In order to give us a virtual team experience and to encourage reflection upon and use of class concepts in virtual environment, this class provides a very valuable opportunity for us to do a virtual team project.
Definition of Virtual Team
Although virtual team is a hot topic
recently, its definition is still vague and ambiguous, because it has been
problematic to define what “virtual” means across multiple institutional
contexts (Chudoba et al., 2005). Gassmann and Von Zedtwitz (2003b) defined
“virtual team as a group of people and sub-teams who interact through
interdependent tasks guided by common purpose and work across links
strengthened by information, communication, and transport technologies.”
Another definition suggests that virtual teams are distributed work teams whose
members are geographically despersed and coordinate their work predominantly with electronic
information and communication technologies (e-mail, video-conferencing,
telephone, etc.) (Hertelet al., 2005).
According to these definitions, we can
conclude that the characteristics of virtual team are listed in the following:
First, the members of virtual team must have a common goal. Second, team
members are from more than one physical location, in other words, geographical
discreteness. Third, team members communicate with each other through
electronic technologies. Lastly,the organizational boundary is board.
Introduction of Our Virtual Team
All of these above characteristics are
specifically embodied in our virtual team.
First of all, since as a team, there is no
doubt that we should have a common goal, which is to collaborate and unite
together, and do an excellent and innovative project through electronic
information and communication technologies. This goal can be seen from both of
our two teams’ introduction in the blog. For us, Up to We, we have faith and
abilities to collaborate and contribute to our team for a final creative
victory. This is what our team name and logo’s meaning. And for the evening
class, Infinite Triangle, it is an unbreakable team with three people collaborating
and supporting with each other. As their team name means, the three guys are
like the three edges of this infinite triangle, having different start points
and destinations but without a truly ending. The two different teams meet
together, with respective features and strengths, to build a successful virtual
team.
Second, the two teams’ members are from
different classes (morning and evening), different departments (management and
accountancy), let alone the different physical locations. So how to manage our
virtual team and make it go smoothly is based on the third factor.
Third, because of the restriction of
physical location and the project requirement, we cannot meet in person during
completing the assignment. So the electronic technologies can give a big help.
During the whole project, we use internet and technology to support
communication within our virtual team. We use web pages to provide members
access to documents and information that we have searched; we use web
conferences through QQ and Skype to provide places for interactive discussion;
we use E-mail and WeChat to send some instant messages to get in touch with
each other and fix the time of our web conferences. With these electronic
technologies, we can communicate with each other conveniently and effectively.
Also, our team project can go smoothly.
Lastly, it is because of our virtual team’s
foundation that different teams from different backgrounds can share their own
resources, knowledge and experience with each other. And then, the development
and progress of respective teams can be improved and promoted. Finally, it will
lead to respective teams’ boundary be broaden.
Team Communication
The virtual environment presents
significant challenges to effective communication (Walvoord et al., 2008).
Being equipped with even the most advanced technologies is not adequate to make
a virtual team effective, since the internal group dynamics and external
support mechanisms must also be present for a team to succeed in the virtual
world (Lurey and Raisinghani, 2001). So we choose our communication tools
according to the following factors:
First, it must be easy to manipulate. A
good communication tool should not require too much time to start up or a steep
learning curve. Second, it should have high reliability. We don't want to worry
about whether our message gets through. Third, it can be used conveniently. As
a virtual team, we often work from several locations, like class rooms,
offices, airports, even coffee shops, so choosing a communication tool that can
works anywhere is so necessary.
Based on these criteria, we chose the
following communication tools to facilitate our virtual team project:
At the beginning of our team foundation, in
order to say Hello to each member and get in touch with each other, we use
email to have our first meet. I think email being used here is very
appropriate. Because we don’t know about each other at that time and the
contact information is very limited, email can give us a quick, formal, polite
and not disturbed way to greet others. Email is fast, direct, bi-directional,
and we can open and reply to messages when we decide it is convenient for us to
do so. Because we can send and receive at our convenience, this medium does not
have to interrupt classes, meetings or other work. Because email lets us read
and respond at our own pace, on the other side, it brings some weaknesses to
us. Because of its asynchronous, the important information may not be received
and responded immediately. And also, for some people, this media could be too
cold and impersonal. Considering these limitations, when we have got known each
other and made the agreement about our future meeting, we use email rarely and
change to use WeChat and QQ as our main communication tools.
Besides QQ, we also use WeChat to support
our daily connection. WeChat is a mobile phone text and voice messaging
communication service, like Whatsapp. WeChat provides multimedia communication
flexibility and convenience with text messaging and hold-to-talk voice
messaging. We use WeChat to make sure about the time of our QQ web-conference
and also have a daily communication. When someone in our team had a problem or
had some new ideas, he\she would submit it in our WeChat group and share with
each other. And then we would have a short chat in WeChat. If it needed some
deep discussion, we would determine a united time to do a more detailed
discussion in QQ.
Reflection on Our Team Communication
In general, the communication in our
virtual team had some advantages needed to carry forward, also had some
disadvantages needed to be promoted.
For the advantages, first, we built trust
to each other. It is the foundation for any communication. From that day when
we grouped our virtual team together, we can create trust to each other and
become the one. Because we believed that we had a common goal that was using
what we have learned in class and what we can discover out of class to do an
excellent project. During the whole group project, we had always been keeping
this goal in our minds and it had been leading our team forward no matter what
difficulties we met.
Second, we used the above effective methods
of communication. We knew what the most suitable method was for us and combined
with multiple ways to facilitate our communication. Third, during
communication, we always expressed our ideas freely, which created a free and
active atmosphere in our virtual team. There is no right or wrong idea. Anyone
in our team gave his\her idea to our project, we would discuss it together and
then decided whether to carry it out.
For the disadvantages, first, we didn’t
schedule regular communication, so both progress and potential problems cannot
be reflected in time. Sometimes, this made us out of track and didn’t know our
respective responsibility. Second, we didn’t establish ground rules of
responsiveness. Because we were working remotely and virtually, it was hard to
manage the communication without clear rules of responsiveness. For example,
how quickly we should be expected to return an email or a message, what should
we do when team members were out of response? All of these problems were the
obstacles which made our communication a little unfruitful. So, it is important
to underscore that rapid response keeps the project on track.
Collaboration and Participation in Our
Virtual Team
As I have described above, as a virtual
team, we have built trust for each other at first, which was like the glue that
bonded us and built commitment and engagement. With the team project going on,
we knew more about every member’s strengths and weaknesses, his\her attitude,
motivation and work style. Based on these mutual understanding and personal
actions, our trust grew, which promoted our collaboration.
Also, our team collaboration benefited from
our common goal, which was our team vision, to some extent. Vision can point us
in the right direction to reach our target. The goal to do an excellent project
gave us passion and made us engaged in the whole process.
Besides these, we tried to adjust to
other’s different working styles. Because people are different, they have
different personalities, values and interests. We cannot require that every
member works in the same style. If we want to collaborate with team members and
realize our common goal with fewer conflicts, we should try to learn from
others, understand others, and accept their different working styles and
opinions.
In general, although we are from different
cultures (mainland China and Hong Kong), have different backgrounds, and
different experience, we respected each other, shared our respective values and
treated everyone with sincere. Every member in our team knew that when they
passed the ball to their team mates, they would not drop it. Also, we tried our
best to do whatever was needed to get the job done. If anyone in our team faced
some difficulties, others would pitch in to help him\her overcome it and get
back on schedule as soon as possible.
Conflict is an inevitable character of all
work teams. Because of the complex dynamics of virtual teams, understanding and
managing conflicts becomes a big challenge. Conflict is defined as
disagreement, both manifest and latent, among team members and implies
incompatible goals or interests. As we have learned in class, conflict can be
divided as functional and dysfunctional conflict. When members of the team
present different viewpoints about a task and positively contribute to decision
making, it leads to functional conflicts, which is our team needs. Also,
conflicts in teams can be broadly categorized into three main types: task
conflict, process conflict and relationship\interpersonal conflict.
During the whole process of our virtual
team project, it is hard to avoid conflicts. I will describe and analyze them
in the following.
First, at the beginning of our program, we
intended to discuss what theme we shall do. In the QQ group, we had hoped that
everyone expressed him\her freely in a good atmosphere, and we did like this,
at least in the beginning. But as the discussion continued, the atmosphere
became more and more stressful. Either of our two groups (morning and evening)
wanted to implement the idea that was come up by their own group. Both of our
two groups explained the reasons why they insisted on their own ideas and tried
their best to persuade each other. At last, we decided to present both of our
ideas, listen to teacher’s advice and then make a decision. I think it was a
task conflict which is about conflicting views over the tasks required to
accomplish the goals of the team. This conflict came from our different ideas.
Although it was a conflict, it brought us many constructive outcomes. It
promoted our creative thinking, made us think from different perspectives, and
impelled us to think deeply, comprehensively and systematically. From this
view, it was a functional conflict.
The second conflict happened when we wanted
to think a name for our new virtual web site. The evening group thought that
the name was just the surface of things, and it didn’t need to be so
complicated. So the name they thought of was “findparkingtoopenrice.com”. The
other reason they insisted in this name was that this name clearly expressed
the objective of our project. Once the audience saw our web site’s name, they
would understand what service our web site provided right now. However, in our
morning group’s perspective, this name was too long to recognize. And at the
same time, it didn’t meet the teacher’s requirement that the name should be
creative and innovative. Because our morning class didn’t think of any better
names to replace the evening group’s name at that time and we still insisted to
change it. It was not strange that we argued for a long time and were locked in
a stalemate. Having racked our brains, we finally thought of a new name
“ParkingtoRice.com” as our virtual project’s name. After seeing the new name,
the evening class also agreed to change their idea. This conflict was solved
successfully and peacefully. I think it was also a task conflict which is about
conflicting views over the tasks. Such a kind of disagreement about working tasks
between team members is natural, just as disagreements about daily affairs
among family members. It will not destroy the relationship between team members
and can make us put a strong focus on our common goal to keep team pointing
toward solutions after conflict. This conflict brought good solution to our
project’s name and made our project more creative.
The third conflict was from the internal of
our morning group. In terms of timing and decision-making processes in our
morning group, there were some little disagreements. For me, I liked to prepare
everything well and arrange all the tasks in advance. But for the other two
guys in our team, they didn’t like this working style as me. So they preferred
to start project late and finished it in a short time. Although they could also
do a very good job, the conflicting working styles made me so stressful.
Because I was not a very forceful person, if most people in our team worked in the
same style, I would follow them even this may make me stressful or
uncomfortable. As what I did in our team, stood in the same side with my team
mates and followed their schedule. At the same time, I would also remind them
to finish task in time so as not to make the whole pace of our project too
slow. From my description, I think this conflict was a process conflict which
is about conflicting approaches to accomplishing team tasks in terms of timing,
decision-making processes, integrating processes, etc. This conflict in our
group was not so obvious and was also dealt with well, at least didn’t lead to
any team loss or any bad outcomes. But for me, the way I deal with these
conflicts and the role I play in a team may need to improve. It is necessary and
important to express own ideas in a team and make the team and self match
better. Doing like this can not only make me feel comfortable and engaged in
the team work, but also can promote the team process and make it go more
smoothly. From this point, this conflict made me learn much and know about
myself better.
Self-evaluation on Our Virtual Team Project
After having High Performance Collaboration
course and finishing this interesting and fantastic group project, I have
deeply learned much about how to work in a team collaboratively, effectively
and productively. Because we didn’t have many opportunities to work as a
virtual team before, this group project provided us a rare chance to discover a
wonderful and attractive field. It not only gave me basic and systematical
knowledge, but also taught me many insightful ideas and useful methods which
can make huge help in my future life and work.
During the whole process of this group
project, we always stuck to our commitments to contribute our best together to
bring a productive outcome. In the group, we timely shared useful information
and materials with each other, helped each other when anyone in our group faced
problems, and pooled our wisdom together to get as many ideas and as creative
ideas as possible. Sometimes we also had different opinions to each other, even
some conflicts would arise. However, it cannot affect our collaboration and
effectiveness in our group, because we knew that we were a one, and were
interconnected and interlocked with each other.
What I experienced in this group is not so
much about professional knowledge as managing myself and working with others
well. These valuable experiences tell me how to build collaborative
relationship with others, how to do an effective communication through various
tools, how to deal with existing and potential conflicts, and how to make a
group work effectively for a common objective. In the near future, I can use
what I have learned and experienced in this course and project to avoid some
common mistakes and apply them to solve the practical problems in the work
place.
In this ever-changing world, every
organization should keep transformation. For me, it will be a big challenge
that requires me to consider all the variable factors, combine with the
organizational actual situation, and develop truly suitable performance
collaboration strategies based on all the internal and external factors in an
organization. What I need to learn, to experience, and to try is too much. With
a goal to be a successful employee in the future work place, I believe that I
can do it.
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