scholarly journals Keeping Up Long Distance

2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (10) ◽  
pp. 28-31
Author(s):  
Jean Thilmany

This article discusses managers who must not discount everyday collaborative tools—like phone calls and instant messaging. To help far-flung team members bridge the distance and feel like part of a team while they hash out ideas, engineering managers must call upon a rich technological arsenal of collaborative tools. To keep up with personal events like that and to let team members have the water-cooler confabs necessary for team building, Garton advocates instant messaging. This type of quick back-and-forth messaging encourages relationship building. To ensure participation, trainers call upon a number of interactive features offered within the tool itself. With all advances of the Web, it can be tempting for managers to overlook hardware advances as they seek to build virtual teams. But new approaches, like a recent newly introduced HP Blade Workstation, which allows all team members’ designs to reside on a server rather than on their individual desktops, can keep teams functioning at top speeds.

Author(s):  
Shelly R. Roy

With support from the research literature, this chapter argues that in order to lead effectively in virtual environments, and to achieve virtual prowess, the leaders of Virtual Teams (VTs) need (a) relationship building skills, which include (1) trust, (2) embracing diversity, (3) fostering a team spirit, and the ability to (4) motivate team members. The leaders of VTs must also possess (b) technical skills, which include the ability to use (1) video conferencing software, (2) Instant Messaging (IM) and chatroom software, (3) e-mail, (4) virtual worlds and avatars, and (5) be able to communicate effectively. In addition, leaders of VTs must use their (c) leadership skills and lead with (1) trait emotional intelligence, (2) be able to create an open and supportive environment, (3) lead by example, and (4) resolve conflicts. These four keys, their corresponding skills, as well as their practical applications, are discussed in this chapter.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelly R. Roy

With support from the research literature, this paper argues that to lead effectively in a virtual environment, the leaders of virtual teams need relationship building, technical, and leadership skills, as well as the ability to defuse the frustrations of virtual team members. Relationship building skills include the ability to establish trust, embrace diversity, skill in fostering a team spirit, and motivating team members. Technical skills include the ability to use video conferencing software, instant messaging, e-mail, virtual worlds, avatars, and communication skills. Leadership skills needed by leaders in virtual environments include emotional intelligence, the ability to create an open and supportive environment, and to lead by example.


10.28945/3046 ◽  
2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Egea

Information Technology (IT) provides the infrastructure for communication and collaboration tools for virtual teams, but Henttonen and Blomqvist (2005) suggest that it is the relational communication and factors of trust, commitment and communication that attention. This case study presents a team building strategy for such interaction. Off-campus students in an undergraduate course apply technological design concepts for social mechanisms in communication and collaboration to virtual teamwork. Students utilise the themes of conversation, awareness and coordination and document their reflection on their use over the team lifecycle. All functioning teams indicated that these social mechanisms helped to build team trust and commitment. Seventy-two percent of students indicated positive team experience, despite constraints of workload, time pressure, technology tools, distance and uncooperative team members. This study argues that use of guided and iterative reflections on social mechanisms support virtual team functioning and strengthen relationships.


2017 ◽  
pp. 687-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Carlson ◽  
Dawn S. Carlson ◽  
Emily M. Hunter ◽  
Randal L. Vaughn ◽  
Joey F. George

The work of virtual teams is increasingly important to today's organizations, work that is accomplished predominantly via computer-mediated communication. The authors investigate the moderating role of experience with instant messaging on the team interpersonal processes (cohesion and openness) to team effectiveness relationship in virtual teams. Data were obtained from 365 virtual team members using survey methodology and analyzed using hierarchical moderated regression and multilevel analyses. They found that team cohesion has a main effect on team effectiveness. Team openness has a main effect and is moderated by experience with instant messaging, i.e., strengthens the relationship. Understanding the role of team interpersonal processes and the role of the communication media will allow managers to more effectively build virtual teams and provide effective training and support. Using the theoretical lens of channel expansion theory the authors expand theoretical, empirical and practical knowledge of this area.


Author(s):  
Anne P. Massey ◽  
Mitzi M. Montoya ◽  
Valerie Bartelt

Over the last two decades, communication and collaboration tools to support student project work have evolved significantly, with an expanding array of options. Most recently, 3D virtual worlds (VW) have emerged. This chapter explores the use of collaborative tools in a cross-university course where student (“virtual”) teams engaged in a multi-week project. The student project teams had access to a collaborative toolkit that included Web 1.0 (traditional) and Web 2.0 tools, as well as collaboration spaces in a VW. Findings suggest that more successful student teams were better able to match Web 2.0 and VW collaborative technologies to project activities, while other lower performing teams defaulted to more familiar Web 1.0 technologies. The VW played a key role in facilitating relationship building in the collaborative learning process. The findings are particularly relevant to instructors seeking to integrate and use VWs in the classroom for collaborative project work and distance learning settings.


2005 ◽  
pp. 13-21
Author(s):  
Robert Jones ◽  
Rob Oyung ◽  
Lisa Shade Pace

Conventional wisdom often cites that individuals cannot advance their career without putting in daily face-to-face time with their managers; thus, members of virtual teams are inevitably less successful at career development than their co-located colleagues. Virtual team members lose out on the informal interactions that typically occur in the lunchroom, in the hallway, at the water cooler, and on the golf course; therefore, they are essentially out of sight, out of mind. Furthermore, conventional wisdom postulates, it is impossible to get the attention of upper management without these interactions, and people believe that if you want to advance, you will move to the companies selected “center of the universe” where the largest concentration of employees reside. This chapter will discuss the potential drivers behind the following myths that focus on this potential out-of-sight, out-of-mind dynamic, and will document some of the techniques that we’ve observed that help reduce the potential impact of the reduced face-to-face time that is inevitable with the implementation of virtual teams within an organization.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debarshi Mukherjee ◽  
Nidhi S. Natrajan

The social media tools available at public platform are soon becoming as user friendly and cost effective way of corporate communication. It has become a new way of collaborating among the team members of virtual teams deployed in software development projects. The open culture offered by these platforms helps business in general and software development projects in specific to accelerate growth through innovation, communication and active participation of the employees in their workplace. The study aims at comparing the four social media tools namely Facebook, blog, google plus and enterprise collaborative tools. The tools can be chosen from the long list as per the need of the task in the project.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erick Guerrero ◽  
Jemima A. Frimpong ◽  
Angelique Hearn ◽  
Veronica Serret ◽  
Welmoed K. van Deen ◽  
...  

This study responds to the gap in knowledge in translating team members’ interdisciplinary knowledge to address wicked problems. We use qualitative methodology to understand the team-building process and response to the opioid epidemic in emergency care. We collected data through direct observation of nine health system science researchers and thought leaders as they performed in team-building activities and semi-structured interviews. The cultural exchange framework informed our selection and assessment of team-building activities, and the science of team science (SciTS) framework informed our understanding of promoting interdisciplinary collaborations. We identified six themes representing three areas: (1) Knowledge Building and Strategy Development (need for interdisciplinary understanding of substance abuse and mental health in the emergency department (ED); interdisciplinary approaches to fight the opioid epidemic in the ED); (2) Team Demographics and Collaboration (prescribing and collaboration; the role of interdisciplinary team composition and effectiveness in the ED); and (3) Identity and Relationship Building (role of professional identity in contributing to interdisciplinary research; building effective organizational relationships in the ED). Members’ personal and professional connections are fundamental for developing nuanced interdisciplinary strategies to respond to the opioid epidemic in the ED. We discuss implications for strategies that promote team building and improve treatment practices.


2022 ◽  
pp. 165-181
Author(s):  
Anatoli Quade

The COVID-19 situation has shown many leaders that their face-to-face meetings leadership style may well now be a thing of the past. Tech-savvy companies are now deploying new technologies to support the creation and leadership of virtual teams, working remotely in different locations around the globe. This presents a range of new challenges for both project leaders and team members, who must now adopt new ways of working. Using an inductive approach based on an analysis of relevant literature, online surveys, and in-depth interviews with project leaders and other practitioners, this chapter examines the transitioning to virtual team leadership and operation, identifies critical success factors, and discusses the facilitating role of new technologies. An operational model (V-CORPS) to guide the building and operation of virtual teams is developed and explained with the aim of increasing the flexibility and efficiency of virtual project teams and establishing a checklist of action points for team building and leading.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 95-109
Author(s):  
Bojan Morić Milovanović ◽  
Tomislav Krišto ◽  
Stjepan Srhoj

AbstractThis paper proposes team building methodology for project managers in virtual teams as means to develop swift trust between new team members in the inception phase of the project life cycle. Proposed methodology encompasses activities within the first three days after the team formation and proposes the measuring tools for monitoring and managing trust development within the project team. Aim of this paper is to provide new insights to various decision makers potentially interested in increasing the performance of project teams operating in virtual environment, such as: investors, business owners and project managers working in virtual environment.


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