Deakin University MMM211 Team Dynamics Essay: Remote Teams Analysis

This essay critically evaluates Dan Radigan's recommendations for managing remote teams, focusing on bridging the distance gap between local and remote offices. The essay discusses the importance of building rapport, extending productive hours, and fostering a united development culture within virtual teams. It analyzes the benefits of these strategies, such as improved communication, knowledge sharing, and employee motivation. The essay also explores potential challenges and suggests additional recommendations, including flexible work arrangements, team-building activities, and resource allocation, to enhance the effectiveness of remote team management. The analysis is based on the provided article and other academic sources. The essay also includes an evaluation of the usefulness of the suggestions for a virtual team and offers recommendations to improve the efficiency of remote teams.

Running head: TEAM DYNAMICS
Team Dynamics
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Introduction
The main topic that is being discussed in this article is ‘Think globally, code locally: the
secret to remote teams. This essay is mainly talking about the importance of the virtual teams in
the modern-day scenario and the different ways in which the managers must try to connect the
employees of the head office or the headquarters and the employees of the remote teams. As per
the opinion of Sekaran and Bougie (2016), to survive in the long run, all the organizations need
to gather a huge amount of expertise from different employees (RADIGAN 2019). This will
ensure that the organization will be able to promote the overall welfare of the organization as
they will be able to gather the business ideas from different employees who are coming from
different cultural and social backgrounds. However, RADIGAN (2019) had also argued in a
similar context that these remote teams often become too difficult to be managed effectively.
There can be several reasons like internet errors, lack of proper confidence building among the
team and many other aspects. In this given article Dan Radigan talks about the different ways
both through the help of software and the other forms of business relationship building that can
be used for understanding about the problems and the solutions to the issues of a remote team. In
other ways, he is talking about the different ways in which the managers can bridge the gap
between the local teams and the official teams. In this article, the author Dan Radigan is talking
about the different ways in which the manager of the Atlassian company try to bridge the gap or
the disgrace between the employees who are working from the remote or the distant regions.

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Discussion
Remote teams are becoming highly popular in the modern-day scenario. However, in the
early context, it was seen that the organizations were mainly trying to work in the same offices
by keeping all the employees together at the same place. In other words, the concept of agile
development was initiated so that the business decisions can be conveyed to the members of the
employees of the clustered teams so that they can carry on with all the different business
decisions without facing much trouble. However as is being seen in the modern-day scenario, it
is becoming a major problem to keep all the employees of the remote teams in a proper
connection with one another. However, apart from the different internet-based ways, there are
some other ways as well that helps in understanding and issues and solving the gap between the
in house employees and the remote employees as well. There are many different ways in which
barriers can be reduced. However, it must be noticed that the managers are often in a kind of
misconception that the issues can be solved by using the internet based approaches like using the
right kind of software or the code based strategies. It must be noted that building rapport with all
the employees even them, who are working in remote places, is of utmost importance. Meredith
et al. (2017) has stated that developing a free-flowing and horizontal form of communication is
of utmost need so that even those employees who are working in the remote or distant
geographical locations can take part in all the business decision-making process and also take
active participation by sharing their ideas, opinions feedbacks, and their understanding.
As per the opinion that has been shared by Dan Radigan in his article it is evident that
there are different ways in which the managers of the organization must try to shape and
structure their teams

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Building rapport
Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta (2016) have stated that one of the most useful ways in
building a strong connection or a strong rapport among the local and the remote office
employees is to boost their morale or their mental strength. In order to do that the managers have
to make sure that they are making all the employees known their worth and also make them
understand that they are very much a part of the organization and they have the complete right to
give in their opinions and their valuable feedback for the different business decision that is being
undertaken. It is essential to build a personal connection. However Meredith et al. (2017) has
argued that there can be several disadvantages that can arise during the rapport-building session
are many. Video calling or video conferences are the most useful way in which the company
owners try to build a proper connection with the employees who are working from the remote or
the distant offices. However, Anders (2016) has argued in this similar context that there can be
several distractions arising in the field of communication building in the virtual teams.
Employees who are working from home or the remote and the distant locations might often try to
escape the last-minute tasks of meetings or the task of undertaking any urgent orders. Therefore
the managers must make sure that they are being able to form a proper connection between their
employees who are working from the office and the ones who are working from the distant
places or the remote places (Zhang, Sarcevic & Bossen 2017). For instance there is a good
practice at Atlassian Company where all the employees working from the remote or the distant
places are asked to post a personal blog about themselves right ate they log in. This posting of
the blog is done on the internal Confluence instance, Atlassian's content collaboration tool.

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Extending the golden hours
One of the most useful ways to carry on with the working of the remote employees is to
make sure that the golden hours or the time of entertainment is being extended. RADIGAN
(2019) has stated that it is the duty or the responsibility of the managers to make sure that there
are some refreshment activities or some particular effective time for the team interactions.
Maximizing the golden or the productive hours, considered to be an effective way where the
employees can narrate about their problems and the different expectations that they are keeping
for themselves from the end of the company.
Every team is distributed
The work that is being assigned to the team members have to be shared or equally
divided among them. This will help in dividing the workload among them so that they can work
fast. The dividing of the workload is considered to be a highly effective way of making the
works much faster, smoother and error-free manner as well. This is because the method of
division of work is always a very useful and also effective way by which the company can
support and also motivate the employees. It is the responsibility of the managers of the
organizations to make sure that all the employees whether from the office or the distant or the
remote regions must not be overburdened with work. This will help the remote employees in
knowing that there enough support systems for them and the managers will also be taking care of
their needs in the same way just as they would look after the needs of the employees working in
the head office.
Jimenez et al. (2017) have stated that to survive in this current competitive market the
organizations have to send the employees on on-site projects or outside due to their

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requirements. This is also an extra monetary expense for the organization as they have to send
their employees to the other foreign countries. Thus the traveling allowances and the
accommodation costs often make a huge burden on the management. On the other hand, the
employees who are traveling on on-site projects also get distant from their family members. On
the other hand, the concept of work from home is thus suitable as it helps the employees in
maintaining the right balance between the personal and also the professional lives. This will help
the employees to take part in their household activities and also carry on with their office works
at the same time. Therefore it can be said that the office must encourage the concept of remote
employees more often so that they can get the maximum and the majority of production from the
office. In other words, if employees get proper support and cooperation from their managers then
they will naturally be motivated to do the right thing and will be able to contribute towards the
overall production of the organization.
Build a united development culture
The company must make sure that they are having an inclusive and supportive company
culture. It can happen that some of the employees are not online when any issue crops up. To
deal with this issue, the company must have a very supportive culture. They can use some kinds
of backup systems that will be helping them to track down the issue or some bug report systems
as well.

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Evaluation of the usefulness of these suggestions for a virtual team
 Building rapport is useful for a virtual team as the employees or the team members will
know that they are very much a part of the organization and they can make an active
contribution to all the team meetings and also the essential business decisions.
 There can be an exchange of many productive business ideas. Different employees
coming from different geographical locations will be able to give in their valuable
business ideas and feedback so that they can carry on with the business properly.
 This will be helping in making the virtual teams much stronger and the projects will be
carried on properly. There will be no issue of any backup system. If some employees of
the office or the in house branches are absent then some employees will be kept active
from the remote places as the time zones will also be varying. This will be of great help
as there will be no hindrance or any kinds of obstacles arising in the path of the smooth
workflow.
 The maximization of the golden hours is also a very useful tool that will be helping the
organization to create a proper channel of communication and understanding among the
different employees or the different team members who are working from the in house
and also from the employees who are working from the remote locations or the different
other geographical locations.
Recommendation
 It must be ensured that the remote employees are also allowed a flexible shift just like the
shift that is being allotted to the other employees who are working in the office
headquarters

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 To initiate some kinds of refreshments are introduced in the remote office culture. This
will help in assuring the managers that there is active involvement of the remote workers.
Some in-person events must be organized so that there can be proper development of a
friendship between the in house employees and also the workers of the remote
geographical location.
 Proper allocation and distribution of the resources must be ensured so that the employees
who are working from the remote places must be able to make feel secure and safe.
Remote employees must know that they are being a similar kind of support that the in
house employees or the office employees are being given.
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that the article Think globally, code locally: the secret to
remote teams by Dan Radigan talks about the need for setting up remote teams. At the same
time, he has narrated the different ways in which the company managers can bridge the gap
between the office headquarter employee and the remote or the distant employees. Therefore all
the organizations need to follow this method and provide complete support to their remote team
members' and well.

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Reference list
Anders, A., 2016. Team communication platforms and emergent social collaboration
practices. International Journal of Business Communication, 53(2), pp.224-261.
Hubbard, M. & Bailey, M.J., 2018. Introduction to Microsoft Teams. In Mastering Microsoft
Teams (pp. 1-9). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Jimenez, A., Boehe, D.M., Taras, V. & Caprar, D.V., 2017. Working across boundaries: Current
and future perspectives on global virtual teams. Journal of International Management, 23(4),
pp.341-349.
Meredith, J.R., Mantel Jr, S.J. & Shafer, S.M., 2017. Project management: a managerial
approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. & Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and using information systems,
binder ready version: a strategic approach. John Wiley & Sons.
RADIGAN, D. 2019. www.atlassian.com. [online] www.atlassian.com. Available at:
https://www.atlassian.com/agile/teams/remote-teams [Accessed 28 Aug. 2019].
Rumane, A.R., 2017. Quality management in construction projects. CRC Press.
Sekaran, U. & Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John
Wiley & Sons.
Sivathanu, B. & Pillai, R., 2018. Smart HR 4.0–how industry 4.0 is disrupting HR. Human
Resource Management International Digest, 26(4), pp.7-11.

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Zhang, Z., Sarcevic, A. & Bossen, C., 2017, February. Constructing common information spaces
across distributed emergency medical teams. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on
Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (pp. 934-947). ACM.