cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

Team changeMatrix teamMatrix teams generally occur in organizations that are run along projectlines. The organization typically has to deliver a number of projects toachieve its objectives. Each project has a project manager, but the projectteam members are drawn from functional areas of the organization.Often projects are clustered together to form programmes, or indeedwhole divisions or business units (for example, aerospace, defence or oilindustry projects). Thus the team members have accountability both tothe project manager and to their functional head. The balance of powerbetween the projects and the functions varies from organization to organization,and the success of such structures often depends on the degreeto which the project teams are enabled by the structure and the degree towhich they are disabled.Virtual teamIncreasing globalization and developments in the use of new technologiesmean that teams are not necessarily co-located any more. This hasbeen true for many years for sales teams. Virtual teams either never meetor they meet only rarely. Townsend, DeMarie and Hendrickson (1998)defined virtual teams as ‘groups of geographically and/or organizationallydispersed coworkers that are assembled using a combination oftelecommunications and information technologies to accomplish an organizationaltask’. An advantage of virtual teams is that an organization canuse the most appropriately skilled people for the task, wherever they arelocated. In larger companies the probability that the necessary anddesired expertise for any sophisticated or complex task is in the sameplace geographically is low.Disadvantages spring from the distance between team members.Virtual teams cross time zones, countries, continents and cultures. Allthese things create their own set of challenges. Current research suggeststhat synchronous working (being face to face or remote) is more effectivein meeting more complex challenges. Team leadership for virtual teamsalso creates its own issues, with both day-to-day management tasks anddevelopmental interventions being somewhat harder from a distance.When it comes to change, virtual teams are somewhat paradoxical. Teammembers can perhaps be more responsive, balancing autonomy and interdependence,and more focused on their part of the team objective.71