HAND IN ASSIGNMENT WEEK 2

In week 2, I had posted that the globalization trend in my industry (IT) was such that so many organizations were embracing the web / cloud technology; this has further made the use of virtual teams for IT based projects to increase. The virtual project management team concept is thus gaining ground for most IT focused projects. With this trend also comes with the observation that IT projects by virtual teams have a higher failure rate than IT projects by co-located teams. In expanding on this knowledge, I have developed an outline below. Thesis statement: IT projects by Virtual teams have a higher failure rate than IT projects by CoLocated teams. I. INTRODUCTION
A. Classifying IT Projects B. Virtual and Co-Located Team Concept in Project Management 1. Distinct differences in methodology C. Choosing the team

II.

SUCCESS FACTORS FOR PROJECT TEAM

A. Roadmap to success for IT Projects B. Globalization and Project Team Success C. The Project Manager Perspective

III.

RISK FACTORS AND FAILURES IN IT PROJECTS

A. Why virtual teams are failing and Co-located teams are succeeding B. The Competency, Training and Attitude gap C. Measures to mitigate the Virtual Team failures

IV.

CONCLUSION

The scholarly article I have selected to help me build the thought for this statement is PROJECT RISK

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VIRTUAL AND CO-LOCATED TEAMS by April H. Reed and Linda V. Knight published in the JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS; FAL, 2010, 51 1, p19p30.

How clear is the argument? How is it organised?

The argument that there is so much risk associated with Virtual teams in Software development inter alia IT Project generally that is not always considered was well presented by Reed and Knight. They supported their argument with references from others who had researched on similar issues. In this article, Reed and Knight clearly analyze the different risk factors associated with the two concepts of project teams with data to support how the non-research of the virtual team has increased the risk quotient. In affirming their argument, the authors use tables effectively to illustrate the category of risk in relation to the different teams and further isolated seven key risk factors with implications. I particularly like how they posit that there is a high tendency for the risk to be ignored even though they may not be obvious but very dangerous risk. In page 25 -26 they state .. Clearly,
each of the seven risks isolated by this study are worthy of consideration in a virtual project environment. Yet, these seven risks easily could be overlooked by those new to a virtual environment because a project manager typically would not have experienced the same risk levels in prior traditional projects. Thus, a virtual environment can transform these risks into silent killers (Reed & Knight, 2010).

Overall I find that the underlying argument that there exists a high degree of risk for virtual teams as against co-located teams was well argued with rich supporting literature cited for further research. How does the author present his or her original ideas to the reader?

The authors are quite aware that they were on a topic that had not been extensively researched in the context that they were studying it. They took time to review the existing literature to fully expose the reader to risk as it relates to projects before they began to narrow down to the issue of risk as it relates to teams. Since a bulk of the resources available had treated the issue of risk in co-located teams, they pulled their data flagging responses of implications on virtual team. Their use of tables to demarcate specifics from the general made their original contribution to the concept stand out. The writing style was to first present existing knowledge and benchmark with their findings to arrive at a conclusion. They used data analysis to buttress whatever position that they held with respect to any risk. How and where does the author incorporate outside evidence? Is it used at the beginning of the article to provide background on a topic? Is it used to support a specific point in the authors argument? Is it used to present an idea and the n offer an original critique of that idea? Something else?

The authors incorporate outside evidence at the beginning of the article to create a background for the topic. They look at what is presented in other literature of similar thought and use that as a background to why the study is important.

How does the author use citing, referencing, quoting and paraphrasing in the article?

The authors use paraphrasing a lot in using other peoples work in the article. The author uses numbers to show the position of the cited work in the reference list. This style indicates that the authors are using the Vancouver style of citing, referencing, quoting and paraphrasing in the article. How do you know this article is peer-reviewed and generally acceptable for citing and referencing in university work?

This article was published in the Journal of Computer Information Systems, a scholarly journal. The article was published after it had been reviewed as indicated in the journal. The article contained a study on a subject matter in the project management discipline and names of the authors and their institutions are clearly stated there. The authors conform to a reference methodology and have a list at the end (Proquest, 2004). References:
ProQuest (2004) Scholarly journals, trade publications, and popular magazines [Online]. Available from http://uppermerionhslibrary.wikispaces.com/file/view/peervsscholarly.pdf/31480977/peervsscho arly.pdf Purdue Online Writing Lab (2011) Types of outlines and samples [Online]. Available from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/544/03/ Purdue Online Writing Lab (2011) Developing strong thesis statements [Online]. Available from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/01

Reed, A.H., Knight, L.V (2010) Project risk differences between virtual and co-located teams, Journal of Computer Information Systems, September 2010, 51(1):19-30 University of Liverpool (n.d). Guide to Referencing and Developing a Bibliography