Evaluating the Performance of Virtual Teams in a Highly Distributed Information Technology Organization

Abstract

Evaluating the performance of virtual teams in large corporations is especially challenging when there is a lack of understanding of the common factors that influence it and the existence of a framework for evaluation. The presented research results are based on interviews conducted at Cerner Corporation, a global healthcare information technology organization, relevant literature review, and the author’s own experience and observations. While Cerner employs a full set of performance evaluation tools and methodologies, and extensively uses virtual teamwork, a unified framework geared specifically towards virtual team performance evaluation does not currently exist. The research work presents a comprehensive literature review of current trends in virtual team performance evaluation, followed by a summary of conducted interviews with a sample audience of interviewees, representing the different layers of one of Cerner’s client facing organizations. As a result, a complete set of research findings and recommendations for additional work are presented and summarized. While the research identifies a set of common factors affecting virtual team performance, a specific framework could not be readily presented due to the great difference in opinions about its structure and measurement metrics. Thus, it was recommended as a suggestion for additional work that a committee be formed which uses this research work as the basis for creating a unified framework for evaluation of virtual team performance at Cerner.