Virtual Team Management & Success

Virtual Team Management & Success

Building High-Performance Virtual Teams

Profiles of Virtual Team Success

The profiles are categorized into three: the composition of a team, team leadership, and communication and training (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). According to Lepsinger and DeRosa (2010), teams that contained members who performed the same functions performed better than those with different functions. This is because the team members were more accountable for their tasks and were able to coordinate better. Effective team leadership facilitated the high performance of virtual teams (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). A virtual team leader who cannot effectively communicate with team members and create a highly interactive virtual environment would promote low performance. Effective communication and training are important for virtual team success (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). Virtual meetings and face-to-face meetings were found to be effective in providing training on some skills including communication.

Differentiators of Great Teams (RAMP Model)

The RAMP model describes relationships, accountability, motivation, process, and purpose as the factors that contribute to a team’s high performance (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). Working without focusing on interpersonal relationships between team members does not help in achieving high performance. This is because collaboration and trust are important for effective team performance and can only be built by interpersonal relationships. Without effective communication, team members would lack accountability. This would lead to low performance. Motivated teams are more likely to perform well than those without motivation. Motivated team members have great interpersonal skills, effective communication, and trust. Process and purpose enable a team to have planned deliverables and goals. This ensures that team members understand what is expected of them and within what timelines.

Virtual Team Launch Kit

Before launching a virtual team, the virtual team leader should consider the roles of the team members to ensure that the right members are included in the project (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). He should also evaluate his skills to ensure that he has what it takes to lead the team. A face-to-face meeting with the team members would be scheduled to communicate the team members’ requirements. This would also facilitate the building of trust and relationships among team members. Communication on how individual and team performance would be assessed would also be done to ensure each member understands what is expected. Feedback would be requested from the team members to establish effective team operations. Communication on the monitoring of progress for the project would then be done as the final step before launching the team.

Leading Virtual Teams

How to Lead a Virtual Team

To effectively lead a virtual team, team leaders should work on overcoming the challenges that are encountered by virtual teams (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). For example, the team leader should set up a face-to-face meeting to eliminate the challenges of interpersonal relations and people issues. Effective communication on expectation and performance assessment should be done to eliminate poor performance. The leader should create an environment where team members can freely communicate to build trust and relationships.

Team Accelerating Factors

Four factors are important in accelerating team performance. These include coaching and support, gaining commitment from team members, recognizing contributions from team members, and accountability from team members (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). Team members should be coached based on observations made from their performance to ensure that they are supported in obtaining optimal performance. Team leaders should receive communication and commitment from team members to ensure any challenges experienced by team members are communicated and attended to in good time. Each team member should be accountable for the tasks assigned to him to ensure that none of them slacks.

Facilitating High Impact Virtual Team Meetings

To ensure that a virtual team meeting is effectively facilitated, the facilitator has to follow several steps (Lepsinger & DeRosa, 2010). The first step would be to ensure that each team member understands the meeting’s agenda. The second step would be to ensure respect is observed throughout the meeting despite disagreements. The third step would be to ensure that each member is allowed some time to share ideas and feedback. The final step would be to communicate the next steps to be followed after the meeting. This would include the implementation of the discussion(s) made during the meeting. Notes on the same would be distributed to all team members.

Conclusion

Six Lessons for a Successful Virtual Team

The first lesson is ensuring that team members have free interaction between themselves. This would facilitate the solving of people’s issues. People issues are brought about by fewer social interactions between team members, making it difficult to have a good working relationship. The second lesson is building trust between team members and the team leader through effective and easy communication. The third lesson is strengthening team members’ soft skills. This enables team members to enhance interaction skills for better team performance and not just technical skills for their job function. The fourth lesson is continuous checking of performance peak. Teams tend to attain a performance peak and go back to low performance. This should be identified before it happens. The fifth lesson is creating an environment that promotes team spirit through team members’ bonding. The sixth lesson is having an effective team leader. A team leader should ensure that his skills are right for the time. He should also ensure that he can handle the challenges faced by team members and provide overall guidance.

 References

Lepsinger, R., & DeRosa, D. (2010). Virtual Team Success: A Practical Guide for Working and Leading from a Distance. John Wiley & Sons.

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Instructions
ITMG421- Paper
You will write a term paper on Virtual Team Management & Success that covers all the sections covered in the class. Your paper must be in-depth and address the main areas of class outcomes including:
Building High-performance Virtual teams

Profiles of Virtual Team Success
Differentiators of great teams (RAMP model)
Virtual team launch kit
Leading virtual teams
How to lead a virtual team
Team accelerating factors
Facilitating the impact of Virtual team meetings
Conclusion
Six lessons for successful Virtual teams
The paper is due at the end of week eight and must be APA-compliant. The paper should be at least 3 pages long, excluding the cover page and references section. The paper should be prepared in Microsoft Word and uploaded to the Week 8 Paper.