Question

This assignment has been adapted from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Managing Virtual Work Teams – A SHRM case study by Frankie S. Jones, PhD.

After your team discusses all three parts associated with this case, the team will prepare a 7-10 page paper that includes your team’s responses and addresses the questions in each of the three parts properly. This paper will serve as your team voice to coach Lauren on how to lead her cross-functional team to success and overcome the issues presented in the case study. In other words, the team members will collaborate to write the paper, and each team member will submit this paper to the assignment section to facilitate grading. Your team paper should include a minimum of 10 references from sources published within the last ten years.

Part I: An Introduction to Virtual Teams

Lauren is assigned team leader of a cross-functional team for a very important project to the company. Lauren reviews the profiles of the six team members her boss gave her. She is both intrigued and anxious when she sees that team members are geographically dispersed.

Lauren works in the Atlanta office. One team member is in India; another is in Germany; and the rest live in the United States, but in different time zones. Two staff members are in the eastern time zone (Virginia and North Carolina) and two staff members are in the central time zone (Texas and Louisiana).

Lauren has never managed a virtual team and is unsure what special skills it will take to be successful. She begins to wonder what competencies are necessary for virtual team leaders and members. She studies the team member profiles and creates a matrix to evaluate each member’s strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of working virtually. She includes herself because she realizes she needs to evaluate her own strengths and weaknesses. Lauren thinks about the challenges and opportunities she will face managing this virtual team.

In your assigned groups, you are to:

Review the supplied team member matrix.

Brainstorm the challenges and/or opportunities Lauren’s team might face.

Record your ideas in the group discussion forum.

Team Member Matrix

Team Member	Location (Time Zone)	Communication Preferences	Virtual experience	Strengths	Weaknesses
Lauren (Team Manager)	Atlanta, GA (Eastern)	E-mail	No	Building and maintaining trust. Performance management and coaching. Networking.	Appropriate use of information technology. Developing and adapting standard team processes. Managing across cultures.
Santosh	Pune, India (GMT+05:30)	Instant messaging	Yes	Interpersonal awareness. Use of technology.	Self-management. Project management.
John	Wilmington, NC (Eastern)	Telephone	No	Networking face-to-face.	Use of technology. Spanning boundaries.
Joyce	Norfolk, VA (Eastern)	E-mail	Yes	Self-management. Project management.	Networking.
Helga	Berlin, Germany (Central European)	SharePoint; Webconferencing (with video)	Yes	Use of technology.	Interpersonal awareness. Project management.
Adam	Dallas, TX (Central)	Instant messaging, discussion boards	No	Networking via technology. Spanning boundaries.	Use of technology.
Brenda	New Orleans, LA (Central)	Instant messaging; blogs; SharePoint; e-mail	Yes	Use of technology. Interpersonal awareness. Networking. Spanning boundaries.	Self-management.

Answer 1

Technology has changed the entire process of working. Things that used to look impossible earlier are now possible. Like in case where Lauren has to manage a team which is present in different parts of the world. Though however useful virtual teams might be, there are challenges to it. Some of the main challenge that Lauren will face are:

1. Communication: Since the team members are from different time zones, communication will be the biggest challenge. Like Santosh from India and Helga from Berlin. All of them work remotely and it is always difficult and more time consuming.
2. Work Ethics: Because people belong to different geographies their work ethics and working style would be different. Dealing with this will be another challenge for Lauren
3. Lack of clarity and direction: Due to communication barriers the clarity and direction of team may sometimes go for a toss
4. Delegation of work: Delegation of work and understanding the work assigned might also become challenging while working remotely
5. Less Productivity is also a challenge with the remote teams

From the given case too, the mode of communication is email, instant messaging, Sharepoint etc. These tools are important but if these are the only tools for communication it brings a lot of challenges in the working of the team.