Communication and virtual teams

The Communication Model

http://www.suite101.com/view_image_articles.cfm/418479

One way and two way communication

A great example of one way communication are the authocratic environments in which leaders give orders but don´t want to receive any opinions from employees. Two way communication occurs when there is interaction between the communicator and the receiver, like in participative and consultative environments.

Nonverbal communication is any symbol, expression or body movement that help us to communicate without using words. Eduard T. Hall studied this in several countries and found out that there are countries in which explicit information is needed more than in others to get the message, He called this countries High context countries. Low context contries on the other hand, can perfectly understand with implicit information.

Basic types of non-verbal communication:

• Proxemics: the use of territorial space
• Kinesics: body language
• Facial and eye behavior
• Paralangue: variations in speech

Barriers to communication...

• status and gender differences
• language
• physical separation
• noise present in the room
• socio-psychological barriers
• tone of voice

Virtual teams

Are groups of geographically dispersed members with a common purpose or mission enabled by technology and information technology systems to work together and accomplished their  tasks.

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http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2011/01/15/strategies-for-managing-virtual-teams

Virtual teams have many advantages some of them are:

best employees may be located anywhere around the world, more flexibility, workers can increase technological knowledge, employees can work whenever they want to and they are not forced to do it during the traditional 8 hour routine,  there could be a shift from production to knowledge/service environments.

Critical Factors that virtual teams should have in order to succeed

• The existence of written rules, objectives, performance metrics
• There should be a leader with the capacity of defining the role of each member
• The leader should listen to the needs and suggestions of each member
• Reward systems should also exist
• Technical training
• A high trust collaborating culture

 Question for the blog...

According to Kuruppuarachchi (2009), what benefits and problems arise as a consequence of

the creation of virtual team? Identify five each.

Based on this, explain how to make the transition from a more traditional team structure to the more distributed team structure?

Some of the drawbacks identified by the author were: quality control is difficult, some members may not be psychologically fit to be in a virtual team, some members may not have the required skills, ineffective communication (since there are no face to face comunication opportunities), additional costs can arise for setting remote offices. The author also identified several benefits like: improved productivity, increased competitive advantage, improved customer service, flexible working hours for employees and potential for expanding labor force.

The transition from a traditional team to a virtual one should include many changes like:

employees will have to learn to accept new members without having face to face interactions, they will also have to accept more dynamic roles and changing tasks, they will also have to learn and adopt new technologies, leaders should be constantly monitoring and controlling results, they should be aware of the needs of members, mechanisms for project control and risk management should be stablished and finally accurate and detailed reports should be sent periodically to the central office.

References

Virtual teams. (PDF). Available at: http://managementhelp.org/grp_skll/virtual/defntion.pdf

Kuruppuarachchi, Palitha. (2009).Virtual team concepts in projects: A case study. Project management journal. P. 19-33

The communication model.  (Image)
http://www.suite101.com/view_image_articles.cfm/418479

Virtual teams. (Image).Available at: http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2011/01/15/strategies-for-managing-virtual-teams