Project Management: Challenges, Strategies, and Success of a Virtual Team

In this project we will discuss about project management and below are the summaries point:- Project management is crucial for planning and managing operations effectively. A virtual team was formed for developing a marketing plan for a new baby product. The team went through stages of group development, faced challenges, and used communication strategies for success.

1
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
[Author]
[Institution]

2
Conclusion
From the above study, it has carried out that project management plays an important role
in planning and management of operations. To manage and complete the tasks, it is essential to
develop a core team that has a good understanding and knowledge about the activities, standards,
and quality. This project is about developing a marketing plan for Johnson and Johnson
Company’s new baby product. The team that is working on this project was managing the
operation through virtual technology (Larson, & Gray, 2014). The team involves members from
the USA, Hong Kong, China, Buenos, Aires, Brazil, London, and Africa as well as Australia. To
gain the knowledge about team members, the leader has asked the supervisor to conduct the
SWOT analysis of candidates. After collecting the information for each team member, the leader
has undertaken the Tuckman’s group development model for managing the team activities
(Stuart, 2014).
The model of team development involves stages like forming, storming, norming,
performing and adjourning. It was a big challenge for the leader to develop a team that has
people from diverse background. The model has helped to manage group dynamics and making
the collective efforts from the team members. Now, to handle the virtual team the manager has
started communication through email and video conferencing (Jensen, Mary Ann & Tuckman,
2010). This approach has helped to maintain the two-way communication among the team
members which is essential for gaining success in the project. Apart from that, the report has
defined the purpose of the project and explained the approach that used for motivating the team
members by offering the respect and work of their interest. To form the team at the initial stage,
the manager has conducted seven days kick off meeting in Barcelona, Spain which has helped to
build the trust and relationship with the members (McChrystal et al., 2015). In that meeting, the

3
leader has communicated the rules and regulations as well as the purpose of the project to the
team members.
The second stage of group development was critical as the leader has to guide the team
members about the potential conflicts and risk in the project. For this purpose, the manager and
team members had meetings through video conferencing. Apart from that, at the norming stage,
the team members had a face-to-face meeting in Darwin, Australia as well as celebrated the
transaction into the performing stage. In the performing stage, the team members have performed
the tasks that assigned to them with the consideration of standards. However, the team has faced
issues of disengagement and new engagement of people in the team (Lunenburg, & Lunenburg,
2015). To manage these issues, the leader has applied different strategies like reconnect and
listen to existing members and inspired the new members with the purpose. At the time of
adjourning of the project, the team had a face-to-face meeting in Paris and developed the post-
mortem document which includes the information about financial expenses, utilization of tool
and achievement of objectives in the project (Levi, 2015). Moreover, the team members have
shared their experience in the adjourning stage and closed the project at a positive note.

4
REFERENCES
Jensen, Mary Ann C. & Tuckman, B.W.. (2010). Stages of small-group development revisited.
Group Facilitation, (10), 43.
Larson, E.W., & Gray, C.F. (2014). Project management: The managerial process (6th ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Levi, D. (2015). Group dynamics for teams. Sage Publications.
Lunenburg, F. C., & Lunenburg, M. R. (2015). Developing high performance teams: Long-
standing principles that work. International Journal of Organizational Behavior in
Education, 3(1), 1-17.
McChrystal, G. S., Collins, T., Silverman, D., & Fussell, C. (2015). Team of teams: New rules of
engagement for a complex world. Penguin.
Stuart, A. (2014). Ground rules for a high performing team. Paper presented at PMI® Global
Congress 2014—North America, Phoenix, AZ. Newtown Square, PA: Project
Management Institute.