IT Project Management and Virtual Teams Catherine M. Beise, PhD Salisbury University Salisbury, MD 21801 USA 01-410-548-4034 [email protected] ABSTRACT Project management methods and tools are increasingly relevant as today’s globalized organizations accomplish more of their goals using cross-functional, and often cross-cultural, geographically dispersed, project teams. The increased diversity of skills, knowledge, cultures, and perspectives of these project teams can potentially have both positive and negative influences on group processes and outcomes. The question that this research-in-progress intends to address is: To what extent can and do project management methods and tools benefit diverse virtual teams while mitigating its challenges? In order to begin to answer this question, this paper presents relevant background, a research model, a methodology (currently in progress), and potential contributions. The initial methodology involves a study of IT project teams working on a common database design project whose members are using electronic tools to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate. The results of the study should provide useful information to practitioners and researchers regarding project management and virtual teams. Categories and Subject Descriptors: K-6.1 [Project and People Management] General Terms: Management, Performance, Design Keywords: Project management, virtual teams, software teams. 1. INTRODUCTION Much of the work done in today’s increasingly geographically distributed organizations is accomplished by work groups, often formalized as project teams. In order to achieve the assigned tasks and goals, a cross-section of skills, knowledge, and perspectives is often required. Thus, team members may be selected from multiple functional areas, from different locations, and often from diverse demographic and cultural backgrounds. Project teams are often managed using formal project management methodologies, such as those derived from the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) [1]. Such methods have evolved due to the need to monitor and control complex projects, and to maintain budgets and schedules while ensuring quality, which have all grown in importance as critical success factors in the competitive global workplace. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. SIGMIS’04, April 22–24, 2004, Tucson, Arizona, USA. Copyright 2004 ACM 1-58113-847-4/04/0004…$5.00. At the same time, the globalization of project teams has increased demographic and cultural diversity, which can create ...

1. IT Project Management and Virtual Teams
Catherine M. Beise, PhD
Salisbury University
Salisbury, MD 21801 USA
01-410-548-4034
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Project management methods and tools are increasingly relevant
as today’s globalized organizations accomplish more of their
goals using cross-functional, and often cross-cultural,
geographically dispersed, project teams. The increased
diversity
of skills, knowledge, cultures, and perspectives of these project
teams can potentially have both positive and negative influences
on group processes and outcomes. The question that this
research-in-progress intends to address is: To what extent can
and
do project management methods and tools benefit diverse
virtual
teams while mitigating its challenges? In order to begin to
answer
this question, this paper presents relevant background, a
research
model, a methodology (currently in progress), and potential
contributions. The initial methodology involves a study of IT
project teams working on a common database design project
whose members are using electronic tools to communicate,
collaborate, and coordinate. The results of the study should
provide useful information to practitioners and researchers

2. regarding project management and virtual teams.
Categories and Subject Descriptors:
K-6.1 [Project and People Management]
General Terms:
Management, Performance, Design
Keywords:
Project management, virtual teams, software teams.
1. INTRODUCTION
Much of the work done in today’s increasingly geographically
distributed organizations is accomplished by work groups, often
formalized as project teams. In order to achieve the assigned
tasks
and goals, a cross-section of skills, knowledge, and perspectives
is
often required. Thus, team members may be selected from
multiple functional areas, from different locations, and often
from
diverse demographic and cultural backgrounds. Project teams
are
often managed using formal project management methodologies,
such as those derived from the Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK) [1]. Such methods have evolved due to
the
need to monitor and control complex projects, and to maintain
budgets and schedules while ensuring quality, which have all
grown in importance as critical success factors in the
competitive
global workplace.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this
work for

3. personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that
copies are
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and
that copies
bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy
otherwise,
or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists,
requires prior
specific permission and/or a fee.
SIGMIS’04, April 22–24, 2004, Tucson, Arizona, USA.
Copyright 2004 ACM 1-58113-847-4/04/0004…$5.00.
At the same time, the globalization of project teams has
increased
demographic and cultural diversity, which can create obstacles
to
the smooth functioning of team processes, but also can provide
benefits in creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. Project
management methodologies are intended to maximize the
benefits
of teamwork (process gains) while preventing and addressing
potential barriers due to misunderstanding, disagreements, even
personality clashes among stakeholders and team members
(process losses). Little research, however, has examined the
potential effects of formal project management methods on
diversity-related conflict, for example, particularly in a virtual
team context. The aim of this study is to begin to fill that gap.
The
rest of this paper presents relevant background, a research
model,
the study methodology, and potential implications.
2. BACKGROUND / RESEARCH CONTEXT
IT projects have a long history of being late, over budget, and
often resulting in less than high quality outcomes [2] [3].

4. Solution
s to this problem have included the development of
formal approaches to software process improvement [4] and the
application of formalized project management (PM) methods to
plan, monitor, and control cost, time, and quality [1]. Recent
efforts have begun to integrate software process improvement
methods with more generic PM methods [5]. The evolution of
project teams to more diverse, global, geographically dispersed
environments presents new challenges to traditional PM
approaches [6] [7].
2.1 Project Management
Projects are distinguished from on-going operational tasks in
that
they are temporary, have a unique and specific goal, have a
specific start date and end date, and require a diverse set of
human
resources, each of whom brings specified needed skills and
knowledge to the project tasks [1]. Successful project managers
plan and implement formal communication and coordination
processes that include both task-related and process-related
information.

5. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) [1]
includes, in addition to cost, time, and quality, methods for
managing integration, scope, resources, risk, people, and
communication. These methods are integrated via five
processes
that apply to all the knowledge areas: initiating, planning,
executing, controlling, and closing. The intent of the
methodology is to acknowledge and accommodate the fact that
projects operate within an organizational context with resource
constraints and in response to multiple, often conflicting
stakeholder demands.
Little research has actually tested the effectiveness of these
methods as a whole, particularly for distributed teams, although
129
individual dimensions of the PMBOK, such as time, risk, and
communication have been linked to project outcomes. For
example, scheduled milestones and firm deadlines can
positively
affect team performance [8] [9]. Project teams with assigned

6. roles and responsibilities produce higher quality deliverables
than
those without [10]. Communication and information flows must
be more frequent, even continuous, in distributed contexts, in
order to maintain commitment and build trust [11]. Risk
management is often considered a critical success factor for
software project effectiveness [12]. Development of a clear,
measurable performance reporting system that links project
objectives to critical actions needed to perform them can
overcome culture differences and other barriers [13]. Thus,
much
of what is known regarding the effectiveness of PM methods
comes from studies about these individual dimensions of PM,
drawn from a wide range of reference disciplines [14], rather
than
PM as an integrated, comprehensive set of applied structures.
2.2 Diversity
Dimensions of diversity studied by a variety of researchers in a
wide range of fields include demographic factors such as race,
sex, ethnicity, and age. These diversity dimensions are what the
management literature categorizes as high visibility, whereas
low
visibility dimensions include values, attitudes, education,
functional experience, skills, and knowledge. Other

7. terminology
used to characterize these types of diversity include less highly
and highly job-related [15], surface-level and deep-level [16],
and
observable and non-observable [17]. Most researchers agree
that
more visible dimensions are likely to correlate with less visible
dimensions, and two theories, the trait model and the
expectations
model, support this contention, although in different ways [15,
18].
Several comprehensive reviews indicate mixed results regarding
effects of diversity on work group processes and outcomes [15,
17], concluding that their interaction is complex and mitigated
by
organizational and social contexts. Diversity may increase
conflict and thus result in process losses [19]. However,
conflict,
when surfaced and resolved, can result in greater creativity,
more
learning, and better decision-making, through generating more
and better alternatives and through greater external
communication [20] [21]. Increasing some types of diversity on
IT project teams, specifically diverse perspectives in terms of

8. technical versus social, may reduce project risk [22].
Little is known regarding computer-mediated communication
(CMC) and effects of diversity on team outcomes. Cultural
diversity is frequently cited as a barrier to team, especially
virtual
team, performance [23] [24]. Reliance on electronic tools such
as
e-mail may increase conflict due to limitations of such
communication channels [25], and the lack of face-to-face
contact
could reduce individual team members’ identification, trust, and
commitment to the team, resulting in reduced performance [26]
[27]. At the same time, however, CMC tools could potentially
reduce diversity-related conflict [28]. Diverse groups may even
become less diverse over time as they develop a team culture
which gradually predominates in relation to individual cultures
that the members initially bring to the team, which may also
apply
to virtual teams [29].
3. CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Project team success is contingent upon a variety of factors that
interconnect in complex ways. These include the task, formal

9. and
informal team processes, individual team member
characteristics
and contributions, resource constraints, organizational context
factors, and, in the case of distributed, or “virtual,” teams, ICT
availability and use. Figure 1 represents a systems view (input-
process-output) of group work supported by a number of
research
streams [30-32].
Inputs include task; individual characteristics; group
characteristics, such as size and history; and technology, which
broadly defined includes electronic tools as well as process
methods (manual or automated). Project management methods
fall under this definition of “technology.” Team processes
include
stages of development (“form, storm, norm, perform, close”)
which often entails surfacing and resolving conflict, developing
trust and cohesion, and creatively generating problem solutions.
Team outcomes include performance (budget, schedule, quality)
and member satisfaction, as well as emergent adaptive
structures
[33]. Finally, teams operate within an organizational context,
which influences all three dimensions (inputs, processes, and
outputs). Within this conceptual context, then, the research

10. question asked in this study is: How do Project Management and
team diversity interact to produce team outcomes?
In order to address this question, this study focuses on and
measures Project Management methods and collaborative tools
(technology), diversity (individual characteristics), group
processes (creativity, conflict, and cohesion), and group
outcomes
(performance and satisfaction, shown in gray in the model.
Figure 2 summarizes the dimensions of the model and identifies
specific measures that are used in this study to represent those
dimensions.
The initial hypotheses that this study intends to address are:
1. PM methods will reduce diversity-related conflict.
2. PM methods will positively influence cohesion,
regardless of diversity.
3. PM methods will positively influence performance and
satisfaction.

11. 130
Figure 1: Research Context - Conceptual Model
Concept Meaning/Dimensions Measures in This Study
Task
Generic: Brainstorming, Problem-
solving
Domain: System design, product
innovation
Technology
Project Management

12. Individual and Group Tools
ICT Infrastructure, access,
training
Formal methods re: PMBOK
e.g., Agenda, Schedule,
Milestones, Role Definitions,
Group Contract
Organizational Context Culture, Structure, Resources,
Management
Group Characteristics History, Size
Individual Characteristics Skills, Knowledge, Personality,
Demographics, Cultural
Background
Demographics
Group
Process

13. Conflict
Cohesion
Trust
Stages of Development
Conflict, Cohesion, Stages of
Development
Group Outcomes
Performance (Quality, On-time,
Within Budget)
Satisfaction
Emergent Structure
Performance (Deliverable
Quality), Satisfaction
Figure 2: Dimensions and Measures
Individual
Characteristics:
Diversity

14. Task:
Technology
PM
Group Process:,
Conflict, Cohesion
Group
Outcomes
Organizational
Context
Group
Characteristics
131
4. RESEARCH METHODS
The first phase took place during Fall, 2003. Twenty-two

15. student
project teams from three universities across North America
participated as distributed teams working on a semester-long
database design and implementation project, using only
electronic
forms of communication (Yahoo groups). In this study, the
organizational context is a university database class. Team size
was initially 5 (although a few teams experienced shrinkage
when
students dropped the class) and none of the teams had worked
together before (that they knew of). Finally, they all worked on
a
common assigned database design task. Thus, in Figures 1 and
2,
organizational context, group characteristics, task, and ICT
tools
are treated as constants. PM methods serves as the predictor;
team diversity and group processes of conflict and cohesion are
mediating variables, while group outcomes of performance and
satisfaction are dependent variables.
An initial survey collected demographic information about the
teams. Content analysis will be applied to a substantial
collection
of electronic communication within each team, captured via a

16. shared workspace. This data will be reviewed for evidence of
team processes and demonstration of project management
activities, by examining the these records and looking for
evidence of planning, agenda-setting, scheduling, role
assignment,
and other possible indicators based on the PMBOK. Finally,
quantitative data about PM methods will be gathered in a final
survey via questions, also derived from the PMBOK, regarding
these same indicators, for example, “To what extent were roles
assigned to individuals?” Phase Two of the study is in progress
during Spring, 2004, in which a similar research methodology is
being used with co-located teams also using CMC tools.
Preliminary results will be presented at the SIGMIS/CPR
conference for the purpose of constructive feedback aimed at
the
design of an extension to this first study, focusing on
distributed
global teams in industry.
5. POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Results of this investigation should benefit researchers,
practitioners, and instructors. An important contribution to
research is the comprehensive approach taken toward project
management as a formalized group of integrated methods and

17. tools, and considering its influence on team processes and
performance. Further, these factors are placed within a
distributed
team context, which is increasingly relevant. The research
should
provide IT project leaders managing diverse distributed teams
in
gaining a greater understanding of project management and its
role in team processes and outcomes. Finally, results of the
study
should provide guidelines to faculty as facilitators and students
as
users of PM and CMC tools and methods for enhancing the
benefits of teams while minimizing potential group process
losses.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Traci Carte, Laku Chidambaram, and Chelley
Vician.for including me as a collaborator on this project.
7. REFERENCES
[1] Project Management Institute. PMBOK - A Guide to the
Project Management Body of Knowledge. The Project
Management Institute, Sylva, NC, 1996.

18. [2] Standish Group. Chaos Report, Standish Group, 1995.
http://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research/chaos_
1994_1.php. Downloaded from the Web 9/1/2004.
[3] Bounds. The last word on Project Management. IEE