10.1177/1080569904268083 BUSINESS Roebuck et al. COMMUNICATION / COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY CHALLENGES / September IN VIRTUAL 2004 TEAMS
ARTICLE
INNOVATIVE ASSIGNMENTS
USING A SIMULATION TO EXPLORE THE CHALLENGES OF COMMUNICATING IN A VIRTUAL TEAM Deborah Britt Roebuck Stephen J. Brock Douglas R. Moodie Kennesaw State University
VIRTUAL TEAMS have become an integral part of many organizations because of an increase in corporate restructuring, competition, and globalization (Baker, 2002). Grosse (2002) defined a virtual team as one that conducts its work almost entirely through electronic technology. Virtual team members, who are typically dispersed both geographically and organizationally, rarely meet face to face while relying on technology for task-related communication (Matthews-Joy & Gladstone, 2000). Because communication is often seen as the most important factor in coordinating work among team members (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992; Dougherty, 1992; Ebadi & Utterback, 1984; Pinto, Pinto, & Prescot, 1993), effective communication is vital for virtual teams (Baker, 2002). However, “in virtual teams, separated by geographical distance, the process of developing a shared understanding is more challenging” (Hinds & Weisband, 2003, p. 21). In particular, such teams must address three challenges to accomplish their goals. After describing these challenges, this article presents an exercise in solving a murder mystery that instructors can use to engage students in virtual teamwork.
Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 67, Number 3, September 2004 359-367 DOI: 10.1177/1080569904268083 © 2004 by the Association for Business Communication
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FIRST CHALLENGE
The first challenge is compensating for the lack of face-to-face interaction. When meeting in person, team members can depend upon voice levels, smiles, and raised eyebrows to determine whether they are being understood; however, virtual teams do not have these nonverbal cues and can fail without communication strategies to manage the lack of face-to-face communication or silence (Wilson, 2003). Because research continues to support the findings of Mehrabian that communication is predominately nonverbal (Kezsbom, 2001; Emelo & Francis, 2002), virtual team members lack one of the primary elements for generating shared understanding. As Kezsbom (2001) states, “Even in the best videoconferencing, facial expressions can be difficult to pick up if the transmission is poor, if someone is off camera, or when the mute button is pressed” (p. 35). Therefore, it is essential for individuals who are about to become part of a virtual teaming experience to be sensitized to the importance of this barrier and how it may be addressed. SECOND CHALLENGE
A second communication challenge for virtual teams is building relationships. Successful teams are founded on a relationship of trust (Jude-York, Davis, & Wise, 2000), and relationships are easier to build face to face (Rockett, Valor, Miller, & Naude, 1998). Virtual teams are confronted with the challenge of establishing trusting working relationships through technological interaction alone. Virtual team leaders need to pay close attention to the first interactions team members have with each other to support the creation of positive interpersonal relationships (Duarte & Snyder, 2001). People who are being prepared for participation in virtual teams need to be taught methods of increasing the likelihood of getting off on the right foot with each other. THIRD CHALLENGE
A third challenge is accessing and leveraging the unique knowledge of each member to successfully achieve the team’s goal. According to Anderson and Shane (2002), “While a team is working on a project, usually the project is like a puzzle, and each team member is responsible to work on an assigned piece of the project” (p. 6). The team must develop a system for sharing information so that nothing relevant to
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solving the problem is lost. What some team members may consider the most insignificant piece of information may prove to be critical to the final solution. Whereas the reason for withholding information may have several sources, including cultural differences (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2000), conflict management styles (Griffith, Mannix, & Neale, 2003), or an uncertainty regarding the predictability of another’s behavior (Gibson & Manuel, 2003), the essential element to be addressed is learning to share everything to ensure that nothing relevant is lost. Helping virtual team members learn to address these differences in ways that will support full, open, and complete communication is also a fundamental teaching objective in preparing people for virtual teaming. THE EXERCISE: A MURDER MYSTERY
To help prepare students to meet these challenges, instructors can engage them in exercises in virtual teamwork. The rest of this article describes one such exercise in solving a murder mystery. To start, the instructor assigns five to seven students as members of a team. In class, the team selects a team name and chooses a team scribe who will report the team’s solution of the mystery to the instructor. The instructor also gives each student an envelope that contains a list of clues related to the murder mystery (Appendix A), a Web address to log into for his or her work, and a designated computer site to work from. A collaborative software product such as Lotus Notes can be used for this simulation because it allows data sharing where parties are working independently and combines scheduling, electronic messaging, and document and data sharing into one common product and database. By combining a number of collaborative applications and communications systems into an integrated framework, products like Lotus Notes facilitate both the production and communication necessary for effective virtual teamwork. Team members are dispersed to different sites and can communicate only through the Web site, not face to face. The professor should try to monitor all locations so that no face-to-face interaction occurs. The students work for a maximum of 30 minutes to solve the mystery. The opening page of the Web site contains the following instructions: Today, you will simulate a virtual team that communicates only through electronic means. Each virtual team member has received
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separate clues to solve the murder mystery. If all the team members put the facts together, the team will be able to solve the problem. The team must find the murderer, the motive, the weapon, the time, and the location. When the team reaches consensus on the solution to the mystery, your team scribe may post your answers. Your professor will respond back by telling your team whether all five answers are right or wrong. If any part of your answer is incorrect, the professor will not tell you which part is wrong.
During the simulation, the instructor tracks the interactions occurring on the Web site, responds when appropriate, and monitors the 30minute time limit. When a team proposes the correct solution, the instructor notifies its members, and each team member then moves to the next phase of the exercise: completing (independently) a team process questionnaire (Appendix B). By the end of the 30-minute period, the instructor sends an e-mail to every student noting that deadline, providing the solution for those teams that did not reach it (Appendix C), and asking everyone to complete the process questionnaire whether or not they have solved the mystery (the questionnaire is located online). The students have 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire, print out their responses, and return to their classroom. Each team then meets face to face for 45 to 60 minutes to share individual responses to the questionnaire and to prepare a brief team presentation. Specifically, each team’s presentation should provide answers to the following questions: 1. What were the three greatest difficulties your team encountered in working together to solve the mystery? What made these factors difficult? 2. What specific communication problems did you encounter? How did you resolve these? If you didn’t resolve them, why not? 3. What three lessons about virtual team communication did you learn that you will take with you into future virtual teaming situations?
After each team has discussed its questionnaires and prepared its team presentation, the whole class comes together to present responses and to debrief the experience. During the debriefing session, the instructor asks the teams that solved the mystery in less than 30 minutes why they were successful in meeting their objective. For the teams that did not complete the simulation in the allotted time, the instructor should help them discover where and why difficulties occurred. The instructor should make sure the discussion focuses on the skills needed to communicate effectively
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within a virtual team setting and culminate the simulation by creating a list of effective methods for addressing the three challenges identified earlier. The list below presents some suggestions that the professor can use to start this discussion. • •
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Teams need to establish ground rules to help the team members interact and determine what kind of behavior is expected. These ground rules will assist in preventing misunderstandings and disagreements. Team members should determine some criteria for virtual dialogue, such as when to check e-mail and how often to respond to e-mail messages. The team should also set up how to exchange documents from meetings and when to hold mandatory meetings. Standing behind the team and all of its members is vital to the trust relationship. Responses need to be given to all members of the team in the same amount of time. This builds integrity within the team by ensuring that no one believes that he or she is being left out or ignored by other team members. This also allows everyone to check and correspond with each other if any controversial items come up. It is important to know other team members on a personal as well as professional level to understand their difficulties and work around their special needs. Trust means that one has faith in people’s competence; only then can one rely on the results of their work. To demonstrate competence takes time and in virtual teamwork it takes even more time to show one’s competence. Proficiency is more difficult to verify at a distance. People working in a virtual team must trust information and information channels. Partial, incorrect, misleading, and late sources of information are all sources of mistrust.
To conclude this exercise and capture the knowledge gained, each team is asked to write collaboratively a two- to three-page memo reflecting on the team’s communication process. Within the memo, the teams discuss what they did well, what they could improve, and what they would do differently if given another opportunity to work virtually. Asking each team to record its thoughts and reflections reinforces the opportunities and challenges of communicating virtually. Some of the lessons learned that have been recorded in these reflection memos include the following: We learned that effective communication is the key for achieving team objectives and success. A common understanding is necessary. We learned that distance is not important as long as you have an effective way of communicating between virtual team members. • We feel that we have benefited from this experience in that we received a practical, hands-on, and realistic view of a virtual teaming experience. We were forced to adapt to situations and develop real solutions that •
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provided a winning situation for all. We noted the two most important tools needed to accomplish any virtual business goal are communication and technology. • One of the critical aspects of effective virtual teaming is the full participation of all of the team members. For optimum performance, it is imperative that the team members establish an organizational structure from the very beginning. • It is important that team members build relationships with each other. Trust comes from performance and virtual performance is still somewhat limited. It is easy to send data by e-mail and other electrical means, but it is harder to send “parts of your heart” and to motivate team members. • Regardless of the specific means of communication used in virtual teams, the use of good, sound, basic project management techniques can provide a means to clarify the objectives, milestones, plans, and progress toward the objective. Virtual teams by their nature involve very little face-to-face time; therefore, fundamental project management techniques can minimize stress and clarify the process in what is already an extremely challenging environment.
CONCLUSION
By understanding the communication challenges of virtual interaction, business communication students can overcome many of the difficulties typically encountered in virtual settings. The exercise presented in this article provides an opportunity for students to experience virtual work and to learn from their experiences how to address these communication challenges. APPENDIX A Clues The instructor divides these clues equally among the members of team, providing each member with a list of clues sealed into an envelope. • • • • •
When he was discovered dead, Mr. Britt had a bullet hole in his thigh and a knife wound in his back. Mr. Blackenton shot at an intruder in his condominium at 12:00 midnight. The security guard at the condominium complex reported to police that he saw Mr. Britt at 12:15 a.m. The bullet taken from Mr. Britt’s thigh matched the gun owned by Mr. Blackenton. Only one bullet had been fired from Mr. Blackenton’s gun.
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When the security guard saw Mr. Britt, Mr. Britt was bleeding slightly, but he did not seem too badly hurt. Police found a knife with Mr. Britt’s blood on it in Miss May’s yard. The knife found in Miss May’s yard had Mr. Roebuck’s fingerprints on it. Mr. Britt had destroyed Mr. Blackenton’s computer business. The security guard saw Mr. Britt’s wife go to Mr. Roebuck’s condominium at 11:30 p.m. The security guard said that Mr. Britt’s wife frequently left the building with Mr. Roebuck. The police found Mr. Britt’s body in the alley. The police found Mr. Britt’s body at 1:30 a.m. According to a medical expert, Mr. Britt had been dead for one hour when the police found his body. The security guard saw Mr. Britt go to Mr. Roebuck’s condominium at 12:25 a.m. The security guard went off duty at 12:30 a.m. It was obvious from the condition of Mr. Britt’s body that the murderer had dragged the body a long distance. Miss May saw Mr. Britt go to Mr. Blackenton’s condominium building at 11:55 p.m. Mr. Britt’s wife disappeared after the murder. Police were unable to locate Mr. Roebuck after the murder. When police tried to locate Mr. Blackenton after the murder, they discovered that he had disappeared. The security guard said that Miss May was in the entryway of the building when he went off duty. Miss May often followed Mr. Britt. Mr. Blackenton had threaten Mr. Britt that he was going to kill him. Miss May said that nobody left the condominium complex between 12:25 a.m. and 12:45 a.m. Police found Mr. Britt’s bloodstains in Mr. Roebuck’s car. The police found Mr. Britt’s bloodstains on the carpet in the hall outside Mr. Blackenton’s condominium.
SOURCE: Adapted from Covert and Thomas (1978); Thiagarajan and Parker (1999).
APPENDIX B Team Process Questionnaire How did I help the team to work more effectively with the other virtual team members? • How might I have hindered the team’s work with the other virtual team members? • How did the virtual team decide to approach this task, and did you perceive this to be an effective plan? • Do you perceive that the virtual team members worked together well? Why do you think so or why do you not think so? •
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Did any conflict occur between team members? If yes, how did the team handle it? How did the team encourage interaction with other team members? How did team members build trust with one another? How did the lack of face-to-face interaction with the other virtual team members help or hinder the process? What did you learn about communication and decision making among virtual teams? What are the three greatest lessons learned from this virtual teaming, and how will you take the lessons learned from this simulation back to work? If you received the opportunity to work virtually with other virtual teams again, what would you do differently?
APPENDIX C The Solution •
After receiving a superficial gunshot wound from Mr. Blackenton, Mr. Britt went to Mr. Roebuck’s condominium. Mr. Roebuck killed Mr. Britt with a knife at 12:30 a.m. because Mr. Roebuck was in love with Mr. Britt’s wife.
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Address correspondence to Deborah Britt Roebuck, Kennesaw State University, 1000 Chastain Road, Kennesaw GA 30144; e-mail:
[email protected].
