I attach my project. I am responsible for part III BDespite setting ground rules, the following conflicts arose within Lauren’s teamOne team member complained that the other team members tried to use instant messaging to solve complex problems and resolutions are never reached.In your assigned groups, you are to:Discuss what Lauren could have done to prevent the conflicts from occurring in the first place.
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Group Consulting Project
This assignment is worth 20% of your grade. It gives you an opportunity to work
with a group of peers to synthesize and apply what you have learned this term
about effective virtual teams. The assignment addresses Course Objectives 1, 2,
3, 4, and 5.
This assignment has been adapted from the Society for Human Resource Management
(SHRM), Managing Virtual Work Teams – A SHRM case study by Frankie S. Jones,
PhD.
For this group assignment there are three parts.



Part I: An Introduction to Virtual Teams
Part II: Building a Virtual Team
Part III: Managing Conflict Virtually
Directions: In your groups, you will review, discuss, and address questions in each of
these parts in order to arrive at your collective responses. As part of your discussion,
you are to apply what you have read and discussed in our course in order to justify your
position. Use outside sources for any other information you need to complete this
assignment. Use the group discussion forum prepared for your team to summarize your
group responses to each part of the case study.
After your team discusses all three parts associated with this case, the team will
prepare a 7-10 page paper that includes your team’s responses and addresses the
questions in each of the three parts properly. This paper will serve as your team voice
to coach Lauren on how to lead her cross-functional team to success and overcome the
issues presented in the case study. In other words, the team members will collaborate
to write the paper, and each team member will submit this paper to the assignment
section to facilitate grading. Your team paper should include a minimum of 10
references from sources published within the last ten years.
Part I: An Introduction to Virtual Teams
Lauren is assigned team leader of a cross-functional team for a very important project to
the company. Lauren reviews the profiles of the six team members her boss gave her.
She is both intrigued and anxious when she sees that team members are
geographically dispersed.
Lauren works in the Atlanta office. One team member is in India; another is in
Germany; and the rest live in the United States, but in different time zones. Two staff
members are in the eastern time zone (Virginia and North Carolina) and two staff
members are in the central time zone (Texas and Louisiana).
Lauren has never managed a virtual team and is unsure what special skills it will take to
be successful. She begins to wonder what competencies are necessary for virtual team
leaders and members. She studies the team member profiles and creates a matrix to
evaluate each member’s strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of working
virtually. She includes herself because she realizes she needs to evaluate her own
strengths and weaknesses. Lauren thinks about the challenges and opportunities she
will face managing this virtual team.
In your assigned groups, you are to:



Review the supplied team member matrix.
Brainstorm the challenges and/or opportunities Lauren’s team might face.
Record your ideas in the group discussion forum.
Team Member Matrix
Team
Member
Location
(Time
Zone)
Atlanta,
GA
(Eastern)
Communication
Preferences
Virtual
Strengths
experience
E-mail
No

Building and maintaining
trust.
• Performance
management and
coaching.
• Networking.

Santosh
Pune, India
(GMT+05:30)
Instant messaging
Yes

Interpersonal awareness.
• Use of technology.

John
Wilmington,
NC (Eastern)
Telephone
No

Networking face-to-face.

Joyce
Norfolk, VA
(Eastern)
E-mail
Yes

Helga
Berlin,
Germany
(Central
European)
SharePoint;
Webconferencing
(with video)
Yes

Dallas, TX
(Central)
Instant
messaging,
discussion boards
No
New Orleans,
LA (Central)
Instant
messaging; blogs;
SharePoint; email
Yes
Lauren
(Team
Manager)
Adam
Brenda
Self-management.
• Project management.
Use of technology.
Weaknesses
Appropriate use of
information technology.
• Developing and adapting
standard team processes.
• Managing across cultures.
Self-management.
• Project management.

Use of technology.
Spanning boundaries.

Networking.

Interpersonal awareness.
Project management.

• Networking via technology. •
Use of technology.
• Spanning boundaries.
Use of technology.
• Interpersonal awareness.
• Networking.
• Spanning boundaries.


Self-management.
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Part II: Building a Virtual Team
Lauren has evaluated the challenges and opportunities that could arise as she manages
her virtual team. To mitigate challenges and take advantage of opportunities, she
decides to conduct a kick-off meeting next week. She wants to set the ground rules for
how her team will operate and present them at the kick-off meeting. What topics should
Lauren’s agenda include? Which ground rules should she mandate and which should
she negotiate? How will she build relationships and trust during this initial meeting?
In your assigned groups, you are to:





Create an agenda for Lauren’s kick-off meeting.
Explain why you chose each agenda topic.
Identify the ground rules for the team, and propose which ground rules she
should mandate and which ones she should negotiate.
Recommend ways that Lauren could build relationships and trust during this
initial meeting.
Record your responses in the group discussion forum.
Part III: Managing Conflict Virtually
Even though your team presented Lauren with an agenda for the kickoff meeting, along
with ground rules, she used the agenda below for the kick-off meeting.
She set expectations for status reporting, the technologies to be used, and performance
management. The types of communication the team agreed on included e-mail, instant
messaging, and web conferencing. The team also agreed to use Microsoft SharePoint
to report project status and to create a virtual community for team members to build
relationships and trust. Lauren asked all team members to upload their pictures and
their résumés to jump-start the community.
Lauren’s Agenda:







Getting-to-Know-You Activity
Team Goals and Objectives
Technologies We Will Use (open discussion)
Virtual Community (pictures and bios)
Status Reporting
Team Meetings
One-on-one meetings
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Despite setting ground rules, the following conflicts arose within Lauren’s team:



Lags in e-mail responses generated mistrust between two team members.
One team member complained that the other team members tried to use instant
messaging to solve complex problems and resolutions are never reached.
There has been an uneven exchange of project knowledge.
In your assigned groups, you are to:




Recommend actions Lauren should take now to resolve these conflicts.
Discuss what Lauren could have done to prevent the conflicts from occurring in
the first place.
Recommend actions Lauren can take to minimize team conflict in the future.
Record your responses in the group discussion forum.
Remember: As a team, you will prepare one paper and on the cover page you will
include the names of each team member. Additionally, you will each submit the paper
to the assignment section, to facilitate grading.
Note: I will observe your level of engagement with your peers on this project. I will also
send you a peer evaluation form (will be sent just prior to submitting your team paper).
Each team member will evaluate the contributions of her/his peers to the project.
Evaluation will consist of ratings on team member input, involvement, and support.
Due date: Sunday, April 16 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time
Please see the next page for the grading criteria for this assignment.
4
Criteria for Grading Group Consulting Project
Note: The group’s paper should be 7 to 10 pages long, excluding the reference and cover pages.
A
B
Group demonstrated
Group demonstrated
exceptional knowledge satisfactory knowledge
of relevant theories and of relevant theories and
concepts from the
concepts from the
Knowledge of
course; all statements
course; most
Relevant
and opinions were
statements and
Theories and
supported by
opinions were
Concepts
appropriate citations
supported by
(40 pts)
from the literature.
appropriate citations
from the literature.
40 – 36 points
35 – 32 points
C
F
Points
Earned
Group demonstrated
Group demonstrated
less than satisfactory
unsatisfactory
knowledge of relevant knowledge of relevant
theories and concepts theories and concepts
from the course; some from the course; many
statements and
statements and
opinions were not
opinions were not
supported by
supported by
appropriate citations
appropriate citations
from the literature.
from the literature.
31 – 28 points
27 – 0 points
Group did a less than
satisfactory job of
integrating course
readings with the
team’s additional
research. Group may
not have cited the
minimum number of
references; some
sources listed were not
scholarly or practitioner
journals, newspapers,
annual reports, or
academic books from
the last ten years.
Group did an
inadequate job of
integrating course
readings with the
team’s additional
research. Group did
not cite the minimum
number of references;
many of the sources
listed were not
scholarly or practitioner
journals, newspapers,
annual reports, or
academic books from
the last ten years.
23 – 21 points
20 – 0 points
Comments
Quality of
Research
(30 pts)
Group did an
Group did a satisfactory
exceptional job of
job of integrating
integrating course
course readings with
readings with the
the team’s additional
team’s additional
research. Group cited
research. Group cited the minimum number of
more than the minimum references; sources
number of references; listed were primarily
sources listed were all scholarly or practitioner
scholarly or practitioner journals, newspapers,
journals, newspapers,
annual reports, or
annual reports, or
academic books from
academic books from
the last ten years.
the last ten years.
30 – 27 points
26 – 24 points
Comments
5
Group presented ideas
in a compelling manner
with no distracting
grammar or spelling
problems; the tone was
Presentation
consistently
of Ideas and
professional and
Mechanics
appropriate for the
(20 pts)
audience; the page
length requirement was
met.
20 – 18 points
Group presented ideas
presented in a clear,
coherent manner with
few distracting
grammar or spelling
problems; the tone was
generally professional
and mostly appropriate
for the audience; the
page length
requirement was met.
17 – 16 points
Group presented ideas Group presented ideas
in a somewhat
in a poorly organized or
organized manner with incoherent manner with
several distracting
many distracting
grammar or spelling
grammar or spelling
problems; the tone was problems; the tone was
not consistently
unprofessional and not
professional and
appropriate for the
appropriate for the
audience; the page
audience; the page length requirement may
length requirement may not have been met.
not have been met.
15 – 14 points
13 – 0 points
Comments
APA
formatting
(5 pts)
All citations, quotations,
Most citations,
Some citations,
Most citations,
and references were
quotations, and
quotations, and
quotations, and
properly formatted or
references were
references were not
references were not
contained one or two
properly formatted or
properly formatted or
properly formatted or
minor errors.
contained a few minor contained major errors. contained many errors.
errors.
5 points
4 points
3 points
2 – 0 points
Comments
Instructor’s
Instructor’s
Instructor’s
Instructor’s
observations and peer observations and peer observations and peer observations and peer
Contribution
ratings indicate
ratings indicate
ratings indicate minimal
ratings indicate
to Group’s
outstanding
satisfactory
contributions to the
unsatisfactory or no
Work
contributions to the
contributions to the
group’s work.
contributions to the
(5 pts)
group’s work.
group’s work.
group’s work.
5 points
4 points
3 points
2 – 0 points
Comments
Total Points Earned
(100 points max)
Overall Comments
6

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