Viewed a form of temporary systems, distributed projects involving a number of geographically distributed partners have very ambiguous hierarchical relationships and represent a complex setting, yet work needs to be done on time and to the required standards. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Project teams do not always produce what they are supposed to for a number of reasons. One of them being that they belong to other organisations and therefore tend to prioritise their actions depending on their urgency and the local hierarchy. This often leaves the project manager very little margin to maneouvre. How do you deal with such situation if the distributed teams do not advance or perform to the level and standards required?
Careful partner selection is essential for the partnership to be fruitful and to enable effective working relationships.
Partners should share the same values and interests to avoid any conflicts and disagreements
Even if you know your partners quite well, set rules from the beginning: who should do what by which deadline and what will happen if they will not follow these rules (the leading partner can usually rearrange the budget if the partners will not do what they promised). Also, it would be best if all partners would be very interested in the project from the beginning, as in this case, they will work better.
Not only partners' selection is important, but also the number has to be reduced to the minimum if work could be done in an efficient manner. 3 active participants will be better than 5 or more. When the number is large, then there will be more differences & some may put a marginal effort relying upon others' contributions.
As dear Kamal said, you have to choose your partners very carefully before you start any business relationship with them.
You should not forget that you deal with geographically distributed partners and where there are very ambiguous hierarchical relationships, and at the same time, you have to work with them up to the required standards.
Any biological system expresses dynamics in performance. This is frequently illustrated in sports. Even the best performers express dynamics at different spatiotemporal scales. Performance is not always at the same level or does not always have the same impact. Perhaps unique performances might occur once or twice in an individual lifetime. Peak performances evidently differ across performers. Everyone would agree that dynamics in performance is not only physically, but also mentally (e.g. focus, inspiration), expressed. What is the probability that all members of a team are simultaneously excellent? Is performance determined by the weakest chain in the dynamic knowledge production process? Within collaboration networks, performance of one member in a team might compensate for weaker performance of another member. What fraction of science performance is truly outstanding? What is the probability that all contributors are simultaneously outstanding during the science production process, i.e. from the onset of a project based on an idea till the end-product, like a publication?
I agree with dear @Kamal in careful choice of project partners.
The first vital step in team project work is creating the team that is motivated, result driven and takes the job seriously as every members own project. Then once the such a strong team is created there has to be scheduled meetings or communications in order the project continues smoothly. But if member(s) miss scheduled meetings or fail to response on time, then one or more of the following is(are) true:
1. They lost interest
2. They do not have time
3. They do not have the necessary information or skills and knowledge to participate.
Dear All, Yes of course careful selection of dedicated team partners is the top most criterion, but when the network project is located at different places than many a time the names of partners are being decided by the director and/or head of that research station, You might not know much about them. Hence we have to set rule and divide work in beginning that who will do which portion and stick to that strictly. Thanks
We can deal with it by tracking the performance of the project team at regular intervals and by taking corrective actions when required. If the distributed teams do not advance or perform to the level and standards required a proper communication channel should be organized with the stakeholders to discuss the problems and to come up with a solution that meets the project requirements to finish it on time.
Important projects have a project manager/team leader. It is the responsibility of the Project Manager to define, plane, track the progress and manage the other members.
Project Manager must face up to issues squarely and early, resolve conflicts, admit to having problems and take all the necessary steps to solve any issue including lack of responsiveness.
Communication with the irresponsible member to solve the issue, suitable penalties or replacing the irresponsible team members may be considered as appropriate course of actions.
What about empathy again? People are not machines!
How often does it happen that the same person A belongs to different collaboration networks A and B and .... making notions like hard work and efficiency less visible towards collaborators of network A, or not? How often does it happen that the same person A belongs to different networks A and B and .... making notions like hard work and efficiency less noticeable towards collaborators of network B, etc...
Does this result in the fact that person A has the impression s/he works hard, but that collaborators of each network have another opinion? Is person A overambitious, or not?
Well planning and appropriate selection of project partners are very much necessary before starting a project because after starting a project, if this type of problems arise, the project itself gets ruined.
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