Group items tagged

"But there are tools now: wikis, blogs, microblogging, ideation tools, jams, next-generation project management, what I call collaborative decision management. These are social tools for decision making. These are the new operating systems for the 21st-century enterprise in the sense that these are the platforms upon which talent-you can think of talent as the app-works, and performs, and creates capability."

A review of the literature on self-managed or self-directed work groups lends itself to the fact that more and more organizations are changing as a more competitive global society emerges. As a result, individual, team, and organizational roles are much different now than they were even twenty years ago. In order to stay competitive, organizations must allow themselves to evolve. By tapping into an ever present resource, their employees, the organization gains a wealth of expertise, enabling them to transform externally and, as a result, transforms internally to a healthier work environment. In spite of the challenges, self-managed work groups are an obvious win-win solution in our ever changing environment.

Study from Com Team: Leading virtually still lacks broad acceptance in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. While most managers and staff accept cost reduction as a major benefit, the "always on" consequence and increased pressure result in a negative assessment.

Here is one approach to dealing with cloud computing security risks. This is a system promoted by the US government. 

From 2009: Future of management challenges

Deploying Far-Flung Teams: A Guidebook for Managers by Ann Majchrzak and Arvind Malhotra May 9, 2003

1. The leader as producer: Creating compelling content 2. The leader as distributor: Leveraging dissemination dynamics 3. The leader as recipient: Managing communication overflow 4. The leader as adviser and orchestrator: Driving strategic social-media utilization 5. The leader as architect: Creating an enabling organizational infrastructure 6. The leader as analyst: Staying ahead of the curve

Framework for collaboration in distributed teams

It wasn't that long ago-in the memory of most workers today-that people "went" to work. The work place was actually a "place" and people went there to earn a living. Some people still do. If you assemble circuit boards for Intel or automobiles for BMW, you will go to the place where the tools you need to do your job are kept. For the rest of us, a change has taken place that has fundamentally altered the way that work gets done. A typical project, for example, is planned in a series of meetings, launched in a rented conference room in an airport hotel, executed in who knows where, and managed using email and on-line tools. Sales meetings, to cite another example, take place on conference calls not in conference rooms.

A Google book from Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (only part of the content is displayed)

We are your #1 classified ad listing site for SharePoint Apps. Become a free member and start listing your SharePoint Apps within minutes. You can manage all ads from your personalized dashboard.

Participating in social media has become a business imperative. More than 70 percent of organizations operating around the world are now active on social media. Many are finding significant benefits and unexpected risks along the way.  KPMG surveyed more than 1,800 managers and 2,000 employees at organizations in ten major markets and found that - in many cases - there remains a significant gap between expectation and reality when it comes to social media. 

The office of the future will be chaotic and hyperconnected. The mobile device will replace the desktop. People will be working from any location. Photo: Nic Walker What will the workplace of the future look like? It's a question that's been around for years and the different scenarios keep coming.

Summary: "Most teams underperform. Yours can beat the odds. If you need the best practices and ideas for superior team building--but don't have time to find them--this book is for you. Here are 10 inspiring and useful perspectives, all in one place. This collection of HBR articles will help you: boost team performance through mutual accountability, motivate large, diverse groups to tackle complex projects, increase groups' emotional intelligence, reverse the fortunes of a struggling team, prevent decision deadlock, extract results from a bunch of touchy superstars, fight constructively with top-management colleagues, and ensure productivity in far-flung teams."

Summary: "The scores of successful virtual teams the authors examined didn't have many of the psychological and practical obstacles that plagued their more traditional, face-to-face counterparts. Team members felt freer to contribute--especially outside their established areas of expertise. The fact that such groups could not assemble easily actually made their projects go faster, as people did not wait for meetings to make decisions, and individuals, in the comfort of their own offices, had full access to their files and the complementary knowledge of their local colleagues. Reaping those advantages, though, demanded shrewd management of a virtual team's work processes and social dynamics. Rather than depend on videoconferencing or e-mail, which could be unwieldy or exclusionary, successful virtual teams made extensive use of sophisticated online team rooms, where everyone could easily see the state of the work in progress, talk about the work in ongoing threaded discussions, and be reminded of decisions, rationales, and commitments. Differences were most effectively hashed out in teleconferences, which team leaders also used to foster group identity and solidarity."

Virtual teams, although relatively new to the global business landscape, are already recognized as a boon to international organizations. Without the time, cost and hazards of travel, groups can now share information, chat, innovate and make decisions together. Creating effective virtual teams has proved to be more difficult than expected. Managers cannot simply create high-performance by assigning members and 'letting them run'. Without careful structuring, support and attention to processes, virtual teams do not achieve their potential and may not even get off the ground. Here we focus on four of the most important challenges: effective communication, relationship building, managing conflicts and leadership.