WORK TEAMS

Deepthi D(FT12422) Divyamaan Srivastava (FT12482)

Himanshu Yadav (FT12431) Sai Sriram Janardhanan (FT12483)

Vaibhav Kr. Daga (FT12472)

WORK TEAMS

Introduction

• Teams - a group of individuals brought together with a specific purpose in mind

• A productive team has players that share common goals, a common vision and have some level of interdependence that requires both verbal and physical interaction.

WORK TEAMS

Importance

The team is family - family is life Synergy comes naturally from the quality of the relationship, the

friendship, trust, and love that unites people. ~ Stephen Covey

WORK TEAMS

Importance

• Every player needs to understand how important it is for them to work smoothly together if they want to be successful. Each player must be dedicated to the whole team and be willing to act unselfishly.

• When challenges arise (as they always do), the team needs to have the resources, accountability and commitment to deal with them in a constructive and positive manner. A sense of teamwork will play an integral part in this.

• T.E.A.M. - Together Everyone Achieves More!

WORK TEAMS

Teams vs Groups

• When an identifiable group of people are working together face-to-face toward a common goal and are interdependent upon each other to realize that goal, they may be referred to as a team.

• If any of these factors are missing, they may simply be a group of individuals that come together with their own agenda and no common purpose.

• A working group’s performance is a function of what its members do individually against the teams’ performance which is a function of both individual and collective results.

WORK TEAMS

  Groups Teams

Leadership Focused and Strong Shared

Accountability Individual Individual and Mutual

Purpose Organization’s purpose Specific

Work products Individual Collective

Meetings Efficient Active, open-minded, problem solving

Effectiveness Measure Indirect Direct

Hierarchy Delegation No delegation

Teams vs. Groups

WORK TEAMS

Cross Functional Teams• Group of people with different functional enterprise working

towards a common goal• Every expert is the leader or manager for the problem related to

his specialtyCoordination of Cross Functional Teams• Choose membership carefully• Establish purpose clearly• Understanding of functional flow• Intensive team building up front for better team interaction• Maintaining morale by achieving noticeable results

WORK TEAMS

Purpose of Cross Functional Teams• Design and develop new products• Implement new technologies throughout the organization• Improve service profit chain• Control product costsBenefits of Cross Functional Teams• Improves information sharing among different departments• Improves team interaction and bonding• Improves team performance and organizational performance

WORK TEAMS

Challenges faced in Cross Functional Teams• Extra pressure on Cross functional team members due to multiple

assignments• Need for constant innovation and necessity to maintain high

performance• Organization’s departments can compete with each other leading

to poor team coordination• Traditional performance appraisal system may not motivate the

members of a Cross functional team

WORK TEAMS

Virtual Teams Definition• Group of people who work interdependently with shared purpose across

space, time and organization boundaries using technology to communicate and collaborate.

• With the advent of information technology face to face communication is no longer necessary

Benefits of Virtual Teams:• Access to skill and expertise irrespective of locations• More flexible• Less cost of forming and disbanding a virtual team

WORK TEAMS

Key to Effective Virtual Teams• Choose communication channel in accordance with job

requirements• Geography should not become an obstacle• Use synchronous technologies like video conferencing for

complex tasks• Use low cost asynchronous technologies like e mail, chat rooms

for simpler tasks

WORK TEAMS

Challenges of working in virtual teamsRW3 Culture Wizard sent out 30,000 survey forms to randomly selected

employees of MNC’s and received 600 completed surveys in April 2010.

Purpose of survey:To examine the following key areas:• Differences between virtual and face to face teams‐ ‐• General and specific challenges faced by members of virtual teams• Information about the use of virtual teams and evaluations of their

success• Characteristics of successful interaction among virtual team members

WORK TEAMS

Respondents profile:23% United States,18% United Kingdom,7% (France, India),5%

Germany,4% Canada,3% Brazil, 2% (Australia, China, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland).

Survey Findings:• 80% of respondents reported that they were part of a team

with people based in different locations.• 63% of respondents indicated that nearly half of their teams

were located outside the home country.• 64% considered their team to be an example of a virtual

team.

WORK TEAMS

Survey Findings (Continued)• 60% reported that their virtual teams were successful or very

successful, and 40% believed their virtual teams were somewhat successful or not successful.

• Respondents found virtual teams more challenging than face to‐ ‐face teams in managing conflict (73%),making decisions (69%), and expressing opinions (64%). They also stated that delivering quality output (48%) and generating innovative ideas (47%) were more challenging in a virtual environment.

• Time zones (81%) presented the greatest general hurdle to virtual teams, followed by language (64%);holidays, local laws, and customs (59%); and technology (43%).

WORK TEAMS

Survey Findings (Continued)• The greatest personal challenges respondents faced were inability to

read non verbal cues (94%), absence of collegiality (85%), difficulty ‐establishing rapport and trust (81%), difficulty seeing the whole picture (77%), reliance on email and telephone (68%), and a sense of isolation (66%).

• 46% of respondents never met other virtual team members face to face, and 30% met only once a year.

• The top five challenges faced during virtual team meetings were insufficient time to build relationships (90%), speed of decision making (80%), different leadership styles (77%), method of decision making (76%), and colleagues who do not participate (75%).

WORK TEAMS

Survey Findings (Continued)• When respondents ranked the most important characteristics of

a good virtual teammate, they ranked willingness to share information as first, being proactively engaged second, and the ability to be collaborative as third.

Survey Conclusions:• The survey data corroborate the trend toward global

collaboration.• Highlight fundamental areas where virtual teams pose unique

challenges to organizational and individual productivity.

WORK TEAMS

Survey Conclusions (Continued)• challenges such as conflict management, decision making, time

zone differences, and cultural and language barriers have such a strong impact on the success of virtual teams.

• vital need to develop specific and explicit work rules to replace those that are tacitly understood among members of co located ‐teams who share a common culture and language.

• Armed with an awareness of cultural influences in the workplace and procedures to sustain intercultural effectiveness, organizations will be able to capitalize on the diverse range of talent that their worldwide employee populations can bring to bear on their efforts.

WORK TEAMS

Self Managed Teams• Group of employees responsible for managing and performing

technical tasks that result in product being delivered to internal or external customers

• The teams themselves are empowered to organize, manage and perform without managements direct approval

• Self managed teams are also called as self directed teams, self- managed natural work team, or auto managed team

WORK TEAMS

Benefits of Self Managed Teams• Less Stress• Less Fatigue• More creativity• More original ideas• More innovation• Higher productivity• Monitoring of personal performance• Empowered to take decisions

WORK TEAMS

Problems in Self Managed Teams• Team members are unwilling to give up past practices• Scope to grab more power and exert influence on other team

members• Lack of uniformity among team members with respect to ability,

knowledge and skill to contribute to the team• Lack of trust and confidence among team members

WORK TEAMS

Building Effective Teams

• Why some teams are very effective?

• Why some teams fail to perform capably?

• What does it take to make teams more effective?

WORK TEAMS

Challenges faced in a team:• Conflicts between personal and team’s interest• Differences in opinions not handled in a constructive

manner• Lack of leadership • Frequent ego clashes• Ineffective work delegation• Cultural/global issues

WORK TEAMS

WORK TEAMS

Team Member• Experience• Problem resolving capabilities• Openness• Supportiveness• Action OrientationTeam Problem Solving• Often complex process• Focus and clarity of work• Relaxed and comfortable even in stressful situations• Positive approach• Open communication

WORK TEAMS

Team Leader• Focuses on the goal• Empathetic• Knows the team• Motivator and confidence builder• Prioritizes and delegates as applicableOrganizational Environment• Management practices• Structure and Processes• Rewards based• Work culture

REFERENCES :

• http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/scni13a2.htm

• http://www.teambuildinginformation.com/importance-of-team-building.html

• http://www2.accaglobal.com/students/acca/exams/f1/technical_articles/2944661

• Frank LaFasto and Carl Larson, “When teams work best” Sage Publications, 2001, ISBN 0761923667

• The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization, by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, HarperBusiness, 1994, ISBN 0887306764.

WORK TEAMS

References• J Stuart Bunderson and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe ,“ Comparing Alternative

Conceptualizations of Functional Diversity in Management Teams: Process and Performance Effects”, Pg no 875-893.

• http://www.1000ventures.com• http://www.resourcesunlimited.com• http://www.12manage.com• http://innovativecouncil.wikidot.com• http://www.irism.com/selfteam.htm• http://www.groupjazz.com/pdf/vteams-toronto.pdf• VIRTUAL TEAMS SURVEY REPORT – 2010: by RW3 CultureWizard 55

Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10003