Theory and Innovation of Virtual Team Management

Abstract: Virtual team is a new organizational structure of modern enterprises, which is different from the traditional organizational model in composition, function and function. This paper analyzes the problems and solutions of virtual team from its characteristics, types, input and output, etc.

Keywords: virtual team; Team goals; Electronic communication; Enjoy information * * *

The traditional enterprise organization model takes the work nature and professional expertise of employees as the standard, and divides people with the same business content into the same department, which is convenient for enterprise management. However, in enterprises characterized by project management, this organizational form has been tested. If a project process involves many departments of the enterprise and people of different levels in many departments of the enterprise, how can the enterprise coordinate the actions of these people? In fact, everyone involved in the same project can be regarded as a team, but this is a temporary team. This kind of team has the following characteristics: the team is relatively unstable, and the members increase or decrease at any time with the progress of the project; Participants have different degrees of participation in the project; The relationship between members is relatively loose, and many times it is not a "team" in the eyes of team members or even company managers. We can call it a "virtual team".

First, the characteristics of the virtual team

Different researchers have put forward different views on the definition of virtual team. Some people think that virtual teams are a group. They are scattered in different time and space and organizational boundaries, but they work together and accomplish tasks together. Tounsen et al. describe this organizational structure as follows: Virtual teams are composed of some members who cross regions and organizations, and they are connected by communication and information technology, trying to accomplish the same task of the organization. Virtual team can be regarded as a combination of the following aspects: first, modern communication technology; Second, effective trust and cooperation education; The third is to hire the most suitable partner, and personnel are the most important factor. It has also been suggested that teams that operate 50 feet away and cooperate through electronic communication to achieve their common goals can be called virtual teams.

Based on related research, we can find that virtual teams have four characteristics: first, team members have the same goals; Second, the geographical location of team members is discrete; The third is to use electronic communication; The fourth is the wide organizational boundaries.

Second, the type of virtual team

Virtual teams can be divided into the following seven types:

1. Network virtual team.

The boundary between team and organization is blurred, and the mobility of team members is high.

2. Parallel virtual teams.

A temporary organization with clear team members and clear boundaries between the team and the organization is designed to improve a process or system in a short time, and will be dissolved automatically after the task is completed.

3. Project product development team.

Team boundaries are clear, team members have certain mobility, team tasks are long-term and unconventional, and the team has decision-making power.

4. Work team.

Team boundaries are clear, members are determined, routine and single-function tasks are completed, communication is conducted through the internal Internet, and information is enjoyed.

5. Service team.

It is composed of cross-regional technical experts who provide network maintenance and technical support, and works in turn according to the time difference in different regions.

6. Manage the team.

It is composed of senior managers of multinational companies, who use network information technology to work together to guide the realization of the company's goals.

7. Action Team.

Respond quickly to emergencies and emergencies.

Thirdly, the input-output model of virtual team.

Based on the case study of virtual team, virtual team mainly includes three elements: goal, member and connection.

1. target.

Goals are especially important for virtual teams. Because the goal is the glue for virtual team members to work together, only when the team goal is recognized and accepted by the team members will they work together. In a virtual team, the goal must be transformed into an action plan, which becomes the cornerstone of team members' collaborative work, and requires the goal to be cooperative, task-dependent and concrete. Teams exist to get results. Without the cooperation goal, the project task will never start. If the tasks are independent of each other, there is no need for the team to exist. Because individuals and single organizations can't achieve the expected results alone, virtual teams are usually established to solve the difficulties they face.

2. Members.

Team members are the core of virtual teams, and the following three key factors must be considered: first, independence. Every member of a virtual team must be independent, but they can be interdependent. The second is leadership sharing. Every member of the virtual team can play the role of leader with the progress of the team, and the leader changes with the change of the task, and each member exerts his talents and expertise in the process of the task. The third is the level of integration. Virtual team is not just a horizontally connected team, it must be able to connect with the organization up and down.

Contact.

Connection is connection, not just technology. These contacts can be made through face-to-face conversations or through information technology. But these connections themselves are passive. The results of tasks require some kind of interaction, which can produce relationships. If these relationships are trustworthy, they are lasting. The difference in the information age is not relationship and interaction, but digital technology. Digital technology provides rich opportunities for interaction, but how these technologies affect the organizational model deserves our further study. We don't want to give up other ways of communication, but want to enrich them. If you can quickly establish a trust relationship through face-to-face conversation, it is not feasible if there is a spatial distance. Once the goals and members of the team are defined, we can choose the most suitable connection mode to communicate with the team members and accomplish the same task.

Fourth, the key to a successful virtual team.

If a virtual team wants to succeed, it must do the following nine things well:

First, carefully select team members. Team members must have self-development awareness, strong communication skills and other high virtual team skills.

Second, keep the project task as the center, and let the team members measure their work progress and know whether they are in the target direction.

Third, maintain the positive interaction and action orientation of the team.

Fourth, the standardization of public agreements.

Fifth, establish clear team goals.

Sixth, congratulations on achieving the goal.

Seventh, establish a * * * enjoyment space. * * * Enjoying space can go beyond the scope of work and realize the interaction of team members.

Eighth, identify the obstacles to cooperation that members need to overcome.

Ninth, make clear what team members should do when a crisis occurs, who they should contact and the decision-making level.

V. Problems in Virtual Team Management

Since the virtual team is different from the physical team, it also has its own characteristics. The following problems often appear in virtual team management.

1. Administrative affiliation and project affiliation of team members.

Each team member first belongs to a specific department of the company and is led by the department in business, which is an administrative subordinate relationship. Secondly, each member accepts the guidance of the project manager on the project, which is the project affiliation. This phenomenon of double-headed leadership will inevitably lead to the reduction of management efficiency to some extent.

2. Excessive communication and insufficient communication.

For a real team, regular "team meetings" are essential. For a project-centered "virtual team", each member has different time and depth to participate in the project, so the demand for project progress information is also different. Frequent "team meetings" will cause a lot of time waste and too much communication. If the team does not communicate in time and effectively, there will be problems in the cooperation between members, resulting in insufficient communication.

3. Performance appraisal.

Employees participate in different projects at different times and make different contributions to each project. How to objectively evaluate the performance of employees? Many enterprise employees' performance appraisal is based on the job evaluation of their administrative subordinate departments. In an enterprise with a virtual team, the project manager can usually know more clearly how much the virtual team members contribute to the project.

Countermeasures of intransitive verbs

These problems of virtual team can be summed up in one point: lack of accurate information. Timely and accurate project information can effectively avoid excessive communication and insufficient communication, and enable employees to strike a balance between multiple projects, their own projects and tasks temporarily designated by departments. The complete project participation information of employees can provide a strong basis for performance appraisal. Therefore, IT technology is a necessary means of virtual team management. Among them, SFA is a practical method at present. In practice, SFA has indeed achieved the role of effectively managing virtual teams. A typical case is that a data system company in Beijing applies SFA's three functional modules in virtual team management: task collaboration, information sharing and knowledge sharing.

Task collaboration refers to SFA making tasks and selecting relevant participants at a certain stage of the sales process, expanding or shrinking the virtual team flexibly and periodically, and sometimes including the general manager in the virtual team. After the virtual team is determined, SFA completes the cooperation of the virtual team through information sharing. This includes: first, sharing information about the progress of the project. This module can set the enjoyment level of a team or individual through resources such as customers and opportunities, so as to timely and accurately transmit information to the members who should arrive. Secondly, it is information sharing of project knowledge. That is, the products, technologies, competitors and application schemes involved in the project. Through knowledge sharing, members of the "virtual team" can get the project information that is not within the business scope of the department in time, so as to achieve tacit cooperation.