Businesses today have increasingly embraced virtual teams due to advancements in technology that make it easier to engage in virtual collaboration. Companies also gain greatly through cost savings as firms save money on real estate expenses such as office leases and decreased business trips. In turn, this helps in reducing budgets. Businesses must, however, overcome several barriers besides overcoming issues such as information overload.
The current paper identifies the greatest barrier to virtual team performance from the five dysfunctions of a team and determines what firms can do to avoid information overload for virtual teams consisting of 25 or more members.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
In your opinion, which of the five dysfunctions of a team would be the greatest barrier to virtual team productivity? Defend your answer
One of the greatest barriers to virtual team performance is a lack of commitment. Reduced levels of commitment from team members adversely affect the morale of the team. When members lack commitment, they may not explore the presented issues fully, which may lead to poor or adverse decisions that can negatively affect the organization (Buvik & Tvedt, 2017). When a team lacks commitment, members attempt to engage in self-preservation and ignore the concerns of other members (Chiravuri, 2018) . When some members sense that others are ignoring their queries or ideas, they fail to engage and be committed to the team, which increases tension.
Ignored members will feel left out and become less committed to the team, which makes it challenging for the team to move forward due to incomplete tasks or stalled decisions (Buvik & Tvedt, 2017). In turn, this adversely affects enthusiasm for a project as members may start confronting each other. Low commitment levels can also emerge when team leaders do not convey a clear mission as this makes members wonder what their tasks are. In turn, they fail to be involved mentally but just focus on going through discussions.
What can be done to avoid information overload when a virtual team is made up of 25 or more members?
When a virtual team is made up of 25 or more members, information overload can be avoided by creating small teams or committees to focus on different parts of a task. While the small teams should communicate often, the team leader can invite different teams for separate meetings to allow each team to get their corresponding information (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). Each small team can also have a leader whose role will be to organize meetings with the mini-team members before delivering the main decisions or discussions points to the main team leader. Besides, the main team leader can identify the key information that each sub-team requires every day before using the internal communication system to share only essential information between mini-teams easily and transparently.
It is also vital to create a communication policy by mapping out the different communication channels, identifying the key use of each channel, and eradicating redundancies (Ellwart et al., 2015). After narrowing the list to no more than three channels, the team leader should then clearly outline the time, the reason, and the way members should use the channels to accomplish their tasks.
While virtual teams are increasingly becoming cost-effective collaboration techniques for companies, they pose various challenges such as reduced performance due to a lack of commitment or information overload due to the absence of a clear communication policy. Overcoming these challenges would allow a business to gain from virtual collaboration.
References
Buvik, M. P., & Tvedt, S. D. (2017). The Influence of Project Commitment and Team Commitment on the Relationship between Trust and Knowledge Sharing in Project Teams. Project Management Journal , 48 (2), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697281704800202
Chiravuri, A. (2018). Investigating the Efficacy of Techniques Affecting Information Exchange in Virtual teams. J. for Global Business Advancement , 11 (1), 110. https://doi.org/10.1504/jgba.2018.093206
Duarte, D. L., & Snyder, N. T. (2013). Mastering virtual teams: Strategies, tools, and techniques that succeed . San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass. Bottom of Form
Ellwart, T., Happ, C., Gurtner, A., & Rack, O. (2015). Managing Information Overload in Virtual Teams: Effects of a Structured Online Team Adaptation on Cognition and Performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology , 24 (5), 812–826. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432x.2014.1000873
