Why my virtual team experience did not work out as supposed? What went wrong?
Written by Samuel
Sim, Sid: 52912430
Introduction
During the term 2012/13B, I took the course MGT6209
High Performance Collaboration. The
course was held in the morning session and the evening session. I am a part-time student in the evening
session. I formed a team with my two
evening session classmates to do the course's group assignments. For the final group assignment of the course, we
were required to form a virtual team with a team in the morning session. The assignment was about creating a virtual
company and presenting the idea in class and blog format. To experience the virtual team concept, our
virtual team was prohibited from communicating by face-to-face meeting. We were required to conduct our team communication
virtually utilizing the available communication technologies.
The exercise challenges our
skills, understanding and knowledge application in negotiation, creativity,
knowledge management, virtual team, conflicts management and virtual
organizing. It was supposed to be the
best integration exercise of the knowledge covered in the course. However, it turned to be a discouraging
experience rather a present and positively value-adding experience.
I believe that the main
contributing factors would be:
1.
Ineffective virtual team practices and process;
2.
Unsatisfactory conflicts management and
negotiation;
3.
Administration of the final project;
Ineffective
virtual team practices and process
As the “Effective teamwork”
article suggested, effective teamwork shall be the results of the followings.
1.
A appropriate team (of people) whose membership,
size and resources match the task;
2.
Good leadership and attention to the team-building
(process);
3.
Commitment by team members to understand and
identify with one another’s goals;
4.
The development of team goals – a shared vision
supported by all team members;
5.
Team members have a sense of common ownership of the
task and joint responsibility of achieving the task.
6.
Co-ordinated effort and planned sharing of tasks
evenly across the team
Virtual team is not much
different from typical teams whose members meet face-to-face. Only that virtual team shall communicate and collaborate
via available technologies. Therefore,
it is crucial that virtual team follow the similar team practice and process of
a typical team.
Our team practices
Our virtual team did not
have a fixed communication schedule. We
communicated on need basis. The content
was mainly on the final project’s idea proposal. We communicated by email, Whatsapp texting
and voice conferencing via Skype. I did
not find the communication stimulating as we spent 90% of the time explaining
the idea proposal. They were not two-way
discussion as I expected. I would refer
a stimulating discussion as a sharing of relevant idea which would facilitate
to produce a more fully considered result comparing to an idea from a single
individual. I did not receive constructive
feedback other than that the morning team members expressing that they did not
understand. Or the morning team first
agreed and then expressed disagreement before certain critical project deadlines. This inconsistent behavior caused highly
frustrating experience for me and my evening team members.
I believe that our evening
team members coordinate our work more reasonably and effectively. The most respectful aspect was the mutual and
natural co-ordination among us without much prior-communication. For example, I created the initial project
idea and I received timely feedback from my other evening team teammates. I wrote the detail project proposal. I drafted the idea chart and they helped me
to put the final touch as I am not good at graphics and I did not have sufficient
time for fine-tuning. I proposed the
presentation flow and they did the presentation file. They took the lead to finish the group blog
because I was scheduled to have an examination for another course in
mid-May. On the contrary, our
coordination with the morning team was rather by luck or just having our
fingers crossed and hoping it will turn out to be okay. The morning team did not feedback timely also
added obstacles for our coordination. I
don’t think any technology can facilitate the coordination provided that
individual member is not willing to coordinate.
We did not have a formal
discussion on team structure, timeline and goals. The only agreeable promise was the timely
delivery of the group project presentation and the blog and the subject
matter. But, the project idea detail was
never agreed. I would say we ignored
making a concrete plan and just let things happen (and have our fingers crossed).
The technology did
positively facilitate our team work. We
mainly used email, Skype and Whatsapp.
Email was best used for distributing and recording our project proposal
which comprises of sheer amount of text and diagram. However, email is not the right tool for
discussion because email is not an instant interactive communication. Skype came in handy for voice conferencing
and text messaging which are useful for interactive communication. As some of our team members do not normally
reside in Hong Kong. Skype provided a
method for us to do multi-parties voice call for free. Whatsapp is also good for instant text
messaging. However it is used more
informally like face-to-face conversation between friends. Whatsapp is also high convenient because
nowadays most people uses Whatsapp on their smartphone. However, we found a short coming for
Skype. The Skype service outside China
does not connect easily and smoothly to other parties’ located China. This limitation had several times blocking
one of our teammates (who believed to be normally resided in China) to join our
voice conference.
Team Processes
During the first meeting, our
focus was introduction of our 1st proposal. So does the following 2nd and 3rd
meeting. We did not formally discuss the
team practices. I only recalled that the
morning team promised that they would finish their blog and they were okay with
the proposal until the end of the week before the Easter break. I did not recall that I formally make any
commitment to our virtual team. Neither
did the team make any commitment to me. During
the meetings I expressed concerns on if the morning team could fully understand
the proposal and if they could finish on schedule as during the Easter break I
believed that all of them had taken off for holiday.
My main concern I shared
with the group was that the availability for team meeting. It turned out to be a major problem. Personally, I was not available in daytime
because of my full time job. Also, I was
taking three courses in this semester.
This not yet counted into the schedule of other team members’
schedule. Even though all of our team members
were in the same time zone, the schedule conflict issue was as similar as a
virtual team whose members were in different time zone.
My main concern I did not
share with the group was that how well did our morning team understand the
project requirements and our project proposal.
I reserved to share the concern because I made the assumption that our
professors should have fully explained the project requirement and our morning
team members should have a more or less same level of understanding as we had.
In my opinion, our group
did not work well together. I summarized
the main causes in the team process according to the “Effective Team” article:
1.
The team members were not selected, but assigned;
2.
We did not have leadership; All decisions appeared to be result of power
struggle between the morning and evening team; We did not have a formal team building
due to the limitation of time availability;
3.
Team members’ commitment was questionable or
unknown;
4.
Our team did not have a shared vision except for
completing the assignment;
5.
Our team also did not a team practice to assign and
manage the tasks to be performed each team members.
In my opinion, our team did
not come up a high quality. We spent too
much time to communicate one project proposal and we did not have stimulating,
mutual beneficial exchange of idea which was crucial for the creative
process. Also, we spent too much time on
the power struggle on control of the project proposal. All these factors occupied our time and
resources which otherwise could or should be allocated to the creative process.
A success team shall be not only focus on
the task achievement, but also the team shall be able to develop close
connection and relationship among members.
In my opinion, our virtual team appears to be failing on both task and
relationship aspects.
Team conflict management
and negotiation
Generally, there are five
conflict handling behaviors when we face conflicts:
1.
Confrontation;
2.
Avoidance;
3.
Accommodation;
4.
Compromise;
5.
Collaboration.
All teams will need to
survive thru conflicts. Functional conflicts
are healthy and necessary for any effective teams. But, dysfunctional conflicts are not
beneficial but they lower the effectives of a team.
I would like to illustrate
and analyze how our virtual team managed team conflicts.
1st Conflict: No
agreement on project detail
Our team did not agreement
on the final project detail as a result the morning team and the evening team’s
presentation of the project with much deviation.
Our conflict approach was
avoidance. It was because due to time limitation
and due to lacking communication of collaboration. Without a team conflict resolution mechanism,
we did not have a better alternative for the conflict. The conflict is dysfunctional because it
lowers the overall quality of our result.
2nd Conflict:
Schedule crash
As mentioned above, it was
difficult to find a time when all of us can meet even by Skype. We alternatively selected one member from the
morning team and one member from evening team to act as representative which is
a more logical and practical approach. However,
this approach also failed in the end. I
felt that the morning team appears to have difficult to reach a consensus among
their team.
Our approach was
accommodation. However it did not
effective resolve the conflict.
3rd Conflict: A
name for our project’s presenting company
Our evening team did not
agree that we needed a name for our presenting company (the Bank). The morning team insisted that we needed to
have a company name. We resolved it by
accommodating to make up a name which our evening team generally felt not
necessary.
In conclusion, our team
handled conflicts by either avoiding or accommodating. But, they did not resolve them by the
collaborating approach which adds value to our team.
Administration
of the fianl project
Despite team’s benefit,
team approach also has its limitations. Due
to team effectiveness is dependent on collaboration and coordination. One of the limitations is that team is less
effective on low structured and ambiguous task.
Our final project’s requirement
is ambiguous that it required a number of clarifications. Our professor appears continued to adjust the
requirement during the course. All these
added difficulties to the virtual team project.
E.g. we needed to continuously discuss with the morning team on the
project requirements. Our difficulty in arranging
meeting also did not aid us in discussions.
As mentioned before an effective
team needs a proper team building process.
We need to select team members.
We need to sort out the team members’ roles. We need to for a bond between team
members. We need to have a shared
vision. To achieve this, it will require
time and commitment. For this final
course, the time is highly limiting factor.
Conclusion
This virtual team experience
would be more value-added if:
1.
We can have a more proper team building process;
2.
We can have more time or have scale down the
project;
3.
The project requirement is clearly defined and more
importantly the requirement is fixed in the beginning.
Virutal Team communications
Skype log
References
Skype log
22:37, Mar 11 - sim samuel: You changed the subject to “MGT6209 final project”
22:37, Mar 11 - sim samuel: Hersey joined
22:37, Mar 11 - sim samuel: Samantha Lau joined
22:37, Mar 11 - sim samuel: Miranda joined
22:38, Mar 11 - sim samuel: Hi please see my addons to the outline.
22:39, Mar 11 - Miranda: Ok
10:54, Mar 12 - Hersey: hello
12:44, Mar 12 - sim samuel: Hersey, you looked for me?
12:47, Mar 12 - Hersey: no
12:49, Mar 12 - Hersey: i introduced our plan to team members，and i will send feedback to u all tomorrow
22:47, Mar 12 - sim samuel: Hi hersey, just a kind reminder. Please do NOT discuss our plan proposal with other mgt6209 classmates. thx.
22:53, Mar 12 - Hersey: dont worry i will keep secret and tell my team members also dont tell others
22:56, Mar 12 - Samantha Lau: Not in front of the class that professor request us to give two ideas to be exact. We decide to throw some other rough ideas in the class😛
08:58, Mar 13 - sim samuel: Hi i forwarded the two ideas to you via email.
10:08, Mar 13 - Hersey: sorry for late reply，i will inform other team members and add them in this whatsapp group if they have registered
12:11, Mar 14 - Hersey: samuel，here is telephone number of my team member gavin 59893259 plz add him to whatspp group
19:51, Mar 14 - sim samuel: Gavin (Collaboration) joined
19:56, Mar 14 - sim samuel: Dear All, we have already spent a week's time to understand our project proposal. I appreciate if we make up our mind to proceed the project by tonight. Greatly thx.
19:58, Mar 14 - Hersey: thanks！
19:59, Mar 14 - sim samuel: If the main theme is okay, we can out the details as we work on it.
20:00, Mar 14 - Hersey: my team members would like to choose the public listed company
20:00, Mar 14 - Hersey: is that ok？
20:00, Mar 14 - sim samuel: Fine.
20:01, Mar 14 - Hersey: million thx！
22:51, Mar 16 - Miranda: Hersey, how is going with your teammates for the group project?
00:00, Mar 17 - sim samuel: Dear All, i want to call a meeting (Via skype) next Monday (18 Mar) evening 9:00pm.
00:00, Mar 17 - Miranda: Motet
00:00, Mar 17 - Miranda: Noted
00:01, Mar 17 - Hersey: i will ask teammates tomorrow but i remember gavin has class from7to 10
00:02, Mar 17 - Hersey: maybe we can begin after 10？
00:02, Mar 17 - Miranda: Ok
00:02, Mar 17 - sim samuel: Fine.
00:15, Mar 17 - Gavin (Collaboration): ok
10:26, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Hi Gavin, your skype id is?
10:27, Mar 18 - Gavin (Collaboration): gavinhjc
10:30, Mar 18 - Gavin (Collaboration): i prepare a photo to help you identify me
10:31, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Thx
12:33, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Hi gavin & hersey. Will Kate join tonight's meeting?
20:27, Mar 18 - Hersey: she will join us
20:28, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Then her skype id is?
20:32, Mar 18 - Hersey: sorry for waiting one minute
20:32, Mar 18 - Hersey: Kate Hung
20:54, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Hi all I will initiate the group call around 10p. Pls ensure that you are online.
20:56, Mar 18 - Hersey: i am available
20:57, Mar 18 - Gavin (Collaboration): ok，i try to go home as soon as possble after this night class
21:16, Mar 18 - Miranda: Dear all can u guys start at 10:15? I just back home Alonso
21:16, Mar 18 - Miranda: Also
21:19, Mar 18 - Gavin (Collaboration): ok
21:48, Mar 18 - Hersey: ok
21:55, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Hi there are many "kate hung" on skype. Can she add me "simsim0316"as contact?
21:57, Mar 18 - Hersey: i can add her
21:57, Mar 18 - Hersey: i will tell her
21:58, Mar 18 - Hersey: we will begin at 1015？
21:59, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Yes
22:18, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Miranda where r u?
22:18, Mar 18 - Miranda: Here
22:18, Mar 18 - Miranda: How to dial in group?
22:19, Mar 18 - Miranda: I can't find the button
22:19, Mar 18 - Samantha Lau: I can see her online
22:21, Mar 18 - sim samuel: Sam , can u hear us
22:26, Mar 18 - Miranda: I can't connect u guys
23:50, Mar 18 - Hersey: dear teammates，we have another idea about tomorrow pre
23:51, Mar 18 - Hersey: could we change the first one？
10:49, Mar 19 - Hersey: dear teammates，we have got feedback from frank about the two ideas，he prefers the first one and gave high praise of creativity but also expressed the difficulty of implementation
10:57, Mar 19 - Hersey: thx for your hard work！
10:58, Mar 19 - sim samuel: That's why we need the assumption.
10:59, Mar 19 - Hersey: we found some groups mentiond NGO and u can pay more attention to them if it is necessary to adjust our NGO par
thx！
11:00, Mar 19 - sim samuel: Noted.
11:01, Mar 19 - Miranda: Samuel u are great thinker
11:01, Mar 19 - Hersey: yeah，first idea is great and he shows great interest in that
11:05, Mar 19 - sim samuel:
11:09, Mar 19 - Hersey: thx for samuel excellent work！
11:11, Mar 19 - Gavin (Collaboration): a really nice job！thx
20:24, Mar 24 - Gavin (Collaboration): samuel, when we're doing our virtual company and ngos, we found what we are doing now is almost the same with Chartered bank' action. the mainland sponsors,ngo,credit cards and so on. as Frank said our idea should pay more attention on creative and innovative one. so we are a little bit confused about our works' necessity. samuel we should keep working on it,or to do some adjustion？
20:55, Mar 24 - Hersey: yeah, we are not sure if we.need to do some adjustment to fulfill the requirement of Frank
08:41, Mar 25 - sim samuel: Firstly, it is quite difficult to come up with a completely new idea. It is not that easy to proof the feasibility.
08:42, Mar 25 - sim samuel: I see other group's idea. They are not as complete and practical as ours.
08:59, Mar 25 - sim samuel: If you want to be very creative and innovative, it is also very risky.
09:34, Mar 25 - sim samuel: Hersey and Gavin, can we have a call later tonight?
10:08, Mar 25 - Hersey: I have time tonight but gavin has to come at 10 pm as he has class
10:08, Mar 25 - Hersey: Skype meeting？
10:20, Mar 25 - sim samuel: Yes
10:22, Mar 25 - Gavin (Collaboration): ok, i try to login before 10:15pm
23:57, Mar 25 - Hersey: samuel，sorry to bother u so late，thx for you spending a lot of time to listen to our ideas，it's our pleasure to cooperate with you
23:59, Mar 25 - Gavin (Collaboration): yes,no matter what the idea is, the priority is to work this project out together. thx
00:00, Mar 26 - Hersey: good night
09:31, Mar 26 - sim samuel: I think the adjustments are okay.
09:33, Mar 26 - sim samuel: I propose that the listed co. Shall be global sports good which wants to enter the china market.
09:33, Mar 26 - sim samuel: Keeps the bank to be a chinese bank.
09:47, Mar 26 - sim samuel: Sorry, Miranda and Sam. I will brief you on the adjustments this evening.
10:14, Mar 26 - Miranda: Ok
17:36, Mar 26 - Hersey: hi samuel, today frank said that majority of teams have sent the draft to him and he also gave some feedback
I guess we should also send draft powerpoint to him as the score is decied by him
17:37, Mar 26 - Gavin (Collaboration): after class we talked with him in 5 minutes as he is very busy. thus we just tell him the structure to him while he requires us to send him a ppt or words draft to help him understand deeply.
17:40, Mar 26 - sim samuel: That's not difficult.
17:41, Mar 26 - sim samuel: Have you guys read my comments this morning?
17:42, Mar 26 - sim samuel: Okay否？
18:01, Mar 26 - Hersey: the suggestion is good but could we send draft to Frank to get more detail feedback？
18:02, Mar 26 - sim samuel: Can you draft a word doc?
18:04, Mar 26 - sim samuel: We will have class later tonight. We can go over it later tonight.
18:04, Mar 26 - Hersey: OK，I will write a short draft
18:04, Mar 26 - Hersey: and send to him
18:06, Mar 26 - sim samuel: No, send to us 1st.
18:06, Mar 26 - Hersey: i will copy to u first
21:31, Mar 26 - Hersey: i hv send draft to u all
14:34, Mar 27 - Hersey: have u ever read the draft？
14:36, Mar 27 - sim samuel: I m revising it.
14:37, Mar 27 - sim samuel: Sorry, still need to work on my daytime job.
14:39, Mar 27 - Hersey: OK
14:40, Mar 27 - Hersey: finish your daytime work first
we can send to professor tonight
23:05, Mar 27 - Gavin (Collaboration): samuel, have you sent our group' draft to Frank already？
08:42, Mar 28 - sim samuel: Not yet.
08:48, Mar 28 - Hersey: i hv received email but i am in mtr now ，thx for your suggestions！
08:54, Mar 28 - sim samuel: Pls let me know if you have comments by 12 noon.
08:55, Mar 28 - sim samuel: If no comment, i will send it.
08:56, Mar 28 - Gavin (Collaboration): ok
09:24, Mar 28 - Hersey: hi samuel，plan is good and detailed . I found that in the first several paragraphs U mentioned walk but after that u wrote bicycle race，I guess it should be the same as u hv written sell bicycles and recall ，maybe we could only write bicycle race ？
09:27, Mar 28 - sim samuel: It shall not be a race for charity fund raising purpose as you want to attract as many participants as possible.
09:27, Mar 28 - sim samuel: It is a bicycle race. It is a new thing.
09:27, Mar 28 - sim samuel: It is not a new thing.
09:27, Mar 28 - Hersey: yeah
09:28, Mar 28 - Hersey: but at first u said walkthon
09:28, Mar 28 - Hersey: so I am a little confused
09:29, Mar 28 - Hersey: if the mainbody is bicycle ，we hv to change walkthon to bicycle race to keep the unity
09:35, Mar 28 - sim samuel: My exact wording is "walkathon" like long distance cyclying event.
09:40, Mar 28 - Gavin (Collaboration): i see what you mean. but walkathon is a word may produce confusion, because it is far away from cycling.
09:42, Mar 28 - Hersey: yeah，I think so too
we could add bicycle to clarify the meaning
09:44, Mar 28 - sim samuel: Please dont argue on the wording with me. I know what i m saying.
09:45, Mar 28 - sim samuel: You shall be aware frank is an english speaker.
10:08, Mar 28 - Gavin (Collaboration): ok，send it as soon as possible. we want to start to do the job quickly.
18:02, Mar 31 - Hersey: hi samuel，have u replied the mail of Frank？if not，I will reply it
18:03, Mar 31 - Hersey: dear all，happy easter ！
18:12, Mar 31 - sim samuel: Reply what?
18:12, Mar 31 - Hersey: his mail
18:13, Mar 31 - Hersey: about 3days ago
19:46, Mar 31 - sim samuel: I read that. But, i dont see any point(s) that we shall reply.
20:23, Apr 15 - Hersey: hi all
20:24, Apr 15 - Miranda: Yes
20:24, Apr 15 - Hersey: we hv read the introduction of blog which requires us give a real name for company
20:25, Apr 15 - Hersey: could u name the retail bank？ thanks
22:11, Apr 15 - Miranda: Hersey, bank of mercy
22:13, Apr 15 - Miranda: Hersey, change to bank of warmhearted
22:41, Apr 15 - Gavin (Collaboration): sorry to bother you. but as a bank‘s name, it seems a little strange and the name should be innovative according to frank’ requirement,personnally.
22:44, Apr 15 - sim samuel: Personally, i think it is the project's name is more important.
22:51, Apr 15 - Gavin (Collaboration): ok,no problem
22:51, Apr 15 - Hersey: how about mercy bank ？
22:51, Apr 15 - Miranda: We finalized! Bank of warmhearted
22:52, Apr 15 - Hersey: oh
22:52, Apr 15 - Hersey: can we delete of
22:52, Apr 15 - Miranda: Y?
22:53, Apr 15 - Hersey: it is more simple
22:53, Apr 15 - Hersey: i mean warmhearted bank
22:53, Apr 15 - Hersey: is it ok
22:53, Apr 15 - Hersey: easier to remember
22:54, Apr 15 - Miranda: Mono
22:54, Apr 15 - Miranda: Nono
22:56, Apr 15 - Hersey: oh，but warmhearted is adj already
22:56, Apr 15 - Hersey: if U send already，then that is OK
11:14, Apr 16 - Gavin (Collaboration): samual, we had finished our pres through the ppt we sent you already. frank thinks it is not necessary to collaborate with the bank even we emphasis the targets in the ppt. bank is not a very good choice. so ？
11:16, Apr 16 - Hersey: yeah，he said our cooperation is not so reliable as the function of bank
11:18, Apr 16 - Hersey: he said it could be any companys
References
Effective teamwork, A best practice guide
for the construction industry
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