. Not all team leader/managers will have this opportunity, but certainly if you do, it’s probably the most critical. As Goodbody (2005) points out, you first objective is to make sure you have all of the knowledge and skills that you need within the team with the fewest number of people. The larger the group, the more complex it becomes to manage. When considering skill sets, you must not only take into account technical expertise but other skills such as organizational understanding and communication. 2. Defining goals/expectations/vision Having a mission is setting the plan, where the team members will be able to work to one goal to accomplish the task. This is the first practice a Manager must consider in order to get to be successfully. Townsend, DeMarie and Hendrickson (1998) said that virtual teams should determine the configuration of individual teams, dictate their mission, and ultimately determine the type of technical system required and the requisite skills and orientation of the team and its members. By setting expectations and goals each team member will have a clear understanding of what the goals are, and are expected of them to achieve and attain those goals. 3. Defined roles/ responsibilities Members of virtual team will be geographically isolated where the team manager will probably not be aware of the other roles and responsibilities that each member has at their respective...
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...Virtual Management: A New Way to Manage Virtual Management: A New Way to Manage Technological innovation has been a driving force in the growth of e-business organizations. The e-organization growth has spawned new leadership methods and business processes aimed at maintaining competitiveness in a changing global economy. One business model attributed to the technical revolution is virtual models. This paper is intended to argue that traditional business management, methodology, and structures are failing to accommodate an ever-changing global environment, characterized by hyper-competitiveness, and the exponential increase of information systems design. The current virtual model is managed using out of date management theories, performance metrics, and technical innovations, thus creating a need to update the open systems thinking and organizational theory of the virtual model. As an open system, virtual environments are quickly becoming the new wave of business organizing. Open Systems Organizational Theory Jones (2010) defines organizational theory as “the study of how organizations function and how they affect and are affected by the environment in when they operate” (p.7). Organizational theory maintains a master relationship with organizational structure, organizational change and design, and organizational culture. Organizational structure is “the formal system of task and authority relationships that control how people coordinate their...
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...Communication in Resolving Team Conflict John Cathey 50023176 Manuscript Assignment MGT 567.01W: Managing Groups & Teams Abstract Organizations have been creating teams in an effort to improve communications, processes, respond to customers, or develop new processes or services. Conflict within teams is not new nor is it unexpected or always destructive. Organizations are looking at new ways to form teams and technology has increased the ability to form teams from diverse locations. Teams no longer must be formed from a single location, there are now virtual teams. These teams may be made up of members from different time zones or countries. There is also a new form of team to explore, communities of practice, a group of people that share information, insight, tools, and experience about a subject or area of interest (Kerno & Mace, 2010). What types of conflict arise in these types of teams, do managers need to manage the conflict differently, or does conflict affect these teams differently? This paper looks at the types of conflict found in each of these teams as well as the impact conflict can have on team productivity. It is important for those managers responsible for teams understand the impact of conflict and how to successfully manage it to ensure the team meets or exceeds the goals set by the organization. This paper will provide some insight to assist managers with that task. The Importance of Communication in Resolving Team Conflict Managers know...
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...Virtual Teams: A Review of Current Literature and Directions for Future Research1 The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems Anne Powell Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Gabriele Piccoli Cornell University Blake Ives University of Houston Winter 2004 (Vol. 35, No. 1) Introduction Global competition, reengineered product life cycles, mass customization, and the increased need to respond quickly to customers’ needs are just some of the more pronounced trends currently driving organizational change (Grenier & Metes, 1995; Miles & Snow, 1986; Miles & Snow, 1992). One of the building blocks of these successful organizations is the Virtual Team. As a consequence, a growing number of organizations are implementing them or plan to implement them in the near future (Lipnack &Stamps, 1997; McDonough et al., 2001) and their use is expected to continue to grow (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001; McDonough et al., 2001). The increasing popularity of virtual teams has spurred a parallel growth in research examining various aspects of virtual team adoption and use. Recent research has studied virtual team inputs, socioemotional processes, task processes, and outcomes. Much of this literature focuses on comparisons of virtual teams and traditional teams. Virtual Teams Traditionally, both the terms “team” and “group” have been used to describe small collections of people at work. While the two terms are often used interchangeably...
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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...
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...lRole of Emotional Intelligence in Virtual Project Management Shazia Nauman MEM, MBA shaznaum@yahoo.com CASE, Pakistan Maliha Elahi, PMP, MCT malihaelahi@yahoo.com SPO, Pakistan Zeeshan Ahmed Bhatti xeeshan@gmail.com CASE, Pakistan Umair Khalid umair.khaled@gmail.com Ericsson,Pakistan Abstract- In today's competitive global environment, projects in organizations consist of cross-functional teams that are formed to utilize individual expertise. A project manager whose primary responsibility is to achieve project objectives deals these individuals. Since the rational and emotional aspects of a project vary in complexity, the role of the project manager is critical to project success. The objective of this study was to demonstrate linkages between emotional intelligence and the challenges faced by virtual project managers. The study will also show that there exists a multi tier relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and challenges/elements of VPM. 1. INTRODUCTION Emotional Intelligence has its roots in the concept of "social intelligence", as first identified by E.L. Thorndike as early as in the early 1920s. The term Emotional Intelligence first appeared in a series of academic articles authored by John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey [1]. Goleman defined Emotional intelligence as a person’s self-awareness, self-confidence, selfcontrol, commitment and integrity, and a person’s ability to communicate, influence, initiate change and accept change [2,3]. In...
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