Capítulo 8 - Virtual teamwork traning
Eva Kašparová, Ph. D.
University of Economics, Prague
1. VIRTUAL TEAMWORK TRAINING
In the time of preparing this course which is based on virtual teamwork the knowledge of the principles and possibilities of e-learning and of teaching on-line was only beginning its development. Creating this course was supposed to be a test of this form of cooperation and also an inspiration for other creators of similar activities. The creators were trying primarily to fulfil the basic principle of social learning in the environment of ICT. The main goal was to preserve the opportunity of multilateral human communication and human social interaction through ICT.
The course was created for full time students of the University of Economics in Prague in 1999. Next year the course was also offered to foreign students studying at University of Economics, Prague. The course was also made accessible to external students. It is a one-semester course with the capacity of 30 students. Thanks to positive feedback the capacity was increased by adding parallel courses. Students can not only exchange experience but also use adequate sources containing needed data when doing their assignments. They can also enter the dialog with those who can provide them with valuable knowledge. Usage of all possible means of communication including Internet, e-mail, fax machine, phone, etc., suggests itself here.
2. NON-STANDARDIZED INTERVIEWING BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF «ON-LINE FEEDBACK»
One of the parts of the course is non-standardized interviewing. At the end of the course every student is supposed to evaluate the course and form his or her remarks to the work in the course. All participants are supposed to do that at the principle of on-line feedback. It is a quite new technique. With its help it is possible to collect flexibly up to date data.
Non-standardized interviewing has been in progress since the beginning of this course. Up to now feedback from the years 2004-2007 has been analyzed. The feedback was collected from 625 students (566 internal students and 69 foreign students of international programs). This technique is supposed to provide a complex picture of how the participants perceive the work in the course. Working with such data is very analytically demanding and time-consuming. However, straight and immediate reactions, remarks and proposals from students form unique material not only for the creators of the course but also for other people interested in virtual teamwork and e-learning.
2.1. AMONG THE RECOMMENDED TOPICS OF PERSONAL COMMENTS WERE QUESTIONS SUCH AS:
- What was useful to you?
- What imperfections did you encounter?
- What was the level of cooperation and communication in the team?
- What was the level of cooperation and communication with other teams?
- What was the level of communication between the leader of the team and the team?
- How was the supervision of each team provided?
- What was the level of cooperation and communication with the teacher?
- Other remarks and proposals.
3. FINAL OUTCOMES
3.1. ATTITUDES TO LEARNING THROUGH THE INTERNET
The impression of acquiring new experience with an unusual form of cooperation is the most frequent of the first impressions.
«...it is a great idea to use the Internet for cooperation...I had a chance to try cooperating with people who I will never meet and with who I can only communicate on-line …».
«...the course improved my ability to orientate in virtual environment…».
It is possible to say that all the reflexions show positive evaluation of all benefits of this form of work.
3.2. TEAMBUILDING
What are important are the facts concerning teambuilding, communication among its members and the way of organizing the work. It can be said that it is necessary to keep developing the ability of the members to cooperate without the teacher directly supervising them. Obstacles to this are created by usual attitudes to cooperative work. The commentary below shows the tendency not to take any responsibility if it is not necessary, to contribute as little as possible to solving a problem and to wait to see how the situation develops.
«...our cooperation was a little difficult at the beginning of the semester... We used e-mail to agree on assignments because some of us do not have ICQ. Despite problems in communicating who is supposed to do what we always managed to make a decision and to do the assignments on time. In the end I think that working in this team was a valuable experience...»
Similar experiences can be found in other comments as well.
3.3. FORMS AND PROCESS OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION
On the other hand we should not overlook the fact that for some of the participants this was their first experience with this form of work. Thanks to the widespread usage of e-tools of communication adaptation to this new work environment was quite fast. Students themselves choose the e-tools they want to use to communicate because they often have some previous experience with using these tools. For example ICQ is very popular.
«...At the beginning it was difficult because we had to contact each other and decide how to work further. We had to make clear our viewpoints and make a decision using virtual communication. Some of us knew each other from previous courses but all of us never physically met...».
«...Communication is only in virtual space. We use email, ICQ, xchat, SMS and the discussion at the web page of the course. Once a week there are scheduled discussions on xchat where we all try to get through everything we need. We have an assigned leader of the team and we made an agreement that every one of us would keep a diary with perceptions of our cooperation...».
Communication in the virtual environment of the course is usually restricted to transmissions and exchanges of information via written language or voice without direct on-line interaction or communication face to face. Tools such as Skype, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, etc., make the visualization possible. A lot of members of all the teams use these tools thanks to their personal accounts and their using these tolls to communicate before their registration in the course.
«...in the case of further cooperation we suggest posting pictures of all the participants or some kind of closer introduction of individual members to enable us to find out more about our future co-workers ... it`s nice, but seeing each other is sometimes better. A little more humor or some informal meeting for example in the mountains might help. The interest in an informal physical meeting is quite often».
3.4. COMMUNICATION WITH NO FACE TO FACE CONTACT
There are a lot of people who like this kind of communication without the necessity to meet face to face. Introverted individuals, who would be less willing to communicate in the environment of physically integrating people, can express their thoughts, ideas and knowledge with almost no difficulties.
«...I admit that it was the first time in my life I had been happy because I was cooperating with someone. I was able to express my opinion about everything we needed to go through together. I am a very self conscious person. When I have to talk to people I turn red and I am not able to find the right words. One does not have to worry about these problems here. Nobody can see how I am looking at the moment. The only visible thing is the results of my work...».
3.5. AVAILABILITY AND LEVEL OF INFRASTRUCTURE
Providing sufficient infrastructure for all the participants is a problem. In many cases there is a problem with technologically managing this infrastructure as well.
«...there is no problem with the communication itself, although it lacks personal contact, but there are technological problems. One of the four members of the team was preparing for his bachelor exam for two weeks. Another member has restricted access to the Internet. My computer broke down which has not only decreased my efficiency but I also lost all my data. We will see how it all turns out...».
3.6. ELECTING THE LEADER OF THE TEAM
The process of building the teams in the course is started by electing the leader. There has been a lot of discussion about leading a virtual team. There are different opinions about the necessity of leadership. Prevailing is the effort to reach the desired consensus by harmonizing the meanings of communicated information. Then the leader of the team would be supposed to coordinate interactive and communicative processes in the team. The presupposition of such a model is high responsibility of all the members of the team and also enough motivation to do the assignment precisely and on time.
«…for a long time we were not able to agree who would be the leader and what his task would be.»
On the other hand we can't forget the purpose and the meaning of concrete virtual teamwork as well as real attitudes of the team members. It is advisable to boost motivation, increase interest in doing the assignments and support active cooperation. The function of the leader should gradually lose its controlling and evaluative aspects.
«… Martin is a good leader. He managed to coordinate everything very well. We made a right choice when we elected him. He even included other teams into discussion and he is trying to make us reach an agreement...».
3.7. STRATEGY OF WORK, DISTRIBUTING ASSIGNMENTS IN THE TEAM
The process of building the teams continues with making clear of the positions of all the members, proposing a strategy of work and distributing assignments to all the members.
«…at the beginning we all thought that it was going to be a strange work. Nevertheless, there were good relationships among the members created by cooperation and nobody dared to let the others down which created good self-control of all the members when doing the assignments... Magda seemed a little confused to me. She thinks that the assignments will somehow get distributed by themselves and that we should play some roles. She has a different attitude.».
The typology often leads to schematization and a kind of stereotypicality because the proposed types are copied. With regard to the interest in building autonomous and self-producing teams creating free space for individual creativity and invention seems to be better. It is clear from the remark above that prepared forms do not suit everybody.
3.8. MAKING THE RULES
«…Roles were set right at the beginning. I was a coordinator, One of my colleges was a brain, another one had the role of devil’s advocate, third one had the position of a worker and the forth one was an impartial observer. There were no problems at the beginning...».
This comment also supports the consideration of usefulness of set roles. When one is trying to stylize himself in some role it can lead to unintended results. One can lose energy to do the assignment because one is trying to play his role successfully.
Setting the rules seems to be a foundation of successful work mainly in virtual environment. But the power to make obligatory rules was intentionally given in the hands of individual teams. In reality it means that team rules can differ substantially and that the teams can use their own specific procedures to do the assignments.
3.9. UNINTENDED SITUATIONS
Unexpected situations such as changes in the number of members, endangering the project work and other situations stimulate forming of the theory of virtual teamwork. The absence of immediate contact is probably most visible here. It is usually impossible to resolve the situation immediately because of asynchronous communication and also because of the physical distance of the members of the team. Basically, it means that one can not «yell» at irresponsible members and therefore solve the problem immediately.
«…our time schedules were more and more different and therefore less and less members came to the regular on-line and personal meetings. There was some miscommunication and motivation of some of the members to work on our project went down which had significant influence at morale and achievements of the whole team...».
On the other hand it is obvious that it is always necessary to deal with these situations. Various ways of resolving these situations often lead to immediate improvisation, increase the difficulty of doing the assignment but also often streghten relationships between individual members and activate team spirit.
4. CONCLUSION
A virtual course has its pros and cons... One of the disadvantages is still the accessibility to Internet connection. Another difficulty is a little unusual way of communication when doing the assignments. Nevertheless the participants are aware of the necessity of this form of cooperation and that is the reason why their enthusiasm overpowers all the difficulties. All the experiences have therefore been positive. A lot of students indicate their interest in new ways of cooperation as the reason why they chose the course. The fact still is that a lot of participants only start to improve or test their abilities to orientate in virtual environment. All of them with no differences learn virtual cooperation.
Working in a course which requires active participation and a lot of creativity is very attractive for students in particular. Personal experience which means a chance to try pros and cons of these extraordinary ways of work is playing a very important role here.
