Virtual team challenges towards project success in IT projects

Abstract

The concept of virtual team is increasingly becoming an important key to globalization challenges in competitive market place. The combination of business pull and technology push is likely stimulating the concept of virtual project team. Under business pull, today’s projects need to be flexible to adapt to the growth of global operations. That is why, global project with virtual team members who are distributed across the globe is needed at addressing unexpected and extended project changes. Under technology pull, information technologies empower team members from different places to fit and split as determined by the task they share through shortened timescales, quicker decisions and enriched alignments. However, a number of impending drawbacks related to virtual teams have been identified. This study aims to recognize the influence of virtual team challenges towards project success in IT projects. A structured questionnaire was distributed to IT project practitioners within the studied IT support center serving multinational Oil and Gas Company across the globe. Findings from this study revealed that cultural differences is the most highly repetitive challenge while poor and lengthy decision making is the most severe challenge to virtual team in IT projects. Afterward, the effect of main challenges are recognize so that some practical suggestions can be utilized to alleviate virtual team challenges in IT projects.