Pilot Study – Analysis and Outcome

Almost all of the participants’ feedback was positive with minor comments, mainly related to the interpretations and contexts of a few questions. As a result, the researcher rearticulated such questions using simpler expressions to avoid any future misunderstanding of the framework within which the response of the participants is sought. According to participants, there were few questions which were not required in the context of construction sector of the Middle East. Those questions were carefully removed. This resulted in the final and refined questionnaire having thirty two items as shown in Appendix VIII.

The researcher created the following consolidated table 6.2 from the meetings of seven professionals during pilot study. This table is designed after reviewing the notes taken during the meetings of pilot study. These comments were incorporated in the final revised questionnaire which is shown in Appendix IX.

Table 6.2: Consolidated comments by the participants of the Pilot Study

Participant #1

1 Definition of virtual project teams should be included before start of questionnaire. A list of definitions of few technical words would be helpful.

2 In the beginning of any project, kick off meeting (face to face) is very much required

3 Geographical Location does not play any hindrance to performance of team because of development of communication technologies.

4 Different skill set in a team is very effective for the team.

5 Most Engineering companies are moving to India for diversity in skills in a single person.

6 Conflict is very important to handle. It lies in the expertise of project manager to address it. If not addressed in time, it affects the trust in team too much.

7 Communication is very important for building trust.

8 The type of communication and training in it is equally important for information sharing among different project sites.

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#2

1. Definition of virtual project team should be included before start of questionnaire. 2. Include Diploma in Qualifications.

3. The team size and team tenure should be either average or current.

4. The cohesion among team members plays an important role in building trust. 5. Handling conflict among team members is a skill which is very much required by

the project manager to build trust among the team members.

Participant #3

1. A list of definitions of some technical terms would be of help. 2. Definition of virtual project teams.

3. Rewording of some questions is required.

4. There is a time and holidays difference among countries, which results in delay in replies for the project.

5. If trust is not there, it affects information sharing in a big way and results in the delay of projects.

Participant #4

1. Few definitions of technical terms are needed. 2. Include diploma qualifications.

3. Average or current team size and team tenure. 4. Time difference and holidays also matters a lot.

5. Communication, Diversity and organizational culture greatly affect the trust among the team members of the team.

6. Lack of rewards or differences in salaries greatly affects the trust.

Participant #5

1. Definition of Virtual Project team should be included before start of questionnaire. 2. Mismatch of weekends and time. This results in delay of project execution because

of lack of information flow during that period.

3. The working culture of a company is greatly affected by language barrier, cultural barrier (demographic) and work ethics.

4. For people management, trust is very important. The fellow team members sometimes do not share information due to being scared or just being wicked. They try to hold things till the end due to lack of trust with the fellow members and create havoc for the project.

5. There is a gender difference which also exists in the companies as the male subordinates do not share information with female boss whereas they support completely their male bosses.

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6. Salary differences and incentives create a distrust among the team members of the team.

7. Biasing with respect to their community exists in the companies. The bosses tend to favour their regional or country men.

8. There is a time and holidays difference among countries, which results in delay in replies for the project.

Participant #6

1. A list of few definitions is desired.

2. Include certificate course or diploma in qualifications.

3. Task- technology fit greatly motivates the team and hence builds the trust among the team members.

4. The presence of certain characteristics of team members such as professionalism, dedication, integrity, ability to do work etc. plays great role in building trust among team members.

Participant #7

1. Definition of VT should be included before start of questionnaire. 2. Rewording of some questions is required.

3. Instead of project manager, write superior or supervisor. 4. Instead of corporate, write organization.

5. Biasing has to be explained properly and it’s something which is not shown explicitly and cannot be done anything for it if it exists in the company.

As a result of the pilot tests, a number of adjustments were made to the questionnaire:  A new item was added to the educational qualification in section 1-

Demographics i.e. “Diploma”. Ph. D qualification was removed because according to the experts, we may not find team members and project managers of virtual project teams as Ph. D holders. Basically the experts with such a higher degree may act as consultants in many construction companies at the same time.  It was advised in the pilot study to give a tool tip to have better understanding of

terms such as “Average size of virtual project teams” and “Average tenure of virtual project teams”. Following this, the required tool tip was added with these questions.

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 For section 2, it was suggested to keep the name as “Organizational Culture” instead of “Corporate culture”.

 The items in Team Evaluation for question 1 in section 2 of questionnaire was reframed to make more meaningful statement as it was not needed to have 4 items and they can be combined to generate a single item having the same meaning.  It was advised to rename question 2 for section 2 as “Leadership skills of your

Superior” instead of “Leadership skills of project manager” to make it more generalized to adjust both kinds of respondents- team leaders and team members.  In section 3, for question 1, the meaning of “Functional Expertise” was sought

after. Thereafter the suggestion was incorporated. Also the item “The team members are not virtuous” was advised to eliminate as the same meaning can be taken from another question in the section.

 For question 3 in the same section, the item on “Comfort with computers” are advised to be removed as these days, without knowledge of computers, it’s difficult to survive in industry.

 Wording of the few questions was changed to make the questions more relevant and realistic.

 The language of some questions was further simplified to avoid misunderstanding by non-native English speakers.

 In the last section of pilot questionnaire, few general questions were asked such as:

i. Were the questions clear and understandable?

ii. The concept of research was clearly understood by the nature of questions.

iii. What do you think about the wording of questions? iv. What do you think about the length of the questionnaire?

The answers to these questions by experts gave an insight to the researcher about the overall understanding of the questionnaire. At the same time, the responses to

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these questions were needed so that the final questionnaire does not become burden to the actual respondents.