Introduction
Virtual groups in these modern days have become of significance to many daily activities involving work or studying. Virtual groups in 2020 became a norm because of the COVID-19 pandemic (Whillans et al., 2021). People had to change the way they work forever compelling many of them to participate in the work-from-home experience. A virtual team is a group of individuals who partner by utilizing communication tools and virtual collaboration. The essay examines my experiences in working with a virtual group.
Discussion
After starting the coursework in my present program, I was trapped by the frequency we were allocated group projects in my classes. I often saw group work in the conventional academic environment as a way of developing one’s social relationships, the network for career advancement, and as a means to practice leadership skills (Abarca et al., 2020). Hence, I was left wondering how virtual groups could benefit me. In the past class, I saw my tutor go to higher steps to assure that his course fulfilled the three key areas required for virtual groups to work.
In the first instance, he made our class take a survey discussing our weaknesses and strengths, which he applied as a foundation to establish our groups. It benefited us because we had a different set of skills, which emerged and enhanced the joint effort of the group. In addition, she offered innovative technology for our virtual teams to converse about their projects (Whillans et al., 2021). Virtual groups enabled us to complete assignments, discuss matters through videoconferencing, and had a more flexible discussion at Piazza.
Furthermore, the structure that was formulated for the group permitted students to maximize the operation of their team and establish trust and rapport with each other easily. Virtual groups allowed us to accommodate the different time zones and schedules our team represented because of our tutor’s diligent organization. Virtual group leaders should be capable of reading the entire contextual and personal nuance in the electronic communication exchanged.
The lessons taught in this course work have stated that globalization of different industries demands that students understand this form of work environment more because co-workers are dispersed across the globe (Abarca et al., 2020). Further, I noted that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for virtual teams because people were not permitted to be physically present together for fear of infection.
Challenges and Solutions while Working with Virtual Groups
However, working with a virtual team may pose some challenges, although it has its benefits. Working with a virtual group is different from working with a conventional face-to-face team. For example, it becomes a challenge if a teammate fails to be online at the same time as me, making it difficult to get the responses to my questions during videoconferencing (Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020). Any questions that I asked could wait for hours or minutes for a response.
It makes proceeding with the virtual group work challenging at times. Without having an immediate response from my virtual team, as what could be given in the physical group, I felt uncomfortable proceeding at times as at some point it would become my independent work other than group work. In addition, communication emerged as one of the main challenges faced during virtual groups. To solve this challenge, my virtual team started setting up times when we might all be online to enable everybody to contribute concurrently (Gallego et al., 2021). We had a chat and resolved that we could pose questions faster at each other than would be conducted in an email.
Moreover, solving problems was another challenge we experienced as a virtual group. For some reason, it becomes more challenging to resolve an issue, even with our chat rooms, than it is done in the conventional classroom environment. I felt it to be hard to express my point to my teammates without seeing them in front of me to convince them. It was instead a challenging problem to overcome as a team, although the best solution to it I might personally invent was to just let things go the way they are. Further, there was a challenge of the group not working well together. The solution to this challenge was our instructor acknowledged the problem and had to intervene and reminded all those pursuing his course that in all exchanges, they are to treat each other respectfully during their group work (Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020). Our instructor directed us to be sympathetic to other group members who have other errands to do and to understand that we are not all full-time students.
Lessons Learned while Working with Virtual Group
I have learned that maximizing ways of communicating in a virtual group is essential for succeeding in a given project. It is also important to know that working in a virtual team such as this makes it difficult for any member to emerge as the group leader. It was the most interesting aspect I learned from working in a virtual team. Hence, I would tell anyone planning to work in the virtual group to have an open mind.
Conclusion
In the beginning, I did not know what to anticipate when working in a group exclusively online. I became a bit skeptical of the projects because I preferred face-to-face meetings. Nevertheless, I emerged as a person enjoying the virtual group project experiences. There were several issues to overcome, although that was major because I was not used to working on the platform. With the world changing and more technology-based, having the ability to work with a virtual team is a vital skill one can have in life.
References
Abarca, V. M., Palos-Sanchez, P. R., & Rus-Arias, E. (2020). Working in virtual teams: A systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis. IEEE Access, 8(2), 168923-168940. Web.
Gallego, J., Ortiz-Marcos, I., & Romero Ruiz, J. (2021). Main challenges during project planning when working with virtual teams. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 162(1). Web.
Morrison-Smith, S., & Ruiz, J. (2020). Challenges and barriers in virtual teams: A literature review. SN Applied Sciences, 2(6), 1-18. Web.
Whillans, A., Perlow, L., & Turek, A. (2021). Experimenting during the shift to virtual team work: Learnings from how teams adapted their activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Information and Organization, 31(1). Web.