Virtual Team Challenges in ICT Projects

Question: Discuss about theVirtual Team Challenges in ICT Projects. Answer: Introduction Financial pressures on ICT projects have been a reason for companies setting up virtual teams for project management as virtual space consumes less of financial resources of an organization. However, with virtual teams come several challenges concerning culture, communication, technology and management. This paper makes an attempt to understand how virtual team work and explores various challenges that are faced by them in ICT environment. The paper would also come up with some recommendations on how some of these challenges can be overcome to enhance the performance of virtual teams(Afaq, et al., 2014). Virtual Project Management Virtual project management is an outcome of people working together remotely on a project towards a unified goal. Different people in a virtual team work in different boundaries of time, space and geography but are linked together with communication technologies. Skyrmeidentified three dimensions of virtual teams and these include time, place and organizational structure. Gussdefined project teams using four classes of project teams including the following: Project Team Class Characteristics Pure No single organizational method is controlling different virtual teams Transitional Teams have mono as well as hybrid forms Hybrid Teams show multi-organizational culture Unified Every team member works for the same organization(Barker, 2001) Peterson and Stohrhave identified 7 types of virtual teams as listed below: Networked Teams: Networked teams have diffused boundaries and fluid membership such that all team members work on same goals Parallel Teams: These teams are distinctive in nature and work on temporary basis for developing recommendations on improvements. Project Teams: These teams perform non-routine tasks for a specified duration and have some level of authority for making decisions related to a project Production Teams: These teams have members with clearly defined roles and specific set of routine deliverables Service Teams: A round the clock service support role is remotely provided by service teams Management teams: These teams work in close collaboration within a specific functional division Action Teams: These teams are used in emergency conditions and have to provide immediate response(Fisher Fisher, 2001). Because of this diversity displayed by different types of teams, complex ICT projects have to face many challenges as they show cultural differences, communication differences and so on. The next section discusses various challenges that are exclusively faced by virtual teams. A framework of virtual teams on an ICT project may be used to understand how these different teams work together towards a unified project goal. Figure 1: Virtual Teams in Organizations Virtual teams work in the purview of broader social system that is formed out of interactions between people from different cultures. There can be differences in their norms, values, technology adoption behaviour, and communication approaches. These factors can influence the group dynamics, organizational processes and project management strategies. As the project management in virtual teams has to have considerations of differences in geography, cultures, structures, and temporal differences, project management in virtual teams can become very complex(Par' Dub, 2000). Challenges Virtual teams can already face regular projects team challenges such as false consensus, unresolved conflicts, closure avoidance, uneven team participation, calcified meetings, and lack of accountability. However, with virtual structure in place, there are additional challenges such as: Technology Adoration: When virtual teams are connected with technology, an additional dimension comes up to add to challenges which are technology adoration. Technology adoration causes people to only use technology and depend on the same for interaction and thus, they may always use emails for communication avoid face to face interactions such as over phone or through personal meetings even when opportunities are provided(Iqbal Nauaman, 2001). Lack of Trust: In traditional working methods, people working for same organization could also have face to face interactions and thus, there were more opportunities to collaborate and understand each other as well as develop trust. However, this advantage of ability to interact is not there with the virtual teams and thus, trust can become a major issue (Rolfes, 2001). Lack of Rich Communication: Another issue with virtual teams is the lack of richness in communication. This includes absence of immediate feedback, lack of multiple communication cues, and personalization. Lack of non-verbal communication which happens in face to face meeting can also play a role in building relationships but the same is not possible while working in virtual settings. Thus, building relationships to bring coordination among people can be a big challenge in virtual teams(REED KNIGHT, 2011). Differential Time Zones: Virtual teams operate in different time zones and exercise the freedom to work as per their own comfortable time. However, this freedom can lead to weakening of relationships between project team members and also affect the commitment levels of teams. A case study by Kelley and Sankey in 2008 revealed that differential time zones were one of the unique and most challenging factors while working with virtual teams for organizations. Cultural Differences: Culture is a set of norms, values and beliefs that are shared between specific team members. In virtual teams, differential cultures exist that can impact the communication between the members. Cultural differences are easier to resolve in a face to face setting but in the virtual setting, the interaction is very less and thus, cultural barriers are even more pronounced. While traditional teams may have cultural barriers caused by differences in upbringing, the organizational culture would remain same but in the case of virtual teams, even the organizational cultures within which they work could be different due to geographical, functional and other types of team dispersions. Technology knowledge: Various team members can come from different parts of the world and many a times, to bring them together, collaborative technologies like audio conferencing, video conferencing, blogging, chatting and forums are used. However, this presents an additional challenges as not all the team members may be comfortable or know how to use these technologies and thus, some of the members can be at disadvantage unless they are trained on these collaborative technologies. However, training can add cost as well as loss of man hours for the organization. Coordination Barriers: Coordination barriers such as isolation, lack of cohesion, and so on can lead to problems like delays, priority shifts, and failure to keep the commitments. Coordination barriers can cause delays in communication and thus, delays in deliverables putting pressures on team members that can also cause conflicts as every team member would try to blame another member for any delays or discrepancies happening in the project deliverables. Technical Connectivity: Increasing failures of technologies make it difficult for teams to communicate with each other throughput without inconsistencies and this can put pressures on performance and collaboration among team members in virtual setting. For instance, in case a software is developed for project team members to chat with each other over intranet but intranet link is down then it would be challenging for them to communication which would lead to loss of opportunity communicate and coordinate. Insufficient Knowledge Transfer: Most of the communication happening between the members of a virtual team is through formal channels like emailing, document sharing, training and interviews. However, this can lead to lack of transfer of complete knowledge between the team members as the interaction would not be very interactive or interesting. Conclusions Recommendations The aim of this report was to identify challenges in project management when virtual teams are used for complex ICT projects. It was found that in any project or organization, there were different types of teams that existed with different goals such that even while working on a unified goal for single project goal, common challenges can still occur due to these differences such as false consensus, unresolved conflicts, closure avoidance, uneven team participation, calcified meetings, and lack of accountability. With use of virtual teams, more challenges were added such as technology adoration, lack of trust, lack of richness in communications, cultural differences, and differential knowledge of technology, coordination barriers, technological connectivity failures, insufficient knowledge transfer, and differential time zones. However, these challenges can be overcome by using the following recommended strategies: Trust can be built in virtual project team members when members are reliable, responsive and consistent in their performance. Thus project managers must work to encourage employees towards displaying these attributes and maintain a decorum to build trust between team members Cultural differences cannot be eliminated but if they are studied properly by a project manager such that he or she comes up with a shared approach considering all cultures which is acceptable to all, the conflicts arising due to cultural differences can be avoided to certain extent. Virtual team members lack richness in communication but if video conferences can be used to bring them together on a single platform, the communication can be enriched with verbal as well as non-verbal communication added to the interaction. However, this can be costly to the company and thus, a company may use it sparingly but use more of collaborative technologies that are more affordable such as audio conferencing, blogging and forum. However, while teams are encouraged to use these, the organizations should also make an attempt to provide them training on the use of technologies. If a stipulated time is allotted for training, it can lead to cost to the company and, thus, a project manager may only train the line managers or department heads who would then individually take care of training for their individual teams(Azimi, 2011). To enhance knowledge transfer among team members, some informal methods like storytelling, debating, mentoring or coaching may be used by the project manager to make things both interesting and interactive encourage teams to participate and interact with each other through discussions. Project manager has to act as a leader who can identify coordination barriers and take steps to eliminate or reduce them. Nemiro et al. (2008) says that a project leader must motivate team members, encourage coordination between them and develop teams through provision of unified goals and messages, establishing identities for teams and managing conflicts between them. Workers in remote locations can be monitored by project manager by using performance metrics, defined deliverables, and prototypes that can be integrated earlier in the project plan so as to bring in unified approaches and performance goals for teams as well as allow project manager to keep track of their performance in an unbiased manner to avoid conflicts or dissatisfaction among different team members. A code of conduct can be established and communicated to all team members by the project manager to bring cohesion and control over the work behaviour of people. Use of a common platform as a communication centre which is open to all the team members such that they can have access to same information and thus, are updated equally, can relieve coordination challenges. With teams having same and latest information, they can coordinate and communicate better on project which would enhance their interaction and reduce conflicts. For instance, management information systems that have access to everyone on the project can be used to obtain status of the project, its deliverables, goals and everything related such that while interacting with other team members, they would have the same data to talk about and there would not be any differences of opinion that can otherwise cause conflicts. A project manager may plan for meetings and collaborative activities during the time when all team members are present and thus, more interaction and collaboration is possible with more team members involved in group activities. Off-peak times when most of the project members are absent can be left for the hardcore work on individual goals. A personal level of interaction can be made possible between employees by bringing them together on non-formal platforms like chats, social media groups, forums, cultural gathering, and so on to encourage them to build relationships. Physical gatherings may also be encouraged from time to time to enhance coordination. While interactive sessions are introduced between team members, good opportunities must be provided to team members for active interaction such as through kick-off meetings, brainstorming sessions, conflict resolution sessions, new team member orientation program, milestone meetings and deliverable completion celebrations(Silva Silva, 2011). References Azimi, D., 2011. Virtual Project Collaboration, s.l.: NTNU. Barker, D., 2001. Virtual Project Office Project Extranets, s.l.: Project Magazine. Fisher, K. Fisher, M. D., 2001. 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