Santa Clara University

Managing at a Distance- Online Course

Program Description
Traditional management techniques were developed for co-located work teams. Managers today are faced with downsizing, mergers, and acquisitions, mandated telecommuting and distantly located technical specialists. Today's business environment makes the management of geographically distributed work teams a fact of life. Management functions such as communicating, team-building, monitoring, reporting and controlling must be performed in a dramatically different manner to be effective in the virtual office. Operation of these functions requires all team members to play by the new rules.

Program Benefits

• Communicate more effectively at a distance
• Monitor project progress remotely
• Organize a distributed team
• Take advantage of time zone differences
• Mentor, lead and influence remote team members
• Build trust and commitment in a virtual team
• Work effectively cross culturally
• Ensure that team members have fun working on your project

Program Topics

• The four key principles of effective distance communication and how to apply them to various communication tools
• Managing by objective
• Developing practical performance metrics
• Optimizing the project schedule for a virtual team
• Using the alignment model to understand the nature of trust
• Using the alignment model and the maturity model to select and assess team members
• Building team identity
• Definition and domains of culture
• Models for national, organizational and functional culture
• Tools for identifying and resolving cultural conflicts

Program Format

This program offers in a unique collaborative online learning format. You will interact with an expert instructor and students from around the world. Instructors provide feedback daily via discussion boards and written comments on assignments and project plans. Instructors are also available for telephone consultation by appointment. Instructional methods include audio and graphic presentations, discussion questions, group projects, partner exercises, online role-playing exercises, case studies, and online self-tests

Who Should Attend

Team Members and Managers considering or currently participating in geographically distributed teams.

Faculty

Martha Haywood is a senior consulting partner at Management Strategies Inc. in San Francisco, a consulting firm that specializes in management of geographically-distributed teams. She has extensive experience in the management of large-scale telecommunications and data communication product development projects. Martha is the author of Managing Virtual Teams.

For further information please contact:
Larry Robertson, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Executive Education
Executive Development Center
Leavey School of Business
Santa Clara University
e-mail: lrobertson@scu.edu
tel: 408-554-4681