LEADING VIRTUAL PROJECTS

LEADING VIRTUAL PROJECTS

LEVELS

Roll the dice

Session 1

start

Session 2

Session 3

19

18

Session 4

32

20

Session 5

16

33

10

Extra

17

21

14

PLAYERS

12

11

13

22

25

34

23

24

30

26

exit

29

27

28

Drag the pieces!

Group 8

Recommendations for E-leaders

1. Companies should provide the necessary work equipment to WFH and ensure the comfort of their employees.
2. E-leaders should create and share guidelines to establish the boundaries between work and personal life.
3. Workers need to establish morning routines that help them to have a self-connecting space and prepare for the workday.
4. Companies could form alliances with coworking spaces to offer their hybrid or remote employees the opportunity to socialize and share knowledge.
5. E-leaders should promote cultural exchange among their remote employees by offering spaces for virtual socialization and skills improvement.

Understanding What is a Project

• Temporary
• Value-creation
• Unique service/product
• Contrainst (time/resources)

What was learned and the outcome?We learned about the unique characteristics of VT and the different phases required to successfully launch a virtual team. We also discussed best practices for launching a GVT and the importance of onboarding. It involves the process a new employee needs to go through to adapt and integrate into a new organization.

How to reinforce the learnings ? Theoretical concepts ==> Hands-on activities Asynchronous Communication Workshop: Simulating a virtual project using asynchronous communication tools to enhance understanding.

Working PhaseVT’s life cycle: 3 phases

• Welcoming phase
• Working phase
• Wrapping up phase

==> Leadership through those phases

What is a Virtual Team? Geographically dispersed Co-workers who collaborate virtually to accomplish an organizational goal. Hoegl, M., & Muethel, M. (2016)

The Media Richness Theory

• Social oriented VS. Orientation oriented message
• Asynchronous VS. synchronous ICT

Technology Information Technology (IT) Hardware - Networking - Software

Activity: SpeakerMr Marc Fullman, PhD candidate, University of Sussex

• Work-email
• Boundaries

_______________ is a “formal and informal practices, programs, and policies enacted or engaged in by an organization or its agents to facilitate newcomer adjustment” (Klein & Polin, 2012, p. 268).

Different types of VT

• Relation to organization
• Level of continuity
• Degree of geographical dispersion
• Degree of virtuality

Level of creativity

• Individual
• Organizational
• Team

Coordination process Administrative VS. Expertise

Hybrid Working = Traditional teams (F2F) + Virtual teams

Focus on Well-being

• Digital well-being
• Work-life boundaries
• Creative and Innovative mindset
• Engagement, trust & Relationship

Coordination Tight ==> coordinated effort Loose ==> collaborative effort

How Smithfield's Activity helpedin understanding theory?Through this activity, we gained a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in setting up and managing a global virtual team. We experienced the challenges of planning, budgeting, and team composition. We also learned about the importance of social dynamics and technology training in virtual teams.

LITERATURE REVIEW: Wellbeing in virtual environmentsIt can be structured in three dimensions (Pagán-Castaño, Maseda-Moreno, and Santos-Rojo, 2020):

• First dimension: It focuses on subjective experiences and work performance considering levels of satisfaction and commitment.

• Second dimension: It is about the physical and mental health of the employee related to levels of stress, anxiety, and burnout.

• Third dimension: It focuses on the type of relationships the employee has with colleagues, superiors, and the organization itself.

Some E-Leadership styles

Centred e-leadership

• Shared leadership
• Collaborative (co-)leadership

VS.

Traditional Leadership

• Transformational
• Authoritarian

What will we do differently? During the activity, we didn’t plan relevant activities such as training for certain software which is crucial in VT. We also missed onboarding which is an important part of the launch of a VT.

Activity

Smithfield Books Ltd.

During this activity, each team had one leader who communicated with other leaders to create identical bookshelves for each city. Despite clear communication, the results varied, highlighting how outcomes can differ even with the same guidelines and discussions.

Challenges:

• Time
• Limited resources
• Creativity

• Leadership
• Coordination
• Stress

Case Study of Omega: Real organization data from Omega's virtual product team (VPT) lifecycle. Continuous creativity is observed throughout the VPT lifecycle.

Factors influencing creativityEnhancers: Stimulating colleagues, Collaborative climate Inhibitors: Time pressure, Non-stimulating team members

Let's learn how to avoid this!

The most popular phraseof recent times.

What is the purpose of a Virtual Team?

• Expansion & Globalization
• Specific situations like Covid-19

Case Study: The Delta Project Delta project involving virtual product teams in collaboration between industry and academia. Four phases of the creative process: Concept development, detailed design, testing & and refinement, and commercialization. Different leadership styles were identified as most effective for each phase.

Characteristics of Virtual TeamsKey concepts:

• GVT’s Life-cycle: 5 phases/ 3 phases
• Onboarding concept leading the launch of a Global Virtual Team

Social determinism Technological Determinism

VS.