As a leader of a virtual team, it can often be up to you to train and develop your team. You may be put into a situation where you are unfamiliar with the members, and they do not know each other. This can present challenges, yet provide opportunities. As a leader, how do you minimize those barriers and turn those opportunities into reality? You can accomplish this through evaluating each individual virtual team member and developing a plan of action for productivity.
Leaders of a virtual team may have dotted line relationships with people, but are more likely to operate purely through influence. In virtual teams, individuals work on several teams and have to spread their time and attention accordingly. Global, regional or international teams face the additional complexities of cooperating and leading across cultures and time zones.
In this paper, you demonstrate your leadership skills and abilities.
For this assignment, you are a leader of a virtual team for a parent organization that is based in the United States and is in the travel and tourism industry. The team has been created to solve the problem of a lack in sales. The team goal is to develop a plan to increase sales by 25% within one year’s time. The team members are new to each other and only recognize names because of emails. Because the team members do not know each other and lack experience being on a virtual team, you must develop a plan to train the team to be effective as a virtual team. You need to have the team trained within 14 days of notification of being on the virtual team.
Your task is to develop a training plan for the newly created virtual team to be effective, which consists of the following members:
Josie – an American citizen living in China
Aiko – a Japanese citizen living in the United States
Henry – an English citizen living in the United Kingdom
Paulo – a Spanish citizen living in Spain
Yourself – an American citizen living in the United States
Use the following to organize your training plan:
Provide your objectives for the training.
Clarify key topics and related concepts.
Organize material.
Once you have a general idea of what you need to cover (from item #2), draft a lesson outline. List all of the points that you need to cover, in the order in which you’ll cover them.
Plan presentation techniques.
How will you train the team?
Include evaluation strategies.
Develop and present your training plan in a paper of at least two pages (not including title and reference pages), double spaced, and in APA format. Reference a minimum of two scholarly sources and cite in your paper according to APA 6 standards.
Compose your work in a .doc or .docx file type using a word processor (such as Microsoft Word, etc.) and save it frequently to your computer. For those assignments that are not written essays and require uploading images or PowerPoint slides, please follow uploading guidelines provided by your instructor.

New Virtual Team Leader

Advancement in technology is continuously changing the work environment. Therefore, as the employees navigate change in the working world, leaders need to guide and support them to ensure the business’s survival. This paper aims to develop a guide that can create a capable virtual team to increase organizational performance.

This guide’s main objective is to give all employees a clear understanding of virtual work and equip them with practical skills for managing and improving their interactions in the remote teams. The plan will incorporate the fundamental techniques to allow employees to share experiences, learn, and implement new strategies to boost productivity when working virtually. Virtual work brings together a wide range of talents across the world. The team I will be working with consists of Josie, an American citizen living in China, Aiko, a Japanese citizen living in the United States, Henry, an English citizen living in the United Kingdom and Paulo, a Spanish citizen living in Spain.

This plan is premised on fostering communication, stream ling cooperation, understanding organizational context, and balancing trust. Therefore this program focuses on three main aspects culture barrier management, team processes, and technology. Firstly, I will facilitate face to face meetings for the team members to know each other professionally and personally as well as a common goal to achieve the organizational measurable. This will bridge the cultural differences, and the conversations will be more natural and familiar.  I will also administer team and personality profile assessments to evaluate the team’s compatibility and highlight the preferred leadership style. During this period, I will create and distribute web-based modules that facilitate cross-cultural training through different time zones for all the virtual team members. This will bridge any arising matters that come about with the interaction from various cultures across the world. As a result, the employees will be able to work collaboratively and with respect for each other towards a shared goal (Queen’s School of Business, 2020).

To kick start a smooth running virtual team, my team will conduct webinars to reduce team operation issues that may arise during the lifecycle of the virtual team development. Challenges are inevitable irrespective of the work environment, and remote work is no exception. The webinars will cover topics related to project goals, problem-solving technical errors, cooperation, and trust. I will administer the modules during the first week of training to allow the team members to complete them within their own pace and convenience. After completing the module, I will encourage the team members to brainstorm with their colleagues through group dialogue to utilize the feedback to provide a conducive interaction environment for the virtual team members. This will increase employee engagement and delegation of responsibilities coupled with developing constructive relationships within the organization.

In the last phase of the training, I will focus on various information technology tools used in virtual teams. The technological training will incorporate case studies, targeted videos, and interactive exercises on the use and implementation of the most suitable electronic media based on the task prerequisites, such as web-conferencing, electronic boards, whiteboards, skype, etc. Given the complex nature of the project, the training will cover the technical and non-technical functionality of these   ICT tools, such as software packages, ethical monitoring systems, passwords, and IP address protection (Sandra, Kathryn, & Paul, 2015). Appropriate use of different tools fosters communication and also enforces positive interactions that boost performance and organizational success.

References

Queen’s School of Business. (2020). Designing, Managing and Working in Virtual Teams. Retrieved from Queen’s School of Business: https://collab.its.virginia.edu/access/content/group/658f9a4a-9c21-4791-0015-02e440aabd66/exec%20HR%20session%20on%20managing%20VT_s.pdf

Sandra, M., Kathryn, C., & Paul, F. (2015). An Analysis of Virtual Team Characteristics: A Model for Virtual Project Managers. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation vol.10 no.1 Santiago 2015.