CHAPTER 6

Project Team Building, Conflict, and Negotiation

From the case study, it is obvious that this is an example of the types of problem that a company
will encounter due to the fact that the usage of advanced technologies such as the Internet play a big
role in day to day life. The most prominent usage of Internet in companies is to help link participants on
a distributed project team. This case study comprises few issues that restricts the progress on the project
such as faulty technologies, geographically-dispersed project team members and other concerns.

Since, team members can only interact in formal channels, distributed project teams do not
allow for standard team development stages to occur. Without informal communication, it has clearly
made it harder for the project team members to build an everlasting trust and share enthusiasm among
them. Kate’s difficulties here are by no means abnormal, but a managerial plan for handling these
communications will go a long way toward helping her and the team get through the awkward
“newness” of geographically-dispersed project teams.

Questions & Answers:

1. How would you advise Kate to proceed? Analyze the conversation she had this morning. What
went right? What went wrong?

Kate should be appreciated for the fact that she is willing to make tough decision to work and
find a way for the students so that they can continue communicating in a live setting.
Acknowledging Kate’s approach in being aware of the problem and finding a solution should be
taken into account by the students.

Here we can have two options. One of the easiest and less burdening approach for Kate will be
to come up with an agreement with the team members and move to the conventional ways of
communicating such as one to one, emails and phone calls. However, Kate’s inadequate
exposure towards this technology since she is new and her unawareness of the time differences
among the teams should not be forgotten. In trying to please everybody on the team, she may
end up not pleasing anybody, so at some point she will need to make some tough choices. Team
members do meet at different hours according to their preferences and Kate can’t satisfy
everyone. One best way to ensure that everyone from the team is prepared and to reduce the
amount of meeting by having productive meetings, Kate should do up-front planning prior to
these meetings which doesn’t take too long.

In this situation, the key for both Kate and everyone else on the team is to plan and prepare in
advance regardless of the technological faults.
 2. What should Kate’s next steps be?

Since it really depends on Kate, she needs to be decisive if she is committed in having
real-time link-ups with the team. If she is concerned on the values that the time can bring, she must get
the maximum output or benefit out of it by making sure these meetings are productive and that
everyone is prepared in advance. Moreover, perhaps she could organize some sub-group meetings
among sets of the participants and save the full-blown team meetings for occasional use. For a more
thorough approach, Kate can get ideas from her students which are creative and reasonable with some
action options for Kate to adopt.

3. How can she use the technology of the internet and teleconferencing to enhance team
development and performance?

Teleconferencing can start to create a team out of a group of faceless individuals but it must be
used appropriately. The chapter cites several principles that can be used to enhance the
teleconferencing experience and instructors should ensure that students address each of them as a
means to help Kate resolve some of her problems.