Variable Of Virtual Team Challenges And Criteria

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

3.0 Introduction

The Cambridge dictionary defines methodology as"A system of ways of doing, teaching or studying something". The methodology of this research was planned in order to accomplish the agreed objectives in Chapter 1. The offshore software development centers in SriLanka were selected to examine and observe. This chapter illustrates key phases of methodology which are accepted throughout the research process.

3.1 Research Philosophy

The research was carried out according to the Interpretivist Paradigm Approach, which believes as the reality to consist of people’s subjective experience of the external world hence they may adopt an inter-subjective epistemology and the ontological belief that reality is socially constructed. (Rubin and Babbie, 2009) Findings would be limited to the aspects of industry since the research will beexplanatory in nature and specific to the opinions of team members such as Project Managers, Team leaders, Software Engineers, Software Quality Assurance Engineers and Business Analysts in selected projects among the offshore software development centers in SriLanka.

3.2 Research Approach

This research is primarilyadhered to the thumb rules of Inductive Reasoning Approach(Bottom Up Approach), which starts from specific observation and move on to broader generalization and theories, to observe the data in social research methods. (Aqil-Burney, 2008)

The Research idea was produced based on observation ofvirtual team challenges towards project management in software development projectsthat are executedin offshore development centers in SriLanka and thus research questions wereformulated based on the objectives and literature.

The in-depth analysis of the matter had been demanded and it requires more qualitative data on research problem and considerable amount of quantitative data, as well in order to strengthen the analysis and arguments for a vigorous conclusion. The research approach was developed after observing many team members in the selected projects.After gathering the information for the descriptive research, tried to reveal some simplicity of understanding to it by presenting the ideas that came up from the people who were observed for the research. Quotations were presented in order to provide the liveliness to the context and these were taken from many voices that would be heard throughout this study all of whom have had firsthand experience of life in a virtual teams and software development environment.

3.3 Research Design

The conceptual framework (Section 3.3.1) was planned based on the information gathered at the literature review and research approach is designed in order to respond to the research question. According to the literature review findings, project team is one of the critical factors which are accountable for the project success or failure. As literature review revealed, virtual teams are facing challenges mainly in area of Communication, Team Work, Location Dependencies and Technology. However, due to constraint of limited time frame, among that virtual team operational challenges"Communication Effectiveness, Effectiveness of the Team Work, Location Based Differences and Use of Technology"were selected independent variables as those are the key factors that cause for challenges. Those selected variables were measured based on the criteria shown at Table 3.3-1, which through the literature review.

Variable

Measurement Criteria

Communication Effectiveness

Completeness

Conciseness

Clarity

Concreteness

Courtesy

Correctness

Effectiveness of Team Work

Objective Decision-Making

Clarification of Role & Responsibilities

Understanding of Human Behaviour

Focus

Cooperation

Trust

Leadership Quality

Location Based Differences

Team Members’ Unavailability

Communication Difficulties

Difficulties of Expressing Opinions

Behavioural Difference

Difference in Legislation

Use of Technology

Media Selection

Availability

Proficiency

Richness

Figure 3.3-1 Variable of Virtual Team Challenges and their criteria

The "Project Management"was considered as the dependent variable. The project Management was measured based on the Scope, Time and Cost management as those are the Triple Constraint (Iron Triangle) of project management. The Scope, Time and Cost management were measured based on the criteria shown at Table 3.3-2, which reveled through the literature review.

Variable

Measurement Criteria

Scope Management

Collect Requirements

Create WBS

Control Scope

Define Scope

Verify Scope

Time Management

Define Activities

Estimate Activity Resources

Develop Schedule

Sequence Activities

Estimate Activity Duration

Control Schedule

Cost Management

Estimate Cost

Determine Budget

Cost Control

Figure 3.3-1 Variable of Project Management and their criteria

3.3.1 Conceptual Framework

Figure 3.3.1 - Conceptual Framework

3.3.2 Hypothesis

The following are the initial hypotheses and the null hypotheses for each:

Hypothesis 1

H1: There is a relationship between virtual teams’ communication effectiveness and management of the project.

H01: There is no relationship between virtual teams’ communication effectiveness and management of the project.

Hypothesis 2

H2: There is a relationship between team work effectiveness of the virtual teams and management of the project.

H02: There is no relationship between team work effectiveness of the virtual teams and management of the project.

Hypothesis 3

H3: There is a relationship between location depend differences in virtual teams and management of the project.

H03: There is no relationship between location depend differences in virtual teams and management of the project.

Hypothesis 4

H4: There is a relationship between the uses of technology in virtual teams andmanagement of the project.

H04: There is no relationship between the uses of technology in virtual teams andmanagement of the project.

Note: Hypotheses are validated in significant 0.05 levels

3.4 Data Requirement

Quantitative analysis method is potentially use on representing data numerically. It is useful for interpretation of data; check for validity, reliability and also to examine huge quantity of data. Most of the time Quantitative approach is implicitly or explicitly uses simple models of some sort. As an example, time series extrapolations of trends imply a model in that use time as the "Independent Variable" – really, as a proxy for unmeasured processes that take place in time. (Bamberger, 2000)

Qualitative analysis method is in use where the key trends are hard to capture using simplified indicators, or where such data are not available. Methods for working methodically with qualitative data are becoming more widely available with the development of IT with the use of tools such as mind mapping and conversation analysisetc. (Bamberger, 2000)

For many years the development of qualitative methodologieshas lagged behind that of quantitative approaches. There has often been an explicit or implicit reliance on experts to pull together the strands of qualitative analysis and come up with a synthesis by more or less intuitive means. Most of the time use of one method from Qualitative and Quantitative approaches has become a matter of controversy. As both approaches have facts to argue one over the other. But as Bamberger (2000), sited an exact mix of both methods is highly dependent on access to relevant expertise, and on the nature of the problems being studied. also itrepresents different approaches to handling information, and can contribute powerful insights in their own ways.

Hence this research regarding virtual team operational challenges will have the advantages of the deep descriptions explored by qualitative methods, as well as has the possible to contribute the generalizability and statistical reliability which is the strength of quantitative research.

The interviews that were conducted withProject Manages and Tech Leads were taken as the qualitative techniques and their experience on managing and working with virtual teams will help to strengthen the qualitative research and give better understanding of the research phenomena.

Quantitative set of data was used to evaluate the virtual team challenges in terms of communication effectiveness, team work effectiveness, location based barriers and use of technology towards the project management in the view of individual team members.

An array of data required to show up how the virtual team challenges affect towards the project management in term of scope, time and cost. This required questionnaire data which consist of virtual team operational challenges in communication effectiveness, effectiveness of team work, location based difficulties and use of technology.

3.5 Population and Sampling

3.5.1 Population and Sample Size

It is quite difficult to conduct a global survey for this research. Therefore the research sample will be a random sample done by using Cluster Sampling, which selects clusters such as groups defined by area of residence, organization membership pr other group-defining characteristics. (Jupp, ed., 2006) SriLankan off-shore IT Industry development centers will be selected as the cluster and within the cluster a sample survey will conduct by selecting the sample size as follow.

According to the National ICT Workforce Survey 2010 done by MG Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, the SriLankan IT workforce in 2009 has been 42,821 with the growth rate of 17% for the year 2010. Therefore by assuming the growth rate will remain the same, the SriLankan IT workforce can be assumed as 58,618 at the beginning of the 2012.

According to the MG Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, (2010), among the IT workforce 20% are engaging with on-shore services, 44% are with off-shore services, and 36% are with both services. So if the figures remain same, the no of employees those who work with virtual teams (engaging with both on-shore and off-shore services) can be assumed as 21,102 for the period of 2012. Hence the population size for this research was taken as 21,102.

If 21,102are taken as the population with the confidential level 95% and confidence Interval 5 the required sample size is377. But as it was not feasible to cover the sample size of 377 due to constraint of limited time frame, sample size was taken as 96 for the population of 21,102 with the confidential level 95% and confidence Interval 10.

This sample of 96 was selected among three selected organizations. The organizations were selected based on their virtual teams’ distribution. The selected three organizations are multinational organizations which have more widely distributed virtual teams.

3.5.2 Sample Selection Technique

The research sample for this will be selected by considering the following factors of their occupation,

Industry: IT software development Industry

Involvement:Project that operates with both on-shore and off-shore team members

Designation: Project Architects, Team Leads, Business Analysts, Software Engineers, Software QA (Quality Assurance) Engineers

3.6 Method of Data Collection

3.6.1 Primary Data Collection Methods

The primary data collection was done based on the Mixed-Mode Survey Method, which combine two or more communication methods for data collection. (De Leeuw, 2009.) The first phase of the data collection was done through a questioner and the second phase was done from the interviews which were conducted with the Project Managers and Project Leads of each selected project.

The first phase of the primary data collection method was engaged to identify the commonness of virtual team challenges and their affection on project scope, time and cost management as quantitative data through a structured questioner which is a self-administered. Majority of questions were quantitative, Likert scale questions which were based on the conceptual framework and the research questions.In this research Likert scale identifies the opposite of common scale procedure due to feedback of Virtusa software engineers. (Questionnaire scale was 1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Tend to Disagree, 3=Undecided, 4=Tend to Agree, and 5=Strongly Agree.)

Questionnaire is provided through an online survey and it was limited to 31 questions due to busy schedule of IT professionals. Some questions were merged to cover all aspects to overcome this issue.

The questionnaire was broken down into five categories as followed based on the conceptual frame work;(Refer to Appendix A1 for Operationalization Table)

Communication Effectiveness

Team work effectiveness

Location based differences

Use of technology

Project management in term of scope, time and cost management

The questionnaire responses were used to recognize and discuss the commonness of virtual team challenges and the insights were built up along the way to avoid or manage the virtual team challenges productively. (Refer to Appendix A2 for sample of distributedQuestioner)

The second phase was engaged with in depth analysis on identified virtual team challenges and their affection to project management in term of scope, time and cost with focus to offshore software development centers, through the semi structured interviews along with the observation. The interview consisted of some open-ended questions to capture the interviewee’s opinions and perceptions of their project team and several specific questions were used which are relevant to the research.(Refer to Appendix A3 for Interview Questions).

Project managers and tech leads were interviewed from the selected projects and those were based on a pre-prepared interview guide which was based on the conceptual frame work. This allowed collection of qualitative data for an in-depth analysis of virtual team challenges and their affection towards project management.

Finally this report will provide understanding of the main area of study upon relevant theories and frameworks to support these interpretations.

SPSS 20.0 used for the statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics will be obtained through categorical data.

3.6.2 Secondary Data Collection Methods

The secondary data which are available in online journals, e-Books, Books, World Wild web and available research reports which does not have same objective as this survey is used and followingwere the already available survey reports from which the secondary data is used directly,

‘National ICT Workforce Survey’ (2010) by ICT Agency of Sri Lanka

‘Doomed from the Start?’ (2011) By Geneca LLC

‘PwC Global Project Management survey’ (2012) by PwC Inc.

‘The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams’ (2010) by New York: RW3 Culture Wizard

3.7 Method used for Data Analysis

A collection of analytical techniques were used to analyze both qualitative and quantitative data that is required by the research questionby avoiding the social desirability biasness and Self-fulfilling prophecy. The software SPSS (Statistical Package Social Sciences) is used for quantitative data analysis and Microsoft Excel is used for simple data tabulation and pivoting.

Categorical data was analyzed by Spearman RankCorrelationsTechnique, which is suitable for the non-parametric (data that is not required to fit in to normal distribution) data analysis. (Borradaile, 2003) Other descriptive statistical methods such as Means, Standard Deviations and Percentageswereidentified as required. Likert scale data wereanalyzed by techniques like ranking and frequencies and alsoGraphs, Bar charts, and tables were used for descriptive analysis and illustrations.

Qualitative analysis was done after compiling data on structured question basis via Microsoft Word. Data coding, interpreting, synthesizing and summarizing were performed in sequence as key steps in qualitative data analysis process. Quantitative analysis recognized the behavior and patterns of different data and qualitative data gathered through interview process helped to elaborate data more effectively.

3.8 Methodology Review

Based on the methodology is planned, validity and reliability of this report would return at a higher degree. The recent and reliable resources were used to collect the secondary information while the primary data were collected under personally monitored process due to accepted research practices and ethical perceptions. The contact information of the respondent were also taken if they are willing to provide, as it is useful for further reference and cross checking. Therefore the output for this research assures on its appropriateness. The Cross Checking Method and Data Triangulation Method, which entails the use of multiple, independent methods of obtaining data in a single investigation in order to arrive at the same research findings (Mackey and Gass, 2005)were used to maintain the consistency throughout the research. However, a low level of external validity can be anticipated as the research was limited to the software development industry and offshore development center in Srilanka.