Question:
Draft a Research Problem Statement on Osmotic Team Communication in a project environment. The draft Problem Statement should be supported by research literature and should have the characteristics identified for a research problem as:
• Implies the possibility of empirical investigation
• Identifies a need for the research
• Provides focus
• Provides a concise overview of the research.
Osmotic Team Communication has been an integral part of project management. There was a time when organizations has limited reach and they used to operate only in domestic market. That was the time when project management was easy. With time, organizations have expanded and today project teams are spread across multiple geographies. Today, the organizations like Google, Coca-Cola etc. have their presence in almost every part of the world (Sedivy, 2011). The management of these organizations have realized that communication is the key to success. The projects of multinational companies would spread across multiple regions and countries. There would also be virtual teams as part of these projects. It is important that all the team members and project manager should be able to communicate freely with each other.
At the same time, it is also important that the time should not be wasted while communicating with other team members. In order to optimize the team, organizations and project managers have transformed the project delivery. Today, agile mode of delivery is a preferred mode of delivery. The focus of organizations is to develop effective and efficient communication channel within the system. Project managers have realize that Osmotic communication is a way to increase efficiency within the system. Osmotic communication focuses on rich and rapid feedback (Hillegersberg, 2012). The time is not wasted in Osmotic communication as it focuses on real time information sharing. In this era of globalization and high competition, more and more organizations have shifted to Osmotic communication and agile communication channel and delivery to manage huge and complex projects.
Project managers have agreed that a lot of time is wasted in communicating the goals and objectives of projects. In fact, it has been observed that some of the projects would fail because the team or group lacked a single and shared communication platform. Most of the time of project managers is wasted to understand the expectations of all the internal stakeholders. The projects could be successful and delivered on time only when there is no gap between stakeholders expectations and management perception of stakeholders’’ expectations. In turn, this gap could only be bridged when there exists a flexible and efficient communication system at place where the time of individuals should not waste (Fung, 2014). Project managers and organizations have realized that it is very difficult to create an agile platform for effective communication among all the stakeholders and team members. This difficulty has often resulted in loss of productivity for different employees and workers. This loss of productivity eventually result in project delay or budget and financial problems. The quality of deliverables is also suffered.
The purpose of this mixed method of study is to determine the importance of Osmotic Team Communication in a project environment and to determine the ways to establish a platform of Osmotic Team Communication. This study would use both quantitative and qualitative methods. The primary research would be done only in United States of America and IT (Information Technology) industry; small IT service firms would be surveyed. Internet survey (over e-mail) would be used to collect data and information from respondents. A sample size of 200 people, both male and female would be used to collect to data. The initial
The research would be focused around Osmotic team communication in project environment. The objective of this research would be to help project managers to improve communication in project environment and work place.
Q1: What are the benefits of Osmotic Team Communication in a project environment?
Q2: How can project managers create an efficient project environment where time is not wasted in communication?
Q3: How can project managers ensure an active knowledge sharing among all the employees and stakeholders?
H10. Osmotic Team Communication help project managers to improve productivity of employees and efficiency of project.
H1a. Osmotic Team Communication is not related with project operations.
Osmotic Communication. Indirect information transfer through overhearing conversations or simply noticing things happening around (Hovav, 2013).
Employee Productivity. The number of units worked per day or per hour (Engelen, 2012).
Project Efficiency. The time take to complete the project (Chen, 2011).
Meyer (2014) highlighted that when people are working close together, both physically and temporally, there exists an opportunity for what Cockburn calls osmotic communication: indirect information transfer through overhearing conversations or simply noticing things happening around. Osmotic communication can often be beneficial. Authors argued that one of the most important benefits of Osmotic communication is efficiency. It is mostly and informal channel of communication, therefore employees (people) would often find it interesting to participate in osmotic communication.
Mikulenas & Kapocius (2011) argued that dialogue involves various members coming together as a group, each sharing their experiences, ideas and suggestions, learning from each other in order to resolve a problem or come up with a new idea. By having dialogue, the barriers slowly break down as people truly begin to understand and learn about the other culture sitting across from them.
Paul, K., (2014) argued, “Adapting comes easily when flexibility is part of the planning for the crisis. Therefore, it is important that the implementation of sustainability management is strategically principled and tactically flexible to capitalize on the competitive advantage derived from continuous readiness”. Today, every organizations value learning more than others, even those in the dynamic environment. Learning happens to be a continuous process, which inputs the individual or corporate body in a situation that uplifts their progress in any environment. However, any MNC that want to survive the competitive environment would not slack in learnability, which improves their efficiency and maintains their competitiveness. As such Drejer , A. (2000) stated that “when organizations learn, individuals become agents who in some way influence the way others in the organization think, act and learn. This opens up for the power interpretation of organizational life and or learning”. It can be said that learning of organization is directly linked to communication in the organization.
Korkmaz & Miller (2011) argued that it is common knowledge that organizations spend millions on learning and development per annum. Yet, many managers do not measure the value and affect that learning and development has within their organization. Sustainable learning is integral to organizational survival. A competitive advantage is not only defined by new products; the role of strategy is to identify the talent that needs to be developed to ensure the organization can achieve and sustain a competitive advantage to retain a prominent position in the marketplace (Green, 2014). Strategic learning will assist the organization to have a knowledgeable and skilled workforce to maintain this competitive advantage and develop its talent.
Bynum (2012) mentioned that organizations and other business environments especially as within medical and technological scenarios must continue to motivate and enhance all employees concerned in continuing to develop within their area as such it is seen as a must. Such must include the highly ever-changing technological updates, the new studies, and globalized market all to try to anticipate demands and obtain that competitive advantage.
Typically, any research work would include primary research or secondary research or both. This research work would use a mix method of research. A mix method of research is one that uses both primary research methods and secondary research methods.
The primary method of research would mainly use quantitative research methods. To complete the primary research, a sample size of 200 would be constructed. This would include people from different states of USA. A random sample method would be used to decide the respondents. While picking the sample, only IT organizations would be considered as population. Once the population is defined, a random sample of 200 employees and project managers would be picked. An online survey would be developed to collect data and information from this sample size. The sample would consists of both male and female with at least 30% (60 respondents) being female population. In addition, at least 70% (140 respondents) would be working in IT industry. The quantitative research methods would also include focus group interview and group discussion. A focus group of 10 people would be developed to collect data and information about osmotic communication, benefits of osmotic communication and challenges to osmotic communication. These 10 people would be project managers in different companies. There would be around 10 to 15 questions in online survey and most of these questions would be closed in nature. The questions in focus group interview and group discussion would be open in nature.
The secondary research methods would be mainly qualitative in nature. The secondary research would include data collection and analysis through secondary sources such as Internet and websites. A lot of research is already being done and the objective of secondary research would be to collect data and information from existing research work. It is important to mention that not all the studies on the Internet can be trusted. Therefore, only peer reviewed journal would be referred. It can be said that secondary research would be less time consuming than primary research and secondary research would include less data as compared to primary research.
Employee Productivity. Units worked per day
It would be measured on an Interval scale form 1to 100, 1 would mean least productive and 100 would mean high productivity. The high value would means that employees are productive.
Project efficiency. Time taken for project to complete
It would be measured on an Interval scale form 1to 10, 1 would mean least efficient and 100 would mean high efficient. The high value would means that project is efficient.
Communication at workplace. It would define that how well can employees and stakeholders interact with each other
It would be measured through a nominal scale. There would be four dichotomous set, no communication channel among all the stakeholders; only formal communication among all the stakeholders; informal but limited communication among stakeholders; highly informal, casual and productive communication among internal stakeholders.
The primary research would be done with an online survey. The survey websites like surveymokey.com or any other website would be used to collect survey. The online survey would be mailed to sample. The data would be collected and organized in excel sheets. The basic tools like Microsoft Excel would be used to organize the data and filter the data. The tools like SPSS would be used to analyze the data and make useful conclusion from the data. SPSS would be used only to analyze quantitative data. The qualitative data and information would be stored in Microsoft word document. Reports would be made and these reports would be analyze the make useful conclusion.
The research work is to study the importance and benefits of Osmotic team communication in project environment. This research work is focused only for organizations operating in Information Technology industry in USA. The research would use both primary and secondary research methods to complete the research. A sample size of 200 people (employees and project manager) is considered to conduct the primary research. The secondary research would be done over Internet and websites. It is expected that research work would prove that Osmotic communication is beneficial for employees and projects as it helps people to participate in informal discussions and share ideas within the group and team.
References
Amrit, C., van Hillegersberg, J., & Kumar, K. (2012). Identifying coordination problems in software development: finding mismatches between software and project team structures. arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.4142.
Anthony, E. L., Green, S. G., & McComb, S. A. (2014). Crossing functions above the cross-functional project team: The value of lateral coordination among functional department heads. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 31, 141-158.
Brettel, M., Mauer, R., Engelen, A., & Küpper, D. (2012). Corporate effectuation: Entrepreneurial action and its impact on R&D project performance.Journal of Business Venturing, 27(2), 167-184.
Drejer , A. (2000) Organizational learning and competence development volume 7 issue 4 Learning Organisation. Accessed 01/06/2015https://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1108/09696470010342306
Daim, T. U., Ha, A., Reutiman, S., Hughes, B., Pathak, U., Bynum, W., & Bhatla, A. (2012). Exploring the communication breakdown in global virtual teams. International Journal of Project Management, 30(2), 199-212.
Fung, H. P. (2014). Relationships Between Leadership Roles and Project Team Effectiveness as Perceived by Project Managers in Malaysia. Journal of Empirical Studies, 1(1), 1-22.
Han, J., & Hovav, A. (2013). To bridge or to bond? Diverse social connections in an IS project team. International Journal of Project Management, 31(3), 378-390.
Hubalovsky, S., & Sedivy, J. (2011, August). Education of student’s project team cooperation using virtual communication supported by LMS system. InInteractive Collaborative Learning (ICL), 2011 14th International Conference on(pp. 456-459). IEEE.
Liu, J. Y. C., Chen, H. G., Chen, C. C., & Sheu, T. S. (2011). Relationships among interpersonal conflict, requirements uncertainty, and software project performance. International Journal of Project Management, 29(5), 547-556.
Meyer, B. (2014, January). Agile methods. In Agile! (pp. 133-143). Springer International Publishing.
Mikulenas, G., & Kapocius, K. (2011). An Approach for Prioritizing Agile Practices for Adaptation. In Information Systems Development (pp. 485-498). Springer New York.
Nofera, W., Korkmaz, S., Miller, V., & Toole, T. M. (2011, August). Innovative features of integrated project delivery shaping project team communication. InThe 2011 Engineering Project Organizations Conference.
Paul, K., (2014) Chapter 18 – Adapting Organizations to Effective Sustainability Management Page 125-132 Accessed 01/06/2015https://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/science/article/pii/B9780124172210000186
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