Digital Age and Collaboration - Friends or Enemies?

Outline

1.Introduction

2.Collaboration process

2.1 Process Overview

2.2 Team practices

2.2.1 Within Pyracle Group

2.2.2 Intergroup communication

2.2.3 Conflicts and Drawbacks

2.3 Team processess

3.Conclusion

1. Introduction

In our final project our task was to create a virtual collaboration plattform with a virtual team that we do not meet in person to collaborate with. Our collaborative activities were solely through virtual collaboration media. The developments in communication and collaboration technology enables a potential transformation of real collaboration into virtual collaboration. Keeping in mind the relative complexity of the virtual collaboration architecture and process, the virtual team collaboration includes advantages compared to the classical way of collaborating in real teams, however it also includes drawbacks. How to collaborate in a virtual environment? What are issues I need to pay attention to?

In this self-reflection, I will first review the virtual collaboration process as I experienced during our group project, in particular the team practices and team processes. Second, I will analyze and draw the benefits as well as drawbacks on the different team collaboration levels during our virtual collaboration. What are major advantageous when working in a virtual team without any interpersonal connection? What are disadvantages? What may induce difficulties in the collaboration process? Finally, I will conclude with my personal opinion on why our collaboration was truly a success.

2. Collaboration Process

Collaboration literally means working with each other to complete a task. It is characterized as a recursive process where at least two or more parties work together to realize shared goals by sharing knowledge and information, learning through interaction and building consensus on critical issues. Most collaboration requires leadership. Without leadership the virtual team may face serious dangers. Confusion within the team about the collaboration process may lead to inefficiency and endanger goal accomplishment. Although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group, a leader that individual team members can refer to in case of conflictual issues, needs to be clearly stated. In particular, virtual teams with designated leaders that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources and as a result greater rewards. The goal of collaboration needs to be clearly explained to the group by the leader through reaching a consensus about what the virtual team wants to accomplish.

2.1 Collaboration Process Overview

The following figure illustrates the architecture and process of our virtual collaboration:

2.2 How did the team practices look like?

Our virtual team consists of 2 teams, Pyracle group and Give Me Five. Interestingly, our team present individuals with a diverse background. In Team Pyracle, we were German, Dutch and Chinese. In Team Give me Five, both team members were Chinese. Whether this diverse cultural background raises issues to our collaboration will be explained further below. 
Team Pyracle, including me, was attending class in the morning session, team GM5 was attending the evening session. We, the team members of Pyracle, met at every class session, however we never met the other team and its members in person. The different methods of communication were written, oral, face-to-face and online/virtual communications.

2.2.1 Pyracle Group

The interaction and collaboration within Pyracle can be summarized by one word – harmonic. Since all Pyracle team members were attending the same class session we were able to make use of both real (written, oral, face-to-face) as well as virtual/online communication in our collaboration. Meeting every morning in class, we communicated major critical issues and future steps face-to-face and written, since in addition to the oral communication in a real communication environment the body language  supports the communication of creative thoughts and innovative ideas (Kavakli and Gero 2002 ). After distributing the task load, we used virtual communication to check up progress and the current status of individual work.  Consequently, the next class, we  were able to perfectly continue where we stopped the week before, since through virtual collaboration, the team members were already informed about the current status of working progress. After the case occurred, that team members were missing in some classes, we decided to summarize the real meeting in an e-mail to keep missing team members up to date. Communication in general was very vital and intense within Pyracle group. Besides the communication needed to progress in work, the harmonic atmosphere let communication also be used to motivate each other and enable an interpersonal relation to develop between team members (Virtual Teams Survey Report 2012). Since we were relatively small in size and our collaboration was quite harmonic, we did not have a certain leader rather let things happen. Summing up, for Pyracle the basis of our collaboration was real and harmonic communciation, supported and accompanied by virtual communciation.

2.2.2 Intergroup communication

Between Pyracle and GM5 communication was somewhat more challenging than within the individual group. Real communication was not available, hence the only way to communicate was virtual/online communication. But how to communicate with someone you do not know at all and especially with a diverse cultural background? In team Pyracle there was already a Chinese group member. I was aware of the different communication style resulting from the different cultural background. Communication styles can mainly be distinguished between high and low context communication (Gudykunst 2001). High context communication includes the following communication characteristics: being indirect, inferring meaning, interpersonal sensitivity, using feelings to guide behavior, and using silence. On the other hand, low context communication includes the following traits: being dramatic, dominant, animated, relaxed, attentive, open, friendly, contentious, and impression-leaving. Asian cultures tend to stick to high context communication styles, whereas European cultures tend to stick to low context communication styles (Gudykunst 2001). Basically, what I observed within our collaboration was that the western communication was more dramatic, open and more precise than the Asian communication. In addition, the Asian communication was far more indirect than the western communication. However, since I lived and studied before in China, I was aware of the upcoming differences in communication and tried to anticipate by adapting my own communication style.

To shed light on the above drawn impressions, let's first analyze the communication mediums we used. Primarly, we used e-mail communication for instant work updates. For the basic steps in the collaboration process we used skype to communicate. We scheduled skype meetings before by e-mail, to ensure that everyone is participating. The major difficulties were primarly to find an appropriate time frame, where all team members were able to participate in the meeting. Furthermore, due to language barriers we were not able to make use of oral communication. We used written communication on skype. The basic advantage of communicating via skype was not given anymore, since we were not able to capitalize on oral communication to enhance creative thoughts and innovative ideas. Collaborating by written communication on skype equals somehow e-mail communication with an additional instant character.

2.2.3 Conflicts and Drawbacks

As already explained above, the collaboration and communication within Pyracle was very harmonic and free of any conflicts. However, the intergroup communication and collaboration was subject to major challenges.

A first conflict during our collaboration was information overload. In the beginnings of our collaboration, we somewhat expected the collaboration with the other group to be similar to the collaboration withing Pyracle and thus stick to our previous collaboration style and let things happen. This turned out to be a major pitfall. The other group was very energetic and overhasty which result in a very intense e-Mail traffic. E-Mails were missed to be sent to everyone, because the e-Mail contacts were incorrect. Consequently, I lost the overview of the current status of the work process.

A second conflict was an uncoordinated collaboration process. It was not very clear, which member has to accomplish what task. The first actions taken to approach our final project were basically characterized by randomness. E-Mails with overlapping contents disoverlapped the collaboration process. The emerging confusion lead to an inefficiency in our collaboration. Who has to do what? What am I expected to do? What are the other expected to do? That were the questions I faced when starting to deal with our final project.

A first approach to overcome the above mentioned conflicts and that worked out very well, was to agree on a leader in the virtual team. The leader should ensure a organized and structured work process with clear task assignment and appropriate milestones setting. The leader proposed meeting sessions based on the availability of the individual team members, so that everyone was able to attend the meetings. In addition, he provided an agenda of the meeting, so that everyone could prepare himself for the issues to discuss about. During the meeting, he moderated the cammunication process to ensure progress and not to catch on some irrelevant issues. After each meeting session, he sent a summary of the meeting session to everyone to ensure that all team members have the same content of information are up to date regarding the following milestones.

A third conflict emerged through the different cultural background in terms of working styles. A first skype meeting was proposed for a Sunday where I was travelling in China. In western cultures generally Sundays are free days where you can follow your hobbies and interests besides working. I can not remember a meeting during my studies in Germany to be scheduled on Sundays. That was somewhat surprising to me. Nevertheless, if I would have been in Hong Kong, I would have participated in the meeting. Because I did not have an network connection I couldn't do so, but let the others know about my circumstances. However, the skype meeting took place. That would have been fine, if at least one of the group would have informed me about the results of the meeting. Instead, the details of a plan that was discussed during the meeting were sent to all team members where my name was not included in the specific tasks distribution. I solve the issue by contacting the team members and asking for the results as well as the tasks I need to accomplish. I also clarified my dissatisfaction about the emerging conflict. The response was diverse among the team members. Some did not react at all, whereas others recognized the issue and agreed. Again, I relate the differences to the different cultural backgrounds.

2.3 How did the team process look like?

The virtual collaboration process with its specific steps are congruent to real collaboration in a physical environment with the additional advantegous properties of efficiency, flexibilty and innovation.         

Since we had a leader in our virtual team, task distribution was centralized. Our basic commitment among all team members was to achieve the best out of our virtual collaboration. To be innovative, creative, persistent was what all of us agreed upon. We  We agreed on to share all relevant information and knowledge and thereby share the collective success we will achieve. That commitment and integrity of sharing values made up the basis of our following collaboration and its success (Markus 2000). and that are relevant to achieve (Virtual Teams Survey Report 2012) our virtual collaboration's objectives.

Why efficient?

Since the collaboration was based on virtual interaction and all of our team members had instant access to devices and communication media, we did not experience sunk costs with respect to time. In business processes, sunk costs are retrospective costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs can be seen as a contrast to prospective costs, which are future costs that will occur during regular collaboration process. Through instant up to date collaboration we ensure constant work progress and minimize the time input to achieve results.

            ''Time is money'' – Benjamin Franklin

As Benjamin Franklin recognized in the very beginnings of economic history, the factor time is the most critical and valuable asset in nowadays work world. Hence, by minimizing time input to achieve and accomplish goals, efficiency is almost pushed to its boundaries. Maximum efficiency is crucial for being able to survive in fierce competitive business and collaboration environments not only on corporate, but also personal levels.

Why flexible?

For virtual collaboration the only requirement is access to communication devices and media. Notebooks and even smartphones are for students meanwhile the basic equipment to work with. In addition, permanent network connection is available in Hong Kong and most other working environments. Hence, I was able to work and make progress at any time I wanted and any location I was at. Whether at home or at school or underway, I was able to work on my specific tasks, reply to e-mails from my virtual team members or just update my current status of progress. This provides me with flexibility that I would not have in a classical real working environment. Without instant network connection and mobile communication devices such as tablet PCs or smartphones, I would need to sit in front of fixed computers that are only available at certain locations.

Why innovative?

Besides the use of modern communication media, we used new innovative collaboration tools in our process. We used Cloud Services to avoid redundancy and inconsistency in the merged versions of our individuals parts. Cloud services are virtual drivers where a predetermined group of people can have access to. Changes are updated instantly and visible to everyone. By saving all documents in one central virtual drive, it provides more independence and flexibility in working with different devices such as notebook, tablets or even smarphones within a group of people. If you change your computer, you just reopen the file that is saved on the virtual drive via the internet. There is no need of mobile hard drives such as USB or flash cards anymore. A further advantage was that you don't need to send a file every time in a new e-Mail to all group members thereby running into danger of missing recipients or confusion of uncompleted mails.

3. Conclusion

When reviewing the process of our collaboration and putting it into relation of what we have achieved as a team, I can proudly say that our collaboration was a true success. When you assess  results, you always take into consideration the environment and framework within which the activities needed to accomplish the results took place. Despite working in a virtual environment and with different methods of collaboration, we managed to keep our focus on our objective and do not let us distracted by irrelevant issues. Our communication, especially within the individual group, was characterized by harmony. Our collaboration process was characterized by efficiency, flexibility and innovation. Although, we experienced some difficulties in the beginnings of our collaboration process, such as information overload, an uncoordinated collaboration process and difficulties resulting from different working styles, the development we undertook even as a virtual team and the increase in quality of communication and working are impressive. Although we never met in person with the other team, after a while of collaboration a familiar atmosphere emerges that raises motivation and makes working with others more comfortable. Therefore, I want to thank all my team members for their efforts and their time taken to accomplish our group project. It was a pleasure to work with you!

References

Kavakli, M., Gero, J.S., 2002: The structure of concurrent cognitive actions: A case study on novice and expert designers, Design Studies: The International Journal for Design Research in Engineering, Architecture, Vol 23/1, 25-40

Gudykunst, W., 2001: International and Intercultural Communication, Sage Publications

Markus, M.K., Manville B., Agnes, C 2000: What Makes a Virtual Organization Work?, Sloan Management Review, MIT, Volume 42, No. 1