Individual blog reflection - Cynthia Tai

It’s the first experience for me to have virtual collaboration by forming a virtual team to work on a group project. In the team, 3 students of our evening class together with 3 students in morning class have been assigned to build a virtual.com. It’s great experience to me and working with virtual teams has helped me stretch professionally, mentally and socially. These opportunities for growth have encouraged me to think about what is important as a learner and leader. Virtual team requires good virtual teammate while successful virtual collaboration requires ongoing negotiations, communications, dialogues, cooperation, trust, interventions, exchanges, sharing, interactions, ground rules. This can make the things happen and possible.

 

In this virtual communication, the online meeting platforms we used were email, WeChat, phone calls, video calls. As virtual team relay very heavily on communication technologies, the most easy and efficient online tools is used, the most effective of communication can be done in the progress.

 

In the beginning, we took the first step to touch base with the evening class by sending an email to greet them, introduce ourselves and suggest some communication channels such as email, whatsapp, facebook, msn or skype. That’s what we Made Multiple Offers of Equivalent Value Simultaneously. It’s because we would have more profitable negotiated outcomes and are evaluated more favorably by the other party. We thought these communications channels are the most common and popular online tools in Hong Kong. Finally, they suggested using WeChat as communication tool. Unfortunately, three of us didn’t use WeChat before. As strongly recommended by the morning team, we tried to download it and finally we agreed to use WeChat for instant messenger and e-mail for long conversation. Later, we also used WeChat video phone call for further discussion.

  

I have spent few months participating in working with virtual teams on this group blog. I have learnt that “two brains are better than one brain”. This allows individuals to pool knowledge and resources, build and expand on each other’s thoughts and work. Engaging in this collaborative effort with virtual team has been a terrific learning experience. After this virtual collaboration, I found that using technology for virtual communication is easier and efficient communications. It is more faster, reliable communication and collaborative tools which allow people to come together to work anywhere and everywhere without face-to-face meeting. It did really save lots of time.
 

Team work is very common and effective for people work together physically. In this group project, we need to come up an idea of virtual organization. That is to pick up two industries to represent our two teams and to build up a virtual.com by combing our resources and talents. After discussion within our team, we suggest to have Religions Organization collaborating with World Peace Organization. The reason is that it’s a chance to get different religions together for collaboration so that different religions can know each other via this platform. The aim is to publicize the message of World Peace and to spread out “We Love, We Care”. To collaborate with these two organizations is innovative meaningful because both are non-profits organization and one of the common goals is to spread out world peace. Besides, different religions will have different culture, belief and point of views, moral values. There would be lots of interaction and exchanges inside. On the other side, the morning team has another idea. They suggested the IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) and PPR (The Third largest luxury group) work together to advertise animal conversation. After long discussion via e-mail, both groups still could not make agreement with each other since both groups have its stand point and point of views. This is the largest conflict we had during this virtual collaboration since we cannot come up with idea which is satisfied by two groups. Finally, we agreed to present two ideas to our professor and let him comment and see his suggestions. As we had positive comment from the professor on our idea, that's make us more confident to negotiate to choose our ideas for this group project. Eventually, upon the professor's comment, morning team has agreed to use our idea for the group project.

 

Although this conflict is hard to handle, I can see team conflict can be a source of excellence, quality and creativity. Use the escalation of conflict as an opportunity for coaching. We can learn through the process of resolving the disagreements and disputes.

 

At the Stage 1, two groups did not agree others idea and caused inconstant condition. At the Stage II, we all perceived and felt that there was conflict between two groups. At the Stage III, action is needed to be taken in order to resolve this conflict. The last Stage IV, the outcomes is the group performance is increased since the deicision is made finally.

 

Make the process for escalated conflict resolution transparent.

Virtual communication cues seriously inhibiting the ability to manage conflicts, make decisions and express opinions. We faced the combined hurdles of culture, understanding different accents in order to complete the work, difficulty to see the whole picture, difficulty to establish trust, reliance on email, WeChat and telephone. As we never met each other, we couldn’t have time to build relationships physically. Besides, we have different method of the decision making and different leadership styles.

 

After virtual collaboration, I learn some technical and interactive skills for working in virtual team.

      1.  Establish project objectives and expectations for the team: It is very important to have clear communication of the project objectives, schedules or timeline and all members’ roles and responsibilities. As team members should know and understand what we are doing together, how we work contributes to this group project, what other team members need from them and why. Even though everyone can work independently, it is essential to constantly communicate with each other the team’s objectives.

 

2.   Set the tone early. At the beginning of the project, it is crucial to let the team members know what is expected of everyone. Status reports, participation in calls, time availability and deliverable schedules are essential parts of managing virtual teams.  

3.  Understand and respect different cultures. Respect is very important within a team because team members may from different religions, different countries, different cultures, different point of views and ideas.  

4.  Choose the right technology to foster communication. The anchor of every virtual team is the technology used to support communication. Online chat, conference calls and instant messengers are ideal for communication tools. Except emails and We Chat, there are also have video phone call and Instant Messenger etc.

 

5.  Have commitments ground rules. Commitments are very important. Once we set the deadline of the due date, we should make sure that all team members know that and the tasks should be deliverables. 

    6.  Get the team together on occasion and act as a team. Building and continuing team chemistry, gathering the team together can strength personal relationships and working partnerships in both the short and long term. Even though team members may work independently, we are working together for the same objectives. It seems that it is difficult for virtual team to build up closer relationship. We can try to give support to each other by friendly wordings or virtual expressions. 

7.  Communication is essential. Being honest and sharing information is one of the important part in virtual team. Since we cannot see each other, we should share our information, resources and talents as much as we can so that we can work for the same objectives and goals. For example, we committed to give others the powerpoint for presentation and we all did it. Besides, we committed to make video phone call on Sunday morning, we did it as well.

 

In this group project, I learn that building trust is an important element in a team. For Dennis S. Reina and Michelle L. Reina, principals in an organizational development research and consulting firm and authors of Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace: Building Effective Relationships in Your Organization, the basic issue is the establishment of a solid trusting relationship. Without that, virtual work is impossible. The higher levels of trust between each other, the higher the performance will be. I’m so lucky to have my two teammates. They gave me lots of supports and we always have long discussions on this group projects via email, phone calls, face-to-face meetings, WhatsApp. We are all happy to share our knowledge, information and resources. I ask myself can virtual team have trust to each other? “Another way to build trust is to create predictable and reliable work norms about crucial group functions such as communications within the team. Team members who are responsive to communications, follow through, and take responsibility for results help build task-based trust, which helps enhance the team’s performance.” My answer is yes. Even we cannot see each other, trust can be built by frequent communications, more progress virtual meeting, more comfortable words and tones. Furthermore, video conferencing can also let others see their facial expression so that people can know more each other.

Conclusion

I think we do excellent within our team. The reason is that we have more communications and sharing of knowledge and ideas. For the virtual team, I admitted that we had some conflicts, different culture, ideas, language etc. However, with our team hard work and consideration, we finally learn how to collaborate with virtual team by resolving the conflicts.

I would like to thank my teammates for their hard work and friendly support.  It's very appreciate to work with morning team for this group project and their effort. It’s a great experience for me to work in virtual collaboration and communication. Virtual team requires good virtual teammate while successful virtual collaboration requires ongoing negotiations, communications, dialogues, cooperation, trust, interventions, exchanges, sharing, interactions, ground rules. This can make the things happen and possible.

References:

Managing the virtual world by Colnaz Sadri and Johyn Condia

How to Manage Virtual teams by Frank Siebdrat, Martin Hoegl and Holger Ernst
The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams, Virtual teams survey report 2012