1. 1 Page

2. A framework to meet the challenges of
managing diverse teams
Sudhindranath Neela - Senior Manager, Deloitte Consulting
Debopam Chakrabarti - Senior Manager, Deloitte Consulting
Swarup Banerjee - Manager, Deloitte Consulting

3. Contents
1. Abstract ..........................................................................................................................4
2. Introduction ....................................................................................................................4
3. Distributed and Virtual teams- What do they mean? .......................................................4
4. Evolution of diverse team-a historical perspective ..........................................................4
5. Benefits and drawbacks of a virtual team .......................................................................6
6. Major challenges in managing a virtual team..................................................................6
6.1 Distance .....................................................................................................................6
6.2 Time ...........................................................................................................................7
6.3 Technology.................................................................................................................7
6.4 Culture........................................................................................................................8
6.5 Trust ...........................................................................................................................9
6.6 Leadership ............................................................................................................... 10
7. The key to success in leading virtual team ................................................................... 11
7.1 Effective communication ........................................................................................... 11
7.2 Project Leadership ................................................................................................... 12
8. Summary...................................................................................................................... 12
9. Author’s Profile: ............................................................................................................ 13
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4. 1. Abstract
The objectives of this paper are to throw some light on the nature of the diverse teams and the main
challenges, the project manager faces in a diverse team. It also focuses on mitigation strategies to
the challenges that are specific to the diverse teams. This paper is co-authored by three project
managers that have, between them, decades of project management experience. They have
executed projects in distributed teams all over the world. This paper thus attempts to marry the formal
concepts of managing diverse teams with decades of real life experience in managing diverse teams.
2. Introduction
Diverse teams are an integral part of today’s work space in project management. For example, a
significant number of IT projects are executed by diverse teams located in different countries. Indian
offshore industry leverages diverse teams throughout the project lifecycle. Other multinational
professional service firms also do audit, tax or consulting projects using virtual teams worldwide. Even
non service projects like construction etc. do use diverse teams to do some part of the work
This paper offers a historical perspective and discusses the evolution of a diverse team. It also
discusses the major challenges for a Project manager in managing a diverse team. Factors like
distance, time, technology, trust, culture and leadership are major challenges to diverse teams. This
paper talks about the best way to handle each of the challenges.
3. Distributed and Virtual teams- What do they mean?
Diverse teams can be called a virtual team or a distributed team based on how often they meet up. A
distributed team may meet up occasionally, but virtual teams generally do not meet up. But
irrespective of the fact whether they ever meet up or not, they mostly work remotely. So the
challenges they face are same. In this paper, we will call them virtual teams, but all the concepts can
be applied to the distributed team as well. Generally the terms ―virtual team‖ and ―distributed teams‖
are used interchangeably, as the problems they face and the environments they work in are similar.
A typical project team of today consists of a group of people who interact to complete interdependent
tasks and work toward a common goal. But instead of meeting in the same office, the team members
work in different places, sometimes from home, and in different time zones. They may never meet
their coworkers face-to-face. For IT companies, we call it onsite-offshore model, where part of the
team works with customer onsite and the rest work from offshore. But it is not limited to IT alone
(Though they contribute most to the virtual team concept). For a product company, it can be that
employees from different countries of a multinational company working together to solve a common
problem.
4. Evolution of diverse team-a historical perspective
The idea of globalization is not a recent revolutionary occurrence, but rather an evolution started
centuries ago that is still evolving today. Visionary leaders have recognized that competitive
advantages can be gained over their rivals with an effective globalization strategy. This is especially
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5. true when coupled with an equally effective global execution model for product development or
service delivery.
The pressures from emerging markets, converging markets, technological advances, customer
demands, employee demographics, product sourcing, and organizational resourcing have fueled the
use and need for globalization of activities and hence the distributed work teams. The projects are
now executed around the world and they comprise of people around the world.
The primary forces that drove the formation of virtual teams are economic forces and technological
forces.
Economic forces
In the last century, when the economy was dependent on production, the workers had to necessarily
go to factory for work. As we have moved to service based economy, the landscape of work has
changed rapidly. This has contributed to a continued shift from production to service/knowledge work
environments
Multinational organizations have become the order of the day. These organizations have the
capability to bring in people from different countries to solve a common problem
As the economy has become more competitive, the corporations are in search of best skills and
expertise for the work, regardless of where those individuals are physically located. Cost reduction
also has become one of top priorities of the companies. Companies can reduce costs by having
team members work from locations where cost of workers is low. Many companies have set up
shared Service centers in India, South-east Asia, South America and East Europe.
Virtual team enables the companies to have 24X7 coverage on a service, problem or task. As one
country goes to sleep, the work is taken over by another team located in another country. The work is
carried out seamlessly across time zones
Technological forces:
Technology played a crucial role too. Early 21st century saw the globalization being accelerated by
satellite and fiber optic communication technologies, which have served to connect computer
systems, businesses, and people in all corners of the world. It was initiated by the advent of new
work-flow technologies which enable knowledge work to be disaggregated at its source, distributed
digitally to knowledge workers across the globe, worked on by geographically dispersed knowledge
specialists, and then reintegrated into a new solution back at the source or at some other location in
the world.
Computerization and collaboration technology has digitized the world causing massive change in the
way we communicate and work. In 1990 email was virtually unknown. Less than two decades later
communication technology allows for the immediate distribution of information virtually everywhere
instantly
The above factors together led to the formation of distributed team or virtual team. Now the work was
being carried out in multiple places of the world, involving people from different countries. The service
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6. delivery model did not need people to be co-located. And most importantly, technology was in place
to support this kind of work.
5. Benefits and drawbacks of a virtual team
Though virtual teams are the order of the day, and they have significant benefits, they are not
unmixed blessings. Following is a quick summary of their benefits and drawbacks
Benefits:
Increases the ability to initiate and contribute to projects across organizational, time and space
boundaries
Reduces cost by limiting the needs for relocation
Encourages off shoring by doing the work in most effective place
Fosters cross-functional and cross-divisional collaboration.
Improves the ability to attract and retain the best resources for the project irrespective of location
Can achieve 24 hour work day calendar for the project
Drawbacks:
Challenge in terms of team dynamics and real time follow up.
Increased reliance on suitable, reliable technical infrastructures.
More difficult to build and maintain trust and cohesion amongst team members.
Leadership Challenge
top-down versus self-organization
Individual versus collaboration
Manager-driven and team-driven work definition and assignment.
Sense of community, fellowship or camaraderie amongst team members is naturally reduced.
6. Major challenges in managing a virtual team
Managing a virtual team is always a challenge. However there are ways and means to manage
these challenges. The major challenges are around distance, time, technology, culture, trust and
leadership.
6.1 Distance
In the past, large corporations had created mass production systems that required the congregation
of employees at central places of work. IT and virtual teams enable a decentralization of work -to
work together while being spatially and temporally separated.
Challenge
Lack of Face to face interactions mean challenges in building trust, monitoring performance,
inspiring teamwork, maintaining cultural norms, and understanding cultural differences.
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7. Our approach
Fortunately communication technology has improved exponentially. Use of communication
technologies like email, phone, video conferencing, blogs, Instant messenger help to overcome the
distance barrier. We, in our projects have always tried to encourage regular social communication
between team members to build trust. A quick phone call to someone who has just joined back after
a medical surgery or a quick birthday wish does not cost project a bomb, but it creates a bond
between your team members
6.2 Time
A major advantage in a virtual team is that we can have 24 hour workday. As one team ends,
another team in another time zone picks it up. Hence the turnaround time is really quick.
Challenge
It is extremely challenging to schedule meetings and coordinate a globally dispersed team. For
projects that require real-time collaboration, time differences can be problematic .Questions that
require the other group's guidance may have to wait several hours to be answered. As a result,
decisions may take longer to be made.
Our approach
Managing Time-zone difference between team members is one of the important tasks, you as the
project manager need to consider. You may consider one of the following for this.
• Non-conventional work Hours for one or more team: if time zones of your teams are completely
different, some teams need to work during non-conventional hours. Sometimes, it helps even if you
have a window of 2-3 hours , when onsite team can interact with the offshore team
• Call Anytime Policy- this can be used, when some members of the team can be called anytime,
even beyond working hours, for clarifications. However, some cultures view it as an intrusion to
their private life. Hence it needs to be used judiciously.
In either case, you need to consider the Work Life Balance of the employees. Our experience is , if
you set the expectations from the members up in the beginning, you end up with less heartburn.
6.3 Technology
Communication is heavily dependent of technology in a virtual team. By using a myriad of new
technologies, companies have found ways for people to work together on essential tasks . Knowledge
of virtual communication tools like e-mail, online chat, instant messaging, and Web conferencing is
quickly becoming necessary for workers. Thus, the very meaning of collaboration has been extended,
and such efforts are referred to as virtual collaboration. Virtual collaboration occurs when people who
are not co-located use communication technologies to work together and facilitate getting the job
done.
Challenge
Mere presence of technology does not achieve much. Training on technology is equally important.
Inter organizational virtual teams often have the added problem of incompatible technology platforms
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8. and communication tools. You need to find out a mechanism to make the required technologies work
together to optimize collaboration.
Our approach
All the technologies are not suitable for all purposes. You need to choose the technology based on
the communication tasks you need to accomplish. The following table sums up our experience. You
may choose to have a matrix in your communication plan that shows the technology to be used for
different types of communication. In addition, in our projects, we have always found that the key is to
make separate collaboration technologies work together.
Type of Type of Tasks
Technology
Sharing and Discussing and Collaborative Negotiating Technical
Collecting Brainstorming Decision-Making or Interpersonal
Information Conflicts
Webex Effective Somewhat Somewhat Somewhat Effective
Effective Effective
Hyperwave Effective Ineffective Ineffective Ineffective
Audio conference / Effective Effective Effective Somewhat Effective
Phone Call
Videoconference Effective Somewhat Effective Not Effective
Effective
E-mail Effective Somewhat Not effective Not Effective
Effective
Voice Mail Somewhat Not Effective Not Effective Not Effective
Effective
Instant Messenger Effective Somewhat Not Effective Somewhat Effective
Effective
Face to Face Highly Highly Effective Highly Effective Highly Effective
Effective
6.4 Culture
Culture represents a pattern of beliefs, values, perceptions, assumptions, behaviors, expectations etc.
that develops and persists over time within a social unit.
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9. Challenge
Cultural patterns might be observed at multiple levels. The multiple locations and individual cultures
represented by distributed team members mean that understanding and enhancement of culture by
distributed team leaders is more complex than in face-to-face teams.
Our approach
When working in multi country teams, navigating the cultural challenges can make or break your
project. Culture is a significant barrier-but it can be managed. The best practices, we have formed
from our experiences in managing multi-country projects are as below.
Appreciate and enjoy cultural diversity
Try to empathize with the other person’s views
Do some homework to understand the background better
Be open-minded – don’t dump a national stereotype on individuals
Work at developing trust and then openly discuss how respective cultural differences might be
affecting an issue
Begin in a formal, polite manner and await signals of informality from the other person
Recognize the extra stress imposed by language barriers and make allowances for others
On vital matters always double-check understanding to avoid expensive mistakes
6.5 Trust
Trust is a crucial medium for organizational action. It facilitates cooperation and coordination of
organizations and their employees without them having to rely on more costly and time-consuming
legal, managerial, and budgetary arrangements. Trust, however, must be built. Human beings do not
automatically trust each other. Sometimes they never trust each other. In the best of circumstances,
trust takes time to establish. The ways in which projects go about incubating trust reflect the natures
of different organizations. The most common forms of organization are those based on personal
hierarchy or impersonal procedure or a mix of both. Personalized forms of organization rely heavily on
the rituals of social interaction to achieve goals. More impersonal forms of organization rely on rules
and rule-like qualities (such as targets) to get things done. Conventional organizations often mix
social and procedural motivations. Trust is created in conventional organizations through face-to-face
social interaction or through the operation of a culture of rules. Through the medium of social
interactions, people form and test bonds of trust. They establish that they can or cannot rely on each
other. If we sense through social interaction that a coworker will be disloyal, unreliable, or evasive, we
will not trust that person. If we observe rule application or implementation that is arbitrary,
contradictory, or impulsive, the same applies. We withdraw trust from the person responsible.
Challenge
The virtual team’s reality is a bit different. It is based on collaboration at a distance. Participants in
virtual team are geographically spread apart, often across the world. These factors mean that normal
workplace or office social interaction is not available to virtual coworkers. They do not have the
means of body language (e.g., watching, playing or socializing) usually available to co-located work
partners. Distance collaborations invariably bring together coworkers with different cultures of rule
interpretation and implementation. Because collaborations are usually temporary, an atmosphere of
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10. authoritative rule interpretation and implementation is difficult to establish. Virtual workers at a
distance—no matter how frequent their e-mail correspondence—find it difficult to build trust on the
basis of "I know this person well" or "I know the expectations well" or "I understand the disciplinary
basis for this person's way of working. Absence of routine interaction, nonverbal indicators, and
informal social time can result in a lack of trust in team.
Our approach
From our experience in managing long distance projects, we can offer the following tips for building
trust in your virtual team.
Communicate freely and openly
To get trust, give trust. Be honest
Establish strong business ethics. Business ethics is about setting moral values for the workplace
Do what you say you will do, and make your actions visible
Make sure that your interactions with the team are consistent and predictable
From the outset, set the tone for future interaction
Be accessible and responsive
Maintain confidences. Team members need to be able to express concerns, identify problems,
share sensitive information, and surface relevant issues
Watch your language. In subtle ways a leader can unintentionally erode trust among his/her team
members.
6.6 Leadership
In a virtual project team, the task itself usually provides the initial motivation to work together across
time and space. However, in order to keep working together successfully, more is often needed.
Leadership is more than project management. Leadership is the glue that sticks all the components of
the team together. It also provides the thrust for the team members to go forward in its chosen
direction.
Challenge
A virtual team is more than a collection of individuals working in isolation. Virtual team members
depend on one another to fulfill a common goal. As such, they need to be connected on both a task
and interpersonal level. Task-related demands such as the planning and scheduling of work need to
be balanced against interpersonal aspects such as a shared social context, expressions of trust, and
a genuinely human interest in one another in order to maximize the overall performance of the team.
As such, leadership in virtual team is different from leadership in conventional teams. A leader needs
to ensure quality performance of team members and mentor and coach team members, all from a far.
Our approach
We have found the following leadership competencies extremely important for leading a virtual team
• Technological proficiency and appropriate use of Technology
• Cross-cultural management skills
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11. • Ability to coach distant team members
• Ability to build trust among dispersed team members
• Networking with stakeholders
• Remote project management skills
• Understanding and appreciating cultural diversity
7. The key to success in leading virtual team
In the previous section, we discussed various challenges in a virtual team and their mitigation
strategy. Let us now focus on the most important success factors in leading a virtual project team.
7.1 Effective communication
Effective communication is the key for successful virtual team performance. When interacting with
others, the more we can communicate our context, the greater the connection and, therefore, the
greater the chance of achieving the objectives that we set out to accomplish.
The virtual workplace has transformed the business landscape across the globe in many positive
ways, but it has also altered the essence of the human connection. Connections that occur during
face-to-face exchanges become more elusive when we lose close proximity with others.
When team members share a bond they work more productively. In the long run, building good
relationships enables more effective team performance and reduces situations that are dominated by
conflict. These key benefits directly impact work product and the organization’s key deliverables.
The human connection also allows a richer path of information exchange through Context
Communication. Context Communication means that team members working in close proximity can
quickly assess the cues and therefore understand the context in which certain behaviors take place.
Observations about another person’s verbal tone, body language, and other visual cues create the
context that helps us understand each other, the task at hand, and the overall work situation. Informal
hallway or water cooler chats that are common with on-site teams provide a natural way to conduct
casual conversations, build personal relationships, and learn additional context, some of which you
store in the back of your mind for future situations. This allows virtual team members to understand
the setting that their teammates are working in and to find the best approach to collaboration. When
context is missing, virtual teams are forced to make a greater effort to maintain the human
connection, which in turn leads to new behaviors and ways of communicating. As a manager, you
need to keep team members from being isolated.
You can resort to practices like Sending email, providing updates in an website, making phone
calls.
Encourage team members to keep in touch with one another even when there is no pressing need
to do so. Familiarity breeds trust and people who trust each other are more productive.
Clarify the objective and the role to each member, create a stable work atmosphere, encourage
team members to build good work relationship
Team that over communicate tend to discuss goals and schedules, help one another, quicker to
confront nonperformers
Watch for conflicts- and learn to manage it
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12. Conflict is inevitable. Keep an eye out for it. Check your emails regularly for disagreements among
team members. Step in
Phone conversations are better than emails to resolve the conflicts.
7.2 Project Leadership
If you are leading a virtual team, the following is worth considering
Articulate a vision for the project. A solid vision can help eliminate the distance barrier
Teams are open systems. Teams manage themselves within the boundary. Distance leaders
manage the boundary.
Distance Managers are not supervisors-Managing someone you can’t see is considerably
different than walking around the cubicle wall to see if they’re there at eight in the morning
Key lessons, we have learnt in leading long distance projects.
Light a ―fire in the belly‖
A virtual team needs a clear mission. Virtual Teams, usually fail, if they lack a clear purpose.
The team must flesh out what they will achieve and how they will do it.
A kick off meeting involving everyone is one of the ways to start engaging everyone on the
objective
Assume nothing; Spell out everything
Assumptions kill. People tend to interpret facts by the filter of their culture. You have to test the
assumptions about everything: how the team will communicate, what ―Quality‖ and ―schedule‖
mean to everyone etc.
Mega communicate
8. Summary
Virtual team is the order of the day in Project management. There are significant challenges around
time, distance, culture, trust, technology and leadership in managing a virtual team. However, these
challenges can be mitigated effectively by the project manager.
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13. 9. Author’s Profile:
Sudhindranath Neela is a graduate in Mechanical engineering,
MBA (Operations), M.Phil. (Management) and a certified PMP.
He is currently pursuing his PhD (Management). He works as
Senior Manager in Deloitte Consulting. He has Industry
Experience of 24 years, which Includes 20 years of experience in
IT Consulting. He has hands-on project management experience
in handling multimillion dollar, large scale software projects which
are primarily in the areas of ERP Implementation,
customizations, and IT related services.
Debopam Chakrabarti is a graduate in Mechanical engineering
and a certified PMP. He works as Senior Manager in Deloitte
Consulting. He has Industry experience of 20 years and has led
multiple supply chain transformation projects across the globe
primarily using ERP products.
Swarup Banerjee is an ICWA and a certified PMP. He works as
Manager in Deloitte Consulting. He has industry experience of 13
years and has managed several large IT projects in India, USA
and Europe.
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