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Virtual Team at Nanavati associates.

Nanawati Associates (NA) is a national tax accounting firm whose main business
is tax preparation services for individuals. NA's superior reputation is based on the
high quality of its advice and the excellence of its service. Key to the achievement
of its reputation is the stateoftheart computer databases and analysis tools that
its people use when counseling clients. !hese programs were developed by highly
trained individuals.
!he programs that these individuals produce are highly technical" both in terms of
the tax laws they cover and the code in which they are written. #erfecting them
requires high levels of programming s$ill as well as the ability to understand the
law. New laws and interpretations of existing laws have to be integrated quic$ly
and flawlessly into the existing regulations and analysis tools.
!he creation of these programs is carried out in a virtual environment by four
programmers in the %reater &umbai area. !he four wor$ at home and are
connected to each other and to the company byemail" telephone" and conference
software. 'ormal" onsite meetings among all of the programmers ta$e place only
a few times a year" although the wor$ers sometimes meet informally outside of
these scheduled occasions.
(ere's some bac$ground on the four)
*avi !endul$ar is a tax lawyer" a graduate of the +,iversity of &umbai and a
former hoc$ey player there. At -." *avi has wor$ed on the programs for six years
and is the longeststanding member of the team. Along with his design
responsibilities" *avi is the primary liaison with Nanawati Associates. (e is. also
responsible for training new team members. /ingle" *avi wor$s out of his farm in
0onawala.
Aditya" a tax accountant and computer science graduate of the +niversity of #une"
is -1 years old" married" with two children ages 2 and 3. (is wife wor$s full time
in a law firm in downtown !hane. 4n his spare time" Aditya en5oys tennis and
swimming.
Nitya" a tax lawyer" graduated from National 4nstitute of 0aw" 6angalore is -7
years old" married" with two children ages 7 and 89. (er husband wor$s full time
as an electrical engineer at a local defense contractor. Nitya's hobbies include golf
and s$iing.
/usan" tax accountant and graduate of :elhi +niversity" is 13 years old and single.
/he recently relocated and wor$s out of her apartment in #une.
!hese four people exchange email messages many times every day. 4n fact" it's
not unusual for them to step away from guests or family to log on and chec$ in
with the others. ;ften their emails are amusing as well as wor$ related.
/ometimes" for instance" when they were facing a deadline and one of Nitya's $ids
is home sic$" they help each other with the wor$. *avi has occasionally invited the
others to visit his farm< and Nitya and Aditya have gotten their families together
several times for dinner. About once a month the whole group gets together for
lunch.
All four of these NA's employees are on salary" which" consistent with company
custom" is negotiated separately and secretly with management. Although each is
required to chec$ in regularly during every wor$ day" they were told when' they
were hired they could wor$ wherever they wanted. =learly" flexibility is one of the
pluses of these 5obs. >hen the four get together" they often 5o$e about the man
agers and wor$ers who are tied to the office" referring to them as ?face timers? and
to themselves as ?free agents.?
>hen the programmers were as$ed to ma$e a ma5or program change" they often
developed programming tools called macros that would help them to do their wor$
more efficiently. !hese macros greatly enhanced the speed at which a change
could be written into the programs. Aditya" in particular" really en5oyed hac$ing
around with macros. ;n one recent pro5ect" for instance" he became obsessed with
the prospect of creating a shortcut that could save him a huge amount of time. ;ne
wee$ after he turned in his code and his release notes to the company" Aditya
bragged to *avi that he created a new macro that had saved him eight hours of
wor$ that wee$. *avi was s$eptical of the shortcut" but after trying it out" he found
that it actually had
saved him many hours too.
NA has an employee suggestion program that rewards employees for innovations
that save the company money. !he program gives an employee five percent of the
savings generated by their innovation over a period of three months. !he company
also has a profitsharing plan.
*avi and Aditya felt that the small amount of money that would be generated by a
company reward would not offset the free time that they gained using their new
macro. !hey wanted the time for leisure or consulting wor$. !hey also feared
their group might suffer if management learned about the innovation. 4t would
allow three people to do the wor$ of four" which could mean one might lose their
5ob.
/o they didn't share their innovative macro with management.
Although *avi and Aditya wouldn't share the innovation with management" they
we're concerned that they were entering their busy season and $new everyone on
the team would be stressed by the heavy wor$load. !hey decided to distribute the
macro to the other members of their team and swore them to secrecy.
;ver lunch one day the team set for itself a level of production that it felt
would not arouse management's suspicion. /everal months passed and they
used some of their extra time to push the quality of their wor$ even higher. 6ut
they alsonow had more time to pursue their own personal interests.
Karan Kohli" the inhouse manager of the wor$ team" pic$ed up on the
innovation several wee$s after it was first implemented. (e had wondered why
production time had gone down a bit" while quality had shot up and he got his
first in$ling of an answer when he saw an email from Nitya to Aditya than$ing
him for saving her so much time with his ?brilliant mind.? Not wanting to
embarrass his group of employees" the manager hinted to *avi that he wanted
to $now what was happening" but he got nowhere. (e did not tell his own
manager about his suspicions" reasoning that since both quality and
productivity were up he did not really need to pursue the matter further.
Karan has 5ust learned that Aditya has boasted about his tric$ to a member of
another virtual wor$ team in the company. /uddenly" the situation seems to have
gotten out of control. Karan decided to ta$e Aditya to lunch. :uring the meal"
Karan as$ed Aditya to explain what was happening. Aditya told him about the
innovation" but he insisted the team's actions had been 5ustified to protect itself.
Aditya $new that his own boss would soon hear of the situation and that he would
be loo$ing for answers from him.

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