IT Support for Virtual Teams
It is factual that building and managing virtual teams is based on the advances made in information communication technology. Virtual teams encompass staff members with unique skills who engage in similar task to accomplish organizational goals and objectives. As a result, in maintaining and supporting virtual teams, the IT department is likely to face the following issues;
- Initiating trust in the teams in order to promote successful virtual work progress (Kirkman et al, 2002)
- Optimizing process outputs while minimizing process losses within the virtual teams
- Promoting teamwork within the virtual teams by eliminating the sense of detachment and segregation (Kirkman et al, 2002)
- Synchronizing interpersonal and technical skills of the team members
- Assessing and recognizing the performance of the virtual teams (Kirkman et al, 2002).
Citing from the fact that virtual teams involves skilled workforce in different locations who collaborate to derive the organizational achievements, there are several benefits that the company enjoys by supporting virtual teams (Pauleen, 2004). They include the following;
- Low overhead costs
- Promotes employees retention
- Pool of skills and talents
- Flexibility of the workforce
- Access to different markets (Pauleen, 2004).
On the other hand, alluding to the diversity of the virtual team members, it is factual that an organization that supports virtual teams endures corresponding drawbacks (Pauleen, 2004). These shortcomings include the following;
- Affected by negative perception from the investors (Pauleen, 2004)
- Hard to adhere to the parent organization’s culture
- Depends on new skills and conduct
- It is hard to track the teams’ performance
- Low communication bandwidth (Pauleen, 2004).
Challenges imposed by IT/IS Standards
- Standards are attached to the school subjects. Instead of attaching the standards to the school subjects, they should be attached to the mind’s quality that determines the study of the subject (Strauss, 2012).
- Technology and the overall world changes. The standards should not adhere to static strategies in a rapidly changing world. In fact, they should adopt flexible strategies that will comply with the changing world.
- Common core skills are detrimental to invention (Strauss, 2012). The national standards should implement other alternatives instead on relying solely on common core skills
Challenges imposed by protocols
- Divergent organizational policies that affects communication. The organization should adopt similar organization policies that do not affect the effectiveness of communication network. This can be achieved by using same ICT infrastructure and similar communication channels.
- Misunderstanding resulted by lack of situational information regarding the teams. The organization should conduct a situational analysis regarding the virtual teams in order to avoid misattribution.
- Complexity in building relationships with different virtual teams. In order to deal with this strategy, the company ought to make synchronous meetings in order to build relations between the company and the virtual teams.
Challenges imposed by procedures on virtual teams
- Sharing best practices. Citing from the divergence of the virtual teams, sharing business best practices becomes a challenge. Therefore, through similar organization policies, the company can help virtual teams share similar best practices in order to achieve overall organizational goals.
- Quick problem solving. The organization should use effective risk management strategies that will be used all over the organization in order to enhance instant problem solving.
- Tackling cultural divergence. This challenge can be tackle using effective communication skills that help in avoiding cultural divergence relate issues.
- Collaboration and commitment. By understanding situational information regarding the virtual teams, the organization should use effective management strategies that promote employee engagement in order to promote commitment and collaboration among the team members.
Virtual Teams and Traditional Teams
From the definition of teamwork, virtual and traditional teams consist of different individuals who collaborate to achieve a single pre-defined goal (Godar & Ferris, 2004). Precisely, traditional teams involve both collocated and co-located members who work in physical proximity whereas virtual teams consist of individuals who work in different geographical locations whose their collaboration is mediated by information technology medium (Godar & Ferris, 2004). However, both teams adhere to flatter organization structure for effective performance. Additionally, information exchange in both virtual and traditional teams is done through discussions. It is noteworthy that face-to-face interaction factor for traditional teams is the privilege for the teams over virtual teams (Godar & Ferris, 2004). This is based o the fact that it minimizes the number of challenges for traditional teams.
References
Kirkman, B. L., Rosen, B., Gibson, C. B., Tesluk, P. E., & McPherson, S. O. (2002). Five challenges to virtual team success: Lessons from Sabre, Inc. Academy Of Management Executive, 16(3), 67-79. doi:10.5465/AME.2002.8540322
Pauleen, D. (2004). Virtual teams. Hershey, Pa: Idea Group Pub.
Strauss, V. (2012). Eight problems with common core standards. The Washington post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/eight-problems-with-common-core-standards/2012/08/21/821b300a-e4e7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_blog.html
Godar, S. H., & Ferris, S. P. (2004). Virtual and collaborative teams: Process, technologies, and practice. Hershey, Penns: Idea Group Pub.
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