Operation and coordination of virtual teams

Crossing boundaries: features and functions of virtual teams

A virtual team is a group of people who span time, space, and organizational boundaries and are associated with a common goal and task. Its basic features are: the team members share the goal of developing new products. The innovation and timeliness requirements of the Goals are high, and the Target solutions and results are difficult to predict. Most of the team members are knowledge-based experts, the team members are separated by time and space, and the team collaboration process is difficult to be designed in advance. The team work style needs to be constantly reorganized. Flexible and smooth information technology is necessary for communication among team members. In its remote Manager book, Jin Bor fül and marine Dunken fül have different combinations of time, space, and culture elements, there are six types of virtual teams:

Type Temporal Space Culture
Type 1 is different
Type two is different and the same
The three types are the same and different.
Type 4 is the same and different
Same as type 5
Type 6 is the same

Today's enterprises are in the era of knowledge explosion. Science and technology are changing with each passing day, and information transmission is getting faster and faster. enterprises do not have to rely solely on their own Tangible entities to operate. In many cases, enterprises can adopt a new cooperative relationship across time, space, and organizations. By establishing virtual teams, they can jointly develop new technologies and new products and build a dynamic and vertical alliance to quickly gain a competitive advantage. The Virtual Cooperation under the dynamic alliance, a brand-new business operation method, provides a brand new way of thinking for enterprises to expand a broader market space, the development of modern electronic communication means also provides technical support for enterprises to build virtual teams.

In the past, emerging technologies had a long pregnancy period, during which companies and customers were able to think about and adapt to the various changes they may bring, now emerging technologies do not have such a long period of pregnancy, and they often suddenly change from conception to reality. It took 41 years for wireless pagers to enter the market for the first time and 10 million of users, but now it takes only 10 months to popularize Web browsers, and less time for Napster. In the face of rapid technological and market changes, enterprises are forced to adapt to the market for organizational and institutional innovation. A virtual team without strict time, space, and cultural boundaries and a relatively vague structure is an innovative strategy for enterprises to reengineer processes across traditional organizational frameworks and integrate resources through dynamic alliances.

Virtual teams face the challenge of time-space and diversified management. How can they operate and coordinate in the actual process?

Rule "navigation": how to ensure the consistency of virtual teams?

A virtual team is set up to create a consortium "Fleet" that can make waves in the sea of market economy. However, to successfully launch this "Fleet", you must use the following rules to "navigate ":

◆ Establish a virtual cooperation agreement. A clear and thorough cooperation agreement is the basis for the parties to reach consensus and gain mutual trust. It is essential for the success of the virtual team. The content of the agreement mainly includes the obligations of the partners, the allocation of intellectual property rights, confidentiality agreements, the proportion of creditor's rights, risk sharing, responsibility definition, budget allocation, the role orientation of the Facilitator and the work method.

◆ Define the "3 W" elements. Clarifying the tasks of all team members will facilitate all members of the virtual team to actively devote their enthusiasm and make outstanding contributions to achieving the set goals. A guiding statement of duty should include at least "3 W" elements: What is the task to be completed by the team? Why -- why? How -- how to implement a task.

◆ Clarify the core values of the team. The multicultural nature of virtual teams may bring about value conflicts among team members. Therefore, in the initial stage of a team, we must establish a common vision and integrated value for all kinds of experts. Clarify the core values of the team, seek common ground while reserving differences based on the principle of achieving the task objectives, and reach consensus between team members as early as possible to establish mutual respect and trust among members, it provides a strong pivot for good communication, brainstorming, and effective problem solving.

◆ Define conditions for the team. Defining conditions is like a correction system that defines the working behavior boundary of team members. It is both a restraint system and a guiding system that avoids mutual "Fishing" between team members as much as possible, guides team members to more effectively approach the target on the correct track.

◆ Establish team running principles. The team running principle is a normative document that guides the work of team members. It is closely linked with the core values of the team and binds the team into an organic community of interests.

◆ Clarify the tasks and responsibilities of team members. Once a virtual team enters into a virtual cooperation agreement, it is necessary to clearly define the tasks and responsibilities of the team members so that each team member knows what they should do to accomplish the overall goal or other work objectives of the team.

Communication Platform: How do virtual teams share their knowledge?

Cross-organization virtual cooperation, especially global cross-organization Virtual Cooperation, is facing challenges of cross-time space management and multi-cultural management. On the other hand, it is precisely because of the collision caused by the huge difference in time space and culture, become the source of new knowledge and new ideas for team members. The technical development process of virtual teams is actually the process of transferring, sharing, integrating and adding value to knowledge. Therefore, effective management of knowledge is an indispensable agenda. Establish an interactive communication platform to efficiently transfer and share information within the alliance. Pay attention to the following issues:

● Building an information technology platform

Cross-organizational virtual teams effectively integrate and utilize internal and external resources to achieve common goals. The integration and utilization of resources across time and space must be supported by powerful communication technologies. The rapid development of information technology provides the foundation for achieving this goal. To build an information network platform with good support for the virtual team operating system, pay attention to the following issues:

◆ Make full use of modern information technology to establish a convenient and easy-to-use cross-organization electronic network;

◆ The platform cannot simply pursue advancement from the technical point of view. It is a carrier for the system to deliver knowledge, you must select an appropriate platform based on the basic system conditions and knowledge and capabilities of system users;

◆ Earnestly fulfill the network operation agreement of the team communication, and stipulate the basic rules that team members should follow during the remote communication process to ensure the effectiveness and security of communication.

◆ Construct a knowledge Spiral System

New knowledge always comes from individual team members. The core of knowledge management is to disseminate the personal knowledge of members to other members. That is to say, to build a dynamic knowledge transmission chain within the team and a knowledge spiral rising system that promotes the continuous improvement of the quality of the team and each member: the formation of this system generally involves the following three processes:

◆ From tacit knowledge of individual team members to explicit knowledge shared by the Team;

◆ Organize and refine the highly personalized, nonstandard, and difficult-to-pass knowledge to others, and systematically express the information so that the team can utilize it more effectively;

◆ As new explicit knowledge is shared across the entire team, other members will internalize the explicit knowledge they lack and use it to broaden, extend, and reconstruct their hidden knowledge systems. In this way, the interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge is formed, and a virtuous circle of spiral rise is formed.

Continuity Management: How can the knowledge of virtual teams be effectively accumulated?

Unlike the previous vertical organizational integration, the integration of virtual teams means that the traditional enterprise structure is exclusive, and the integration of virtual teams is "vertical and vertical" in a wider range of time and space ". The integration of virtual teams is based on the consensus that the company's own strength is limited and it is difficult to achieve the expected strategic goal by relying solely on self-reliance. It is necessary to cooperate with other companies, make all team participants more competitive and profitable than when they are alone. Therefore, every integrated enterprise must learn to communicate and collaborate with each other, gather the strength of all parties, form a virtual team with complementary advantages, improve the innovation capability of the enterprise, and extend the scope of activities of the Organization, improve the efficiency of the entire value chain.

Virtual integration will reposition the work of each organization and each link in the value chain. Through resource sharing and complementary advantages, this makes it easy for companies, departments, and individuals who are best at each task to improve the efficiency of the entire value chain, so that all parties involved in the virtual team can achieve "win-win ". During the cooperation process, participants must face possible cultural conflicts and interest distribution conflicts during virtual cooperation and information sharing, and digest and handle various contradictions in the long term.

Like traditional teams, virtual teams also need effective evaluation and incentives. They must not only evaluate and motivate the overall work of the team, but also evaluate and motivate the individual work of the team members, in order to fully tap the potential of the Team and its members, and stimulate innovation enthusiasm. It is worth noting that because of the characteristics of the coexistence of virtual teams across time and space and the diversity of cultures, evaluation and incentives for virtual teams need to be made based on different cultural backgrounds based on local and time-based conditions.

The cooperation between virtual teams is dynamic and may be constantly restructured due to a series of changes in internal or external factors. It is precisely because the virtual team has only relative stability that it should pay special attention to knowledge accumulation and continuation management. Continuing management is professor of George Washington University (H. beazley) the new management theory first put forward in the article "continuity management", which advocates that enterprises should pay attention to knowledge operation and accumulation and should not discard knowledge in the luggage of departing employees, however, it is necessary to use a standardized system so that knowledge can be fully transferred to a position that can be controlled by the enterprise and can be effectively accumulated to become an increasing intangible asset.

The concept of continuing management is even more important for the management of virtual teams. Especially for virtual teams with technical innovation as their tasks, the core of their management is the process of accumulating and accumulating a series of knowledge. Data is interpreted as information, knowledge, ability, and intelligence. Through this series of operations, the team's innovation capability can be formed. Therefore, it is necessary to take effective measures to transfer the important knowledge generated during the entire operation of the team, at the same time, the database of derivative knowledge generated during the cooperation process, the personal files of team members, the identification records of the operation of the knowledge transfer system, and the records of success and failure, establish a precipitation transfer system, which is effectively saved as part of the team's work results.

Enhanced coordination: How to Improve virtual team cohesion and creativity?

Building virtual teams, especially global cross-organizational virtual teams, is inevitable in the case of cultural conflicts. It is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of time and space, improve the synergy of multi-culture, and form an inclusive team culture, so as to better drive the team members to actively work according to the Basic consistent values. Through effective means, the communication between team members can improve the passion and fighting spirit of the entire team, and realize the value-added value of each member through breakthrough innovation activities.

Cross-organization virtual team communication is usually used to transmit information and share knowledge in a virtual space through information technology. It is important to use modern information technology for instant communication and knowledge exchange, but face-to-face communication is also essential because face-to-face communication is conducive to enhancing trust among team members, it is conducive to the scheduling of important work and the negotiation and resolution of major problems. Therefore, the combination of regular face-to-face meetings and virtual network meetings has become an effective method for process management.

Due to the different personalities of the team members, a dedicated team coordinator is required to establish a team's social architecture, stimulate mutual awareness, and feedback on the effectiveness of communication. A good team coordinator should be positioned as a "Contact Person", a "Contact Person" and a "cheerleader.

Trust is the foundation for the establishment of virtual teams and the "lubricant" for successful operation ". Trust is built on mutual recognition of the business philosophy of the other party, mutual adherence to basic rules, and concerted efforts to achieve the overall cooperation goal. A trusted virtual team will be more cohesive, easy to communicate with each other, and more likely to inspire innovation potential of members.