SELF-REFLECTION PAPER        Lui Ho Yin 51195935

1.         Virtual Collaboration Project:

This is my first time working on a project virtually with another team. This kind of project is entirely different from what we usually did in the past. Here, I have concluded three major learning points I found during this virtual collaboration project:

1.          Advanced level writing skills

2.          Analytical Negotiation skills

3.          Virtual Motivation skills

2.         Learning Point 1 – Advanced Writing Skills:

Since the two project teams cannot meet up face to face regularly, very often we have to communicate by email or instant messengers. Therefore, we have to write precisely and clearly so as to make sure the readers could get my messages as much as possible.

I remember at the beginning of our virtual collaboration, we had extensive communication by writing bulky emails. Tons of emails and whatapps messages were sent back and forth but we figured out the communication was not very effective. We couldn’t fully understand their ideas while they couldn’t understand our points either.

In order to fix the problems, I amended my writing style. I tried to be as precise as possible by:

Ø   Using thesis statement on each email. Make sure the readers know clearly the objective and purpose of your email. State this at the very first beginning at the email and manage the readers’ expectation.

Ø   Using point form and structuralize my statement. Avoid bulky sentences. Use point form for readers to understand your idea. Be very precise and focused for each sentence.

Ø   Using table to present and compare idea. Words sometime are difficult to compare ideas. By using table, you can structuralize the ideas into different layers and make the words more meaningful.

The whole idea is to make my communication as precise as possible. I would like every reader to grab the objective of my email at the first sight. By doing so, I found that our communication was a lot more effective. We reached mutual idea quickly and was able to kick start the work quickly.

Learning Point 2 – Analytical and Negotiation Skills

During the discussion, we had different view on the project ideas on the virtual collaboration. We were stuck with our own ideas and failed to reach a mutual consensus for two weeks. In order to resolve this situation, I applied the following methods and requested both teammates to complete the following analysis:

Ø   Identify the strengths and weaknesses of both collaborators. Before everything, we must first understand the two collaborators. What are their strengths and weaknesses? What are their unique areas? These are served as the basis for our further analysis.

Ø   Identify how the collaborators contribute to the platform. After understanding the collaborators and coming up with an idea, we then need to assess how precisely they can contribute to the platform. By doing so, we can assess if the platform idea is strong and convincing enough for implementation.

Ø   Assess whether the service can be outsourced. For a virtual collaboration platform, a win-win situation must be achieved. The most effective way to determine this is to assess whether the service each collaborator contributes can be outsourced.

Ø   Identify concrete benefits for each collaborator. Pave clearly how each collaborator can receive concrete benefits, either monetary or non-monetary from the platform.

	Proposal 1
Parties	Forum	Hotel (Cheap Hotel)
Unique Strengths	Connection with many backpackers who are looking for cheap place to stay	Provision of room in a wide range of areas and regions
Weakness	Difficulty to turn netizen to customer and capitalize profit	Costly to promote and fill room vacant due to its scale
How to Contribute to the Platform	Provision of matching opportunities for the large group of netizen	Provision of room and customer authenticity check
Can the above Service be Outsourced?	NO. Easy to develop a website/platform but hard to have such large scale of potential customers (i.e. backpacker)	NO. Not many hotels have such a wide range of region coverage.
How to Benefit from the Platform	Capatlize profit from netizen (e.g. share of profit/ commission)	Boost room reservation and resolve vacancy problem

Learning Point 3 – Virtual Motivation Skills

Although the project teams could not meet face to face, motivation is still important. Without a motivated team with aligned vision, the virtual collaboration would definitely collapse.

During the virtual collaboration project, our conversation was primarily words, which was dull, cold and boring. In order to make our conversation more exciting and interesting, we made use of the functions of instant messengers and tried to make use of the emotional symbols. By doing so, we found the collaboration was a lot more harmonic and cheerful.

BEFORE                                                                     AFTER 

 

Self-Reflection Journal by Mandy Chiu

Student Name: CHIU Yee Man, Mandy        SID: 51072462     

Group Name: SSquare (group 9)

 

 

Self-reflection of the learning journal of collaboration

 

Virtual Collaboration is just like working in the cloud, it was because it is the method of collaboration between people that is carried out via technology-mediated communication. People can communicate through different devices like telephone, email, whatsapp, skype, video conferencing, audio conferencing etc instead of face-to-face interaction.

 

Virtual collaboration is a new concept to me, since I have get use to physical interaction and communication with my team members. If you ask me to communicate with my friends by using whatsapp, telephone and email, I think it is alright for me. But the course MGT6209 requires us to do a group project and build a virtual team with the other group in the morning session by using the technology devices. My first impression is “NONSENSE” and “IMMPOSSIBLE”.  How can we finish the project without meeting one another? What is virtual team? Can it work? Is it too ideal? All these doubts stuffed up my mind because

1.     Lack of Trust

        Virtual team is a collection of strangers. It is difficult to collaborate with a  person or a team
        whom you don’t know each other and never meet one another. Also, the cultural difference
        between the members of virtual team gives rise to number of conflicts. As I know most of
        the morning class students are came from Mainland. My bad experience with them made me
        frustrate. During the discussion process, they recommend the NGO (UNESCO) to represent the
        backpackers, however, we don’t know much about this NGO because it is a NGO in China. So
        we need to take some time to negotiate and come up with a common view.

2.     Misunderstanding

           Virtual teams are adversely affected by the lack of physical interactions. Most of the

           communications in virtual environment is task-oriented. Both our teams are very clear about 

           the aim of the collaboration. During the process, we chose to use email and whatsapp to

           communicate. Actually email and whatsapp is helpful and time-saving device. However, it is

           difficult to decipher the emotion feelings of other people through words. You cannot catch

           the tone and real feeling of the other side. What you can do is guess, this will lead to

           misunderstanding and cause difficulties in collaborations.

3.     Technological limits

Traditional teams can meet one another during meetings. They can discuss issues face-to-face and come up to decision and conclusion at the end of the meeting. However, virtual teams can only rely on technology for communication. Members that do not understand how to use the virtual collaboration technology cannot perform their tasks efficiently. Also, with the experience, by using only email to communicate, it is difficult for us to know whether the other team gets the email or not. By sending them the first email, we have wait quite a long to gets the reply. We don’t know whether they have received our message or not. However, by using whatsapp, the situation is better since whatsapp can show the seen message.

Although virtual collaboration face lots of challenge but I agree that it present two unique benefits. The first is cost effective. Virtual collaboration is much less costly compare with face-to-face meetings. The time and cost of transportation has been saved. Since my group are all working students, it is difficult for us to call a meeting, therefore virtual collaboration is quite convenient to us. The second is virtual team also makes it easier to bring together a more diverse group of skills, experiences and knowledge. Within our virtual team, we have different cultural backgrounds, working experiences, talents and knowledge. By collaborating, lots of creative ideas can come up which helps to accomplish the task.

 

What I have learnt …..

Virtual teams differ from traditional teams in two ways: (1) They are not usually collocated, and (2) due to their lack of collocation, members of virtual teams depend primarily on information technologies rather than face-to-face interaction to communicate and coordinate their work effort.

But with the experience, I suggest that virtual team members should meet face-to-face once at the early stage in the team development process. Although this idea seem contradictory to the entire notion of virtual teams, but so far no technology has replaced face-to-face interaction for high-level bonding and mutual understanding.

 

 

 

 

Negotiation can be positive or negative, it can be winning or losing outcomes. This is what I experience during the virtual collaboration process.

In the beginning, our group suggests our project is talk about the virtual collaboration between Apparel Industry and Animation Industry. However, the other group from the morning class initiate to do the backpackers and the hotel group. After the discussion within our group and seek advices from our professor, we finally agree with what they propose but ask them try to think about a 3-stars hotels instead of a 5-stars. It was because there is no need for a 5-stars hotel to collaborate with the backpackers. We made the concession because time is running out, we want to start the preparation as soon as possible, therefore we don’t want to waste time to negotiate and argue. Also, be honest, we really think that their suggestion can be take to consideration. We just want to settle the difference and achieve the best possible outcomes.

But here comes to the main conflict between two groups “SSquare” and “Do It Better”. In our point of view, we want to represent the backpackers’ side from the backpackers forum. However, they will represent the 3-stars hotel and suggest that the NGO (UNESCO) to represent the backpackers. Both of us try to make our stand clear through whatsapp and the message is sending to and fro and cannot compromise. So our group member sent an email to them by making a table and asking them to fill in the table to justify their stands and convince us to follow their ideas. Finally, we win and they willing to use the backpackers forum to do the final project.

 

 

What I have learnt …..

Skills to Negotiating Successfull

1.         Understand what drives you and others

           Negotiating is needs-based. What you ask for and the way you
           behave when you negotiate are based on your needs. Since my
           group is represent the backpackers therefore it is important to
           us to know well and grasp the meaning and understanding of
           the backpackers forum. What “Do it better” recommend is the
           NGO from the Mainland which we don’t really know. So it
           will be difficult for us do the preparation. Therefore we initiate
           to do the backpackers forum instead of the NGO. It is
           important to look at what we want and see how we reframe
           what we are asking for to meet both our needs.

2.     Negotiate with honor, knowledge and understanding

         Communication is an important part of negotiating. Being able to apply 4Cs, care, clear,

          comprehensive and calm can help to form the foundation for maintaining the respect of both

         parties.

        CARE we try to show our understanding of their situation and appreciate their efforts put in the

         project.

         CLEAR we try to make our idea and framework clear by sending an email and drawing a

          diagram to them.

         COMPREHENSIVE by making a table, we try to integrate our ideas and make our stand more

          clear to them.

          CALM whenever conflict arise, we stay calm and discuss with one another before reply to their

          message.

 

3.     Negotiate actively, honestly and fairly

        The negotiating process has six stages. They include asking questions, making affirmative

        statements, framing, listening, reasoning and reframing. When we negotiate whether using the

         backpackers forum or not, we have try to ask them why they think NGO is suitable in this

          situation and why they don’t want to chose backpackers forum. We listen to their concerns and

          ideas and also try to make them understand why we chose backpackers forum.

4.     People easy to compromise under time pressure

        People will give things away under time pressure and the longer you can keep the other side

        involved in the negotiation which the deadline is approaching, the more likely the other side is to

        move around to your point of view and make concession. In our situation, both groups

        understand that our presentation is on 16^th April, so if we continue to drag on the same issue,

        none of us will benefit. Therefore, one side will make concession.

Conclusion

Virtual collaboration and building virtual team is a new experience to me. Virtual team are a great way to enable teamwork in situations where people are not in the same geographical location. But because of this, conflict is more easy to arise. In order to solve the conflicts, the starting place is respect other people’s point of view, no matter how much they vary from your own. Also together with tactics negotiation skills and successful communication, conflict can be resolve and comes to a win-win situation.

 

   

References:

1. Robbis, S.P. & Judge, T.A. (2011). Essential of Organizational Behaviior (11th Edition). New
   Delhi: Pearson Education.  
2.   Handy, C. (1995). Trust and the Virtual Organization. Harvard Business Review, May-June,
    1995.

3.   Ginny Pearson Barns, Ed.D. (1998). Successful Negotiating, National Press Publications.

4.   Roger Dawson (2001). Secrets Of Power Negotiating (2ng edition). Career Press Franklin Lakes,
     NJ.

5.   Harvard Business Essentials (2004). Creating Teams with an Edge. Harvard Business School
     Press.
6. http://blog.fastfedora.com/2011/10/virtual-teams-pros-cons-best-practices.html

7. http://www.managementstudyguide.com/virtual-teams-advantages-and-disadvantages.htm

 

Appendix

Group communication with morning team

Whatsapp History