Leadership For Global Virtual Teams

Question: Describe about the article for Leadership For Global Virtual Teams? Answer: Summary of the Article: Team commitment should be established through the process of team building. Generally, a project manager needs to share their views within the workplace. Therefore, such working conditions should be taken as either stated or implied assumptions for building an effective team. However, the modern practitioners have made some differences in case of following the traditional bureaucratic work environments (Pienaar, Wu Adams, 2016). Nevertheless, the project managers have still emphasized on close interaction with each member in a virtual project environment. With the technological progression, specifically in the area of communications, members of the virtual project team rarely share a common workplace (Weimann et al. 2013). Those virtual members can easily work under the complex organisational structure and deal with dynamic market conditions with the help of communication enhancement system. Nowadays job securities are very low since majority of the organisations are more engaged in downsizing, outsourcing and employee empowerment process. Moreover, the modern project managers are facing difficulties in formulation of productive project team within a virtual project. The virtual project teams are facing difficulties while establishing a long lasting relationship with all members. The entire process is electronic communication-driven because electronic systems helps to make effective communication across the project teams (Pienaar, Wu Adams, 2016). In addition, shared team problems cannot be resolved due to lack of informal opportunities for discussion at lunches or during tea breaks, which are a common scenario when teams get involved and resolve it with the proper implication. Normally, clear structural instructions from a project manager make things difficult for the team members because members of the project team conceptualised things differently due to geographical differences at times. Furthermore, the geographically distant team member tends to have knowledge, which has increased a scope for miscommunication among team members. Presently the extensive uses of electronic devises by managers of virtual projects are increasing in order to overcome the lack of informal and formal communication issues among the team members. The four widespread electronic devises are the use of internet, pager, videoconferencing and teleconferencing at the workplace. The idea of this amazing application of electronic communicational devises is to enhance the constancy of the virtual project (Wise, 2016). The detailed project plan is being discussed with all the team members. Discussion: The lack of informal opportunity for discussion is unique problem of virtual projects. The miscommunication problem related to geographical position of the team members with the project managers is the most common problem in any project. There are four new electronic devises that have contributed the most to mitigate the communication problems in the virtual projects among the team members (Morley, Cormican Folan, 2015). These communication technologies are the internet, pager, teleconferencing and videoconferencing. The internet creates an upgrade working environment where team members give faster responses and handle the complex working environment in an easy manner. . The extensive applications of email, videoconference are now the integral part of an organisation. . The pager is another valuable resource, which are used frequently on multiple projects as communication medium. On the other hand, teleconferencing and videoconferencing have successfully mitigated the lack of virtual communication means (Gilson et al. 2015). The wide usage of the internet has been applied to regular project teams by which the virtual problems can be solved to certain extent. In the given article, the communication issue has been highlighted which are generating several problems for vital projects. It may be fatal because such inequalities of knowledge results in the communication gap among team members. Virtual team members tend to build up relationship with those who are situated with the same area rather than with those who are settled at distant locations. For this, the project related information has never been shared among all the team members. Matrix organisations are become more common as organisations grow larger, handle more complex working environment and enter into the global markets (Carter et al. 2015). However, the virtual collaboration in a matrix organisation is difficult because it offers the diverse sharing information, which must flow across boundaries, greater flexibility and responsiveness. Here the vital project managers are involved in a single project at a time but goals may be mislead with working at cross-purposes. It may often end up in interpersonal conflict. The virtual project members might be seen confused about their rapid changing roles and responsibilities at a time. Therefore, the virtual projects cannot survive in the changing matrix environment. References: Carter, D. R., Seely, P. W., Dagosta, J., DeChurch, L. A., Zaccaro, S. J. (2015). Leadership for global virtual teams: Facilitating teamwork processes. In Leading Global Teams (pp. 225-252). Springer New York. Gilson, L. L., Maynard, M. T., Young, N. C. J., Vartiainen, M., Hakonen, M. (2015). Virtual Teams Research 10 Years, 10 Themes, and 10 Opportunities. Journal of Management, 41(5), 1313-1337. Morley, S., Cormican, K., Folan, P. (2015). An Analysis of Virtual Team Characteristics: A Model for Virtual Project Managers. Journal of technology management innovation, 10(1), 188-203. Pienaar, J., Wu, P., Adams, N. (2016). Development of Virtual Teamwork Skills for Distance Students through Simulated Global Virtual Team Projects. J. Prof. Issues Eng. Educ. Pract., 142(1), 05015003. https://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(asce)ei.1943-5541.0000252 Teams. IEEE Trans. Profess. Commun., 56(4), 332-353. Weimann, P., Pollock, M., Scott, E., Brown, I. (2013). Enhancing Team Performance Through Tool Use: How Critical Technology-Related Issues Influence the Performance of Virtual Project Wise, T. P. (2016). Trust in Virtual Teams: Organization, Strategies and Assurance for Successful Projects. CRC Press.