CRITICAL THINKING
Assignment: Personal Essay
Silvia Benites
February 27th, 2014
Breaking Barriers in Virtual Teams
In our days is now more common to work in virtual teams. Findings from the 2010 Cisco Connected Technology World Report, which was conducted in thirteen countries, indicate that employees expect greater mobility in their jobs and that over 65% of them rate flexibility as a more important factor than salary. As such the number of companies adopting a more collaborative virtual workspace is on the rise, and the projections signify an increasing growth rate in that direction. (Osman, 2011)
Today, having a virtual team in nearly every industry and organization is the norm. As such, the virtual team faces several challenges in managing their virtual distance (Pianigiani & Bhatt, 2012). Some of these principal barriers that virtual teams faced include: Communication, Cultural, Time-Zone and Language Barriers.
Communication Barriers: The most common problem that a virtual team faces is communication (Wally, 2008), for a team to work well is imperative to define a good communication strategy. In virtual teams, is especially difficult to communicate and understand each other if a communication structure is not set up.
Face to face communication is in most cases the best way to communicate and understand each other as a team, however, virtual teams, must communicated in other ways. Establish a Clear Communication Plan and using technology to reduce distance are some of the best practices that help virtual teams to reduce communication barriers.
Establishing a Clear Communication Plan is an effective practice for virtual teams to manage communication more effectively.
A communication plan should define the rules of engagement and the frequency of communication. (Osman, 2011) The plan should also contain a repository of contact information for all team members, as well as listing of all the status update meetings....