Virtual Teams Case Study

Running Head: VIRTUAL TEAMS: MAKING IT WORK1Virtual Teams: Making it WorkFirstname LastnameHRMT 101 Human Relations CommunicationsAmerican Public University

VIRTUAL TEAMS2Virtual TeamsWhen building a team to achieve a sole purpose or goal, various barriers come into play when keeping everyone on the same page. These barriers and the strategy to overcome these barriers can make or break a team. Scott (2009) explains that the key to building a successful team is finding the right people to fill positions that are needed. Having a team member with multiple external connections not only benefits the teams objective, but also benefits the other team members as well and helps them to maintain the same connections after the goal or objective has

Within the corporate world, competition can have a positive or negative effect on a team. Competitiveness that is internally spread throughout a team can have a detrimental effect to the morale and efficiency of the members. I believe that this competitiveness would ultimately cause trust issues within a virtual environment since everyone is trying to be better than the next person. In the case of a virtual team, I believe it would be far more detrimental because of the fact that you don’t have to face the person you are in competition with as you are avoiding social conflict. This face-to-face conflict that would be found in a tangible team wouldn’t be as easy, because in a virtual team you are sitting safely behind a keyboard. To reiterate, the ‘Absence of Trust’ would be developed over time as team members are going behind other people’s backs and it is easy not to follow specific guidelines since they feel more freedom without the face-to-face connection. As Sirkka (2009) states, The virtual environment is bespeckled with uncertainty: Are other individuals reading the messages, and if not, why not? Are they having technical problems, or

The main goal to keep the team working effectively is to trust each other and do what teams are made to do, work together!Teams can vary from several different sizes, but when there are 25 to 30 members within a team itcan be hard to translate all of the information they provide into one purpose or goal. With several differentinstruments of communication within a virtual environment, (e.g. e-mails, announcements, forums, audio/video calls), members can easily be distracted by all of the communication methods and could let an important e-mail be ignored. This information overload can be harmful to the team’s goal and may not allow ideas to flow consistently and in parallel. Staying within one medium of communication, e-mail, for example can streamline the process and also yield the advantage of asynchronous communication. Chhay (2013) states that asynchronous communication allows members to work within their time-zone and do not have to be in contact simultaneously. This, although, could come with its own drawbacks including the feeling that they have mysterious members who come and go as they please which could alienate team members. This alienation could also result in the trust issues that we discussed earlier, because you cannot convey empathy or fill thecomraderies that are shown in face-to-face meetings.While some methods may