Work from Home and Virtual Team Project Phase 2

Course: Managing Self and Team

FTMBA, Year I, Trim I, 2020-2022

Project Group : 08

PROLOGUE

With the onset of the unprecedented pandemic, the education sector went through radical
changes in order to remain functional. The challenges faced by the management and
professors were discussed during the phase 1 of the project. In phase 2, the obstacles faced
by students were analysed and reported.

CHALLENGES FACED BY EDUCATION INDUSTRY:

The major challenges that we identified are as follows:

 Maintaining the standards of education

 Engagement of students in the virtual class
 Infrastructural Issues
 Lack of campus life and community building via events
 Adhering to changing government regulations
 Maintaining work life balance
 Upskilling stakeholders to be conversant with technology

CHALLENGES FACED BY STUDENTS

 Communication
As a part of our curriculum all the students in the college are usually divided into divisions
and further into subgroups. Communication has been the most critical and difficult part in
virtual teams. The visual cues and gestures that we pick up in face-to-face communication is
lost in virtual interaction. We miss out on socializing which is an essential part of student life.
This may cause difficulty in delegation, lack of clarity, hidden incompetence and diminished
productivity, leading to conflicts and reduced satisfaction among the team members.

 Trust & Cohesiveness

Trust is an important parameter while forming a successful team. Team members are from
different parts of India, from different educational background with difference in work
experiences. This type of a cross-functional team can be effective when they exchange
information, develop new ideas and solve problems. Meeting face-to-face makes it easier for
us to get to know each other on a personal level. We quickly get to know other’s personality
and strengths and weaknesses.

 Infrastructural Issues
We use different modes like video calling, calls, mails and messages for interacting with each
other. Rich media such as videoconferencing helps us to receive immediate feedback and
also helps us to see the nonverbal cues. Last minute technical issues during a meet, poor
 audio or video clarity and poor internet connections disturb the session. As the tasks
assigned to different team members can't be completed due to technical issues, it leads to
lack of trust and increased pressure among the rest of the team mates.

 Lack of focus
Unlike classrooms, there are a lot of distractions in our homes. We get easily distracted with
notifications popping up on our laptop screens during online lectures or meets. We may try
multitasking and this leads to lack of focus. There is a sense of seriousness and learning
culture while we are in our classrooms or college library. It is very difficult to replicate that
environment at our homes. Students tend to take group meetings lightly which leads to
wastage of time. As discussed in the phase 1 report, keeping students interested in the
lectures was one of the major challenges faced by teachers.

 Time Management
Being MBA candidates, each team member had to take care of various different
commitments. Juggling among different roles and ensuring that the group productivity is not
hampered challenged each group member to build up on their time management skills. The
execution of tasks consumed much more of our time than it would in a face to face
conversation. This was due to factors like availability of all team members at a common
time, technical issues at anyone’s end, ensuring that a message delivered is interpreted in
the correct manner, etc. 

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Education Industry Students

During early days of lockdown faced hiccups
while transferring their work from office setup
to home and building a robust IT
infrastructure. Building the same was a
mammoth task for teachers located at remote
locations.
The same was true for students to take up the
whole process of learning online demanded us to
have strong internet bandwidth established,
especially those students who didn’t live in urban
areas. 

Personal touch plays an important role in We all came from different walks of life holding
order to convert the possible prospects. different experiences. In a physical space we would
Personal touch really does matter to establish have learned a lot from each other. This is where
connection with the clients. Working from not having personal touch is leading to losing out of
home made it little difficult for teachers to opportunity to learn and grow from our group
establish this connection with the pupils.  members.

Work from home has no doubt saved a lot on
travelling in order to reach the prospect. But
when it comes to deliberation and discussion
the efficiency of a team takes a dip and a
slightly longer hour of discussion has become
a new normal.
When it comes to the execution part which involves
research, planning, discussion and deliberation we
also faced the same challenge of not being able to
perform efficiently. Though we had a liberty to work
on our deliverables at any hour of day which would
have not been possible otherwise.

Managing different works became more easy Same was also true for us. Students could switch
as employees could toggle between different between different tasks due to better time
works due to working from home resulted in management.
better time management 

TEAM EFFECTIVENESS MODEL

The team effectiveness model consists of 3 factors:

1. Context
2. Composition
3. Process

Team context is very important when we talk about developing trust which was one of the
important challenges discussed earlier. It allows the team to accept and commit to a particular goal.
Being from a diverse background, the team must come together and use all their resources to find
solutions to the problems. The members must understand who can lead a particular project and be
less likely to claim and defend personal ownership of their ideas. The team members must be honest
about their strengths and weaknesses.

Team composition includes understanding about the ability, personality and diversity of the
members and reacting to them. This helps in improving communication as well as trust. The team
may have different interests apart from their academics. High conscientiousness, openness to
experience and moderate agreeableness are some of the desired traits in a successful team. The
members must identify them and work towards making them better.

Team processes includes commitment of the members to a common purpose, establishment of

specific team goals, team cohesion, mental moods, etc. Every team must set a target and
consistently work for achieving it. This must be framed in terms of team members’ individual needs
and ambitions as well. Also, the team must show flexibility. Even though we have a plan ready, we
need to adapt when conditions call for it. Team efficacy is also important. Teams must have
confidence in themselves and must believe that they can succeed. One of the most important
abilities of a successful team is team cohesion.
RECOMMENDATIONS AND ACTION PLAN

The crisis being intensively sudden and unforeseen got us looking for alternatives and
adjusting with them swiftly. There have been some challenges shifting to the virtual world.
However, recent advancements in technology have made sure that these don’t present
potent threats.

 The members must be encouraged to meet frequently via video calls as these virtual face to
face meetings can help to build a sense of familiarity.
 Team members must be clear who can lead a particular project and ensure all members
share the workload.
 There are a few project management tools like Nutcache, clickup, cyfe, etc. that allow teams
to collaborate. It helps us to track tasks, workhours and deadlines.
 The Big 5 personality Model can be used to identify the personalities of the team members.
 Every team has different needs, and members must be selected such that all these needs are
filled. Some of the roles that need to be filled by the members are of producer, assessor,
controller.
 Effective teams also make members individually and jointly accountable for team’s purpose,
goals and approach. This gives a sense of responsibility and helps to avoid social loafing.
 We also need to be understanding and empathetic when a team member is suffering due to
technical issues, but it is the member’s responsibility that he solves the issue as soon as
possible.
 Also it must be made clear that multitasking on calls isn’t tolerated. All the members need to
be mentally present and engaged during team calls. This keeps the team morale high and
improves efficiency.
 All the members are emotionally attached to one another which helps them to stay
motivated as a team. Since we usually study and complete projects in teams of small size,
this can be achieved quickly.
 
These factors help a virtual team to come together as a team, understand each other, build
trust, improve communication, set up goals and work towards achieving it. This can be
achieved with time only if the team members are willing to give their best.

We must not have a mindset that working with virtual teams is a hinderance and must believe
that we can perform as efficiently as traditional teams. This training of working and
collaborating with virtual teams can be very helpful in the future. We get to learn new
technologies and develop socio-emotional communication virtually.
 REFERENCE

 Robbins, S., & Judge, T. A. (2018b). Organizational Behavior (18th Edition)

(What’s New in Management) (18th ed.). Pearson
 https://biz30.timedoctor.com/challenges-of-virtual-teams/#diminished-focus-productivity
 https://blog.dce.harvard.edu/professional-development/challenges-managing-virtual-
teams-and-how-overcome-them

APPENDIX

Team Effectiveness Model

Similarity check:

Names and Roll Nos. of Group Members:

Avinash Khilnani (D005)

Rajarshi Roy Choudhury (D010)
Simran Raina (D014)
Srija Ghosh (D032)
Arinjay Arora (D063)
Ananth Chintamaneni (D065)

Date: 26-09-2020