1.7 Learning review

Thiago works as an IT specialist in a company that produces equipment used in farming in Brazil. He was assigned to implement a national customer management system with a project team. He is of Brazilian descent, and even though his company has its headquarters in India, his teammates all work from Brazil. He feels fortunate, as he finds communication easier when everyone speaks the same language. Of course, it also helps that everyone in his project team has been working in this company for many years now, including the colleagues from Sales. Now 12 sales managers and specialists are collaborating with the 4 people from the IT department to reach the goal. As the sales department ordered this system, it is crucial that the new platform will be tending to their needs.

What Thiago finds challenging is that almost all of the sales colleagues in the project team are constantly working on the road, some of them in places with bad internet connection. It makes simple things as video calls immensely difficult. Even simple phone calls can pose a challenge, as because of the nature of their product, many sales representatives work in areas with bad network coverage, which makes it only possible to connect when they are back in their hotels in the evening.

Of course, whenever Thiago works with people outside of his own department, he is used to a very different knowledge level on IT-systems. He knows how important it is to get everyone on board first. However, his company also just went through a major upgrade in IT-hardware and software systems, which is great. Unless you see that some of his team mates have not upgraded their systems yet, and thus work with very different hard- and software specifications.

Where do you see the level of challenges on these dimensions?
Please rate it from 1 (little to no challenges expected here) over 2 (probably some challenges here to focus on) to 3 (highly challenging- strong focus on this needed).
Most importantly, also write down your reasons for your ratings. Please also keep in mind that there is no strict "right" or "wrong" answer. Depending on the interpretation, many different evaluations could be argued.

1. Geographical dispersion
2. Electronic dependence
3. Level of diversity of team members
4. Flexibility of structural arrangements
5. Safety of communication climate

Maryam from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates works for a US-American company that produces office furniture. She is working in the Marketing Department, and was assigned by her supervisor to work in a project team to brainstorm new ideas for a new premium office chair. Since it is important that this new chair will fit the customs and needs of customers worldwide, the designing team consists of members from China, Japan, Germany, France, South Africa, Brazil and the USA – all the major markets of the company. Instead of having the new product go over different stations one by one, her company decided to have the 15 project team members to come from different departments. This way, possible roadblocks and needs of all relevant departments can be aligned from the first step of designing this new product. Thus, several members of the team are from Research and Development, whereas others are from Sales, Production, Logistics, Purchasing or Marketing like Maryam.

Even though the cooperation is purely virtual and she has never really met any of her colleagues outside of Duabai, she enjoys working on her first international project. From the first week on, she notices several differences on how the project manager from the USA would create a meeting, or how her colleagues from different countries and departments would communicate with each other over email or in a phone conference. She also notices that the commitment level of her colleagues seems to differ at times. She assumes one of the reasons for this might be the different hierarchy level of the team members, as there are specialists and different levels of managers on board the team.

What Maryam finds challenging though is that some of the colleagues have not been in the company very long. She feels there is an especially high turnover from countries with high speed emerging markets, such as her own contry. In the three months she has been working on this project now, four of the colleagues have changed to another department or to another company, and it always took some work to get everyone back on board. Since this project was initiated from upper management, and it was made clear that there are high hopes in the company for this new product, she feels that at least everyone is highly motivated and responsive. The company has invested in new IT equipment and training, which makes the virtual collaboration a lot easier.

Where do you see the level of challenges on these dimensions?
Please rate it from 1 (little to no challenges expected here) over 2 (probably some challenges here to focus on) to 3 (highly challenging- strong focus on this needed).
Most importantly, also write down your reasons for your ratings. Please also keep in mind that there is no strict "right" or "wrong" answer. Depending on the interpretation, many different evaluations could be argued.

1. Geographical dispersion
2. Electronic dependence
3. Level of diversity of team members
4. Flexibility of structural arrangements
5. Safety of communication climate