Communication and trust challenges in virtual project teams

Virtual project teams have become increasingly important, and they deliver many benefits to organization. However, there are difficulties associated with virtual project teams that managers need to be aware of. These revolve around communication issues, including trust, information flow, communication styles and sociological issues such as personal culture and the political nature of communication. It is recommended that managers develop a keen understanding of the differences between virtual team communication and conventional business communication. In addition, managers need to be clearer with respect to responsibilities, time frames, types of information that should flow and other aspects of team management. In general, virtual team management needs to be more regimented than conventional team management in order to be effective and deliver to the organization the benefits that virtual project teams promise.

Background

The information superhighway has allowed for the emergence of virtual project teams as a viable means of bringing together the knowledge and experience within an organization. That projects no longer need to be completed by people working at the same site results in new opportunities for organizations, but the rise of virtual project teams also presents some challenges as well. This paper will outline the nature of virtual project teams, the opportunities and challenges associated with this new form of workplace collaboration and will attempt to outline some of the best practices associated with virtual project teams.

A traditional project team was a group of people that had been brought together physically to work on a project. A virtual project team performs the same function, but without being brought together physically (Bryce, 2006). Communication technology such as email, online chatting, video chat and other electronic communication methods are used to facilitate communication among team members. As the Internet has facilitated the rapid transmission of complex documents, the use of virtual project teams has exploded. The primary difference between a virtual project team and a conventional project team, therefore, rests with the differences in the methods of communication that are used.

The major issues with respect to the implementation of virtual project teams, therefore, revolve around issues of communication and trust. Communication styles and forms function differently in a virtual environment than they do in person. Non-verbal communication in particular is often missing from the virtual project team. In addition, managerial oversight of virtual project teams is made more difficult by the barriers to communication that are inherent in virtual project teams.

The benefits of virtual project teams are clear. Virtual project teams lower the costs of putting together a team; they allow talented people who would be otherwise unwilling to relocate to work with one another; they allow for certain functions to be offshored, and VPTs allow for a greater range of expertise to be introduced to the project. Virtual project teams are often considered to be more responsive as well, since information travels faster than people do (Bergiel, Bergiel & Balsmeier, 2008).

Recommendations and Summary

Bryce (2006) provides a useful starting point for effective management of virtual project teams. His tips including the identification of team members; it is easy in a team environment to include other people without telling the team manager and it is easy in larger teams for the team manager to forget about some team members. Bryce also recommends defining standard methods, techniques and tools. It is important that communication and information flow be conducted in a consistent manner, so that all data is moved to all people in accordance with expectations. The risk of miscommunication is lowered considerably when there are clear standards governing what needs to be communicated, by what means and when. Bryce also recommends establishing standard and routine reporting cycles. This will keep the flow of information between team members and to team management both consistent in form and regular in interval. This will aid management in understanding the status of the project and the responsibilities that the team members have.

What is noteworthy is that managing virtual project teams is in many ways no different that managing any other team. The difficulty lies in the ability of managers to understand that the means by which these tasks are performed will be different in a virtual project team. In addition, managers need to be clear that the most important difference between conventional project teams and virtual project teams lies in the communication. Therefore, it is primarily by the means and style of communication that managers can adjust effectively to the virtual world. They need to understand the vagaries of virtual communication and the means by which electronic information is disseminated. Managers in particular need to understand their information technology as well as they understand interpersonal communication modes.

One interesting area of future research that arises from this analysis is the question of the way that virtual project teams impact organizational politics. As the latter is historically based on interpersonal interaction, the impact of the increasing prevalence of virtual project teams on organizational politics is an area that is worthy of future study.

Works Cited:

Bergiel, B., Bergiel, E. & Balsmeier, P. (2008) Nature of virtual teams: A summary of their advantages and disadvantages. Management Research News. Vol. 31 (2) 99-110.

Bryce, T. (2006). Managing virtual project teams. ProjectSmart.co.uk. Retrieved March 21, 2011 from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/managing-virtual-project-teams.html

Chen, T.; Yuh, C. & Hui, C. (2008). Developing a trust evaluation method between co-workers in virtual project teams for enabling resource sharing and collaboration. Computers in Industry. Vol. 59 (6) 565-579.

HBS. (2001). Communicating with virtual project teams. HBS Working Knowledge. Retrieved March 21, 2011 from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/2122.html

Jarvenpaa, S. & Leidner, D. (1998). Communication and trust in global virtual teams. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Vol. 3 (4).