MEDISYS CASE 1. Statement of problems: main and secondary. secondary . Analyze the problems by identifying the pertinent facts vs. assumptions. Ask yourself the questions: where did the facts come from and how do I know they are correct? The main problem that is causing issues for MediSys is communication. communication . Symptoms of the communication issues are team conflict, team developmental problems, communication problems up and down the chain and amongst peers, avoiding team members, a lack of trust, and team members avoiding avoidin g other team members. Communication on the team is not transparent. In particular Fogel frequently meets with O’Brien, Gerson, and when he is around Mukerjee , to have informal
brainstorming brainstormi ng sessions. The two women of the team, Merz and Baio, are left out of conversations where solutions and decisions are made for the team. Communication practices didn’t change with the change from a sequential to parallel product development developmen t and formalized teams. The changes made by the president to the organization were intended to capture the entrepreneurial spirit of the company, yet they manifested manifested into additional problems problems that the company needs to to solve. Also, the reporting reporting and evaluation of team members members did not change. This led to both communication and leadership issues within the IntensCare team. The project leader is the liaison to the executive committee, but they don’t have open lines of communicatio communication. n. The executive committee can receive information from the project leader, but also via their individual divisions in the organization. Other communication communication issues include: team members are not expressing their feelings about outsourcing software development; the fact that two members want modularity of the product, but have not told anyone else this information; and that prior experiences with product development has shown them that they can launch a product and have the first users be part of the initial testing of the product. Additionally, Additionally , only having a weekly meeting that itself is unorganized limits the amount of time the team has to communicate and collaborate. Additional problems at MediSys causing conflict include dysfunctional leadership leadership and a lack of organizational and team training. training. Leadership problems problems and challenges have led to a lack of trust and respect; no cohesion, poor team communication and individual communication; communication; a lack of role responsibilities responsibilities to include leadership roles; a lack of empowerment empowerment in the team; they don’t protect and support each other; a lack of reward system for the team; a lack of transparency; members are placing their individual needs over the team’s needs ; there is not a strong identity of norms; there doesn’t seem
to be any measures of success; and the inability inability to manage conflict within within the team. These issues are pushing the critical path of the project to the right. Also, if the team were trained properly on how to interact and build an effective team things in the organization would be different.
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Leadership within the IntensCare team is weak and wreaking havoc on the team’s ability to
meet milestones and determine the best course of action with the troubled outsourcing of software development. Fogel, the designated leader, does not see the big picture and they are not functioning the way a productive team should. Empowerment on the team is also an issue. The ability to make decisions is a problem for Merz as she has the responsibility for the future of the IntensCare product, but she doesn’t have any of the ability to make leader decisions as she lacks empowerment within the
team. Leadership in the company failed to get their priorities straight as the company’s budget cuts have reduced the amount of time the team members and their support staff can spend on IntensCare, yet the team received a 20 million dollar infusion to make sure that they could get the product to launch by August. The modularity of the product is in limbo within the team, and the production team is having issues fitting the hardware into the specifications that were originally developed. The lack of leadership, guidance, and communication are causing important issues to go unresolved. The project leader is not seeing the big picture of the IntensCare product development and is putting the product and company at risk if he and the team can’t make the adjustments necessary to get the project back on track and
ready for market release. Organizational change has led to both communication and leadership issues for MediSys as the board realized that they needed to adjust their strategy as growth was slowing. To do this they hired a new President, Art Beaumont, to reenergize the innovative culture and focus the organization ’s strategy. Having a new president is a big change in any organization. The president’s goal is to speed up production by having an experienced, high performing team working on projects, but by not implementing changes in reporting, evaluation, how the team was chosen, and ensuring that the team goals were set by the team, has hindered their ability to be productive and efficient. Instead the change to parallel product development and keeping other things in the status quo degraded both communication and leadership throughout the organization. Another problem that arises is the adjustment at the executive level to speed up product development. The “executive committee” was
created to generate and implement a strategy for going the business swiftly. However, the executive team did not receive any formal training on how to best organize and make decisions. Art’s believes that management is entrenched in their functional roles and not working together as a team to solve problems and provide strategy for the future. Looking at leadership in the company, it seems like Art is making the right decisions, but there is a lack of training for executives on how to implement an executive committee and the president doesn’t want to tell members of the IntensCare team what to
do. This hands off approach is a problem. The formation of a formal team is intended to make the
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product development of IntensCare a faster process, but the team is poorly organized, and hastily put together with limited data from the HR department. The president did his best to formulate the team and identify a leader. Due to the lack of information from HR on team members the president should have looked into the candidates more closely. Training with HR and the president on team selection would have helped in the process. A few key assumptions in this case are that there is no reward system for the IntensCare team and no specific team goals are mentioned in the case. Team members seem to be only after their best interests instead of the teams. This can be related to the fact that the communication structure has not changed along with evaluation of each team member. Secondly, it doesn’t appear that there are any team goals that are set; they are lacking a vision that supports the organization’s goals. Thirdly, one can assume from the series product development that most members only had to deal with one other team during the development of a product, now they must all work together at multiple states of the development. Additionally, the fact that they only work on this project part time and the majority of their work seems to be in their primary assignments is an issue, except for Merz as her primary job for the next three years is to manage IntensCare once it is brought to the market. There is a great deal of stress upon each member to perform for both their respective department and for the IntensCare program. Finally, the team needs to assume that competition is preparing a similar product and will capitalize on the emerging market if MediSys fails to bring their product to market on time. According to Merz other firms will be developing a modular design to compete with IntensCare. 2.
Analysis of causes of problems (be sure to apply the all relevant concepts and models)
Communication problem causes Team Conflict Communication is the biggest problem that the IntensCare team and MediSys have. They way communication is happening within the team is alarming. Mainly the original members and the other males on the team informally talk throughout the week to brainstorm and hash out problems. This informal form of communicating can be good; however in the IntensCare team it is having the opposite effect. They talk negatively about their other team members and the issues they are having with them. They talk about the problems but fail to include all of the team with the issues. Either the team works its issues out or there is a high chance of failure. The types of conflict present in the IntensCare team are personal, substantive, and procedural. From a personal difference viewpoint, a majority of the member seem to dislike Merz because she thinks she is the savior of the company and knows how to fix all of the problems. Baio dislikes Mukerjee
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as she thinks he doesn’t care t hat there are issues with the offshore software development for the product. From a substantive view the team can’t determine what to do about modularity. Baio
disagrees with Merz that testing of the product could be done with the initial customer distribution, although Merz had likely done this in the other two product development teams she led. Looking at procedural conflicts on the team no one seems to want to make suggestions to try and change how they are currently working. Merz wants to bring it to the presidents’ attention, as well as Fogel and O’Brien. Fogel is the project leader and designated liaison with the executive committee, yet he doesn’t keep
them informed of progress. However not it is to get senior management involved. The team’s schedule doesn’t have them getting together enough for a project that is vital to the company’s future. There is
no mention of an agenda at team meetings, but with all the informal conversations the team meetings might just be organized chaos with a great deal of members stating problems and not trying to resolve any issues constructively. Additional conflict comes from individual characteristics and role compatibility. Merz likely exhibits a Type A personality, which seems to be rubbing others on the team the wrong way. Again, if Merz and the others would have openly communicated at the formulation of their team then they might have been able to avoid their current problems. A few roles within the team were assigned when it became formalized but the efforts from those members are either not sufficient to make a difference or the other team members are performing such dysfunctional roles as to cause harm to the team and its ability to work together. The behavior of the team is such that everyone wants to avoid each other, and the team members that do get together are accommodating of some of the ideas and solutions. Communication problems led to Team Processes Issues Communication problems are causing the IntensCare team processes to be weak. The team’s cohesion barely exists. Fogel, O’Brien, Gerson and Mukerjee seem to have a lot of side bars without
Merz and Baio. It is even more difficult to have meetings with the whole team as Mukerjee is often in India working on the software development. The interpersonal cohesion seems the strongest between the two original members of the team, but the rest of the team’s interactions are usually negative or don’t happen at all because people are avoiding each other due to personality issues. The team’s task
cohesion is also weak. Each member is out for individual goals and not focused on the end goal for the team and organization. It seems like there are only individual goals and not team goals. No one in the team backs each other up when it comes to making decisions for the team. O’Brien and Fogel want to
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bring up the issues within the team to higher level management instead of trying to work on the issues at the team level first. Communication and Training problems led to Team Selection Issue Lack of communication and training for the selection of the IntensCare team has led to team conflict. The president had human resources prospective team list and took notes about each team member. The data on the HR list was very limited and vague. The team member list was HR’s way of communicating to the president important information about each potential team member. However, the information didn’t seem tailored to assist the president in his determining whether or not the team
members were a go od fit for the team. Even the president’s limited notes showed that Fogel, Mukerjee, and O’Brien might not be a good fit. Merz did have the experience of leading two product team at her
previous job, but that data was not included on the HR list. Without conducting a teamwork analysis to identify the right knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform both individual and teamwork tasks MediSys was in for a bumpy product development. Lastly, it might have been better to have more people conduct an assessment of potential team members. This is to train those that will make those decisions for future product development teams and to ensure that you put the right people in the right positions to build and effective team. By having the right information the president would have likely selected Merz to be the project leader as she had led two teams at her previous organization. The president could have likely been able to assign additional roles or provided guidance to the project leader about concerns he had for certain members. Communication, Leadership, and Training problems cause Team Development Issues An appropriate model of team development to analyze the IntensCare team is the Stage Model. The formal team was created within the last year of the projected development of IntensCare, which was six months after the president took over. That time gap might have been too late for the team to develop and be effective before the product deadline. It appears that the team is in the Storming stage of the team development model, and potentially going towards failure. There is a great deal of conflict amongst the team members, and they are having difficulty resolving any of their issues. One of its biggest issues is modularity for their product. Both Merz and Fogel want modularity in the product, but neither has expressed it to other team members. If they continue to have a lack of communication then they will not make the product launch timeline. It is looking less likely that they will make it to the norming part of the Stage Model as they do not seem to cooperate with each other to get the tasks accomplished for the team.
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Training for the IntensCare team is not apparent, which is another possibility for the communication and leadership issues. By working on team building from the onset of the formalization of the IntensCare team they might have been able to avoid the majority of their issues. The most important part of training to build teams is interpersonal skills. Working with people to build trust, open communication and providing support for those in your team creates the foundation that will prove instrumental in a team’s success. Next, training should cover problem-solving skills such as working on identifying problems, generating solutions, and evaluating solutions. The IntensCare team did some problem solving but not with the whole team. It seemed like their goal was to keep information from other team members because they didn’t trust them with how they would handle the
situation leading to communication and leadership failures. Another step in the training of a team is to develop goal-setting skills. Again, the IntensCare team has individual goals, but there are no apparent team goals. No one in the team is holding anyone to their goals and there is no negative reinforcement for missing goals, except the project keeps falling behind. Lastly, training on role-classification skills is necessary so that as members assume roles they know how their duties into the team’s structure and ability to function. By training team members about role requirements and responsibilities, they are more likely to positively contribute to the success of the team. However, the roles and responsibilities are weakly emplaced for the IntensCare team. Training at the executive level would likely also help the organization help to improve its ability to develop new products quickly and effectively. Leadership and Training problems led to Effective Team Management Issues Managing for effective teams requires a great deal of effort, leadership, and training from senior management. The president declared a new parallel product development strategy for MediSys along with the creation of the executive committee to speed product development along and ensure that all needs of product development teams are met. While he has an explicit vision on how to move the company forward, it seems like there is a lack of specific strategic planning that has occurred. The executive committee still receives reports from individual managers and from the project leaders. This is inefficient and also caused communication problems amongst the executive committee and the IntensCare team. The president and the executive committee need to actively manage and review support systems for teams within the company. Art states that he doesn’t want to get involved with the IntensCare team as he thinks they might view that as failure. His involvement could provide a positive role in that he understands the challenges that they are currently facing and provides the team with additional resources or potential solutions so that they can move past the current roadblocks to success.
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Additionally, training for the executive committee on how to manage a formal production team could help them in the long run and ensure they provide better support for the IntensCare team. Senior Leadership problem leaves a void for Team Rewards & Motivation An assumption that can be made is that the team doesn’t have any type of rewards to recognize
the team or individuals within the team. MediSys leaders need to ratify the situation to improve the team working together. Team motivation to work together would likely increase if they all knew that they could benefit from their success as a team. They likely are receiving their normal pay and nothing in addition for their hard work on the IntensCare team, even though the was $20 million infused into the project to get it done by August 2009. Motivation for the IntensCare team is in dire need of help and improvement. Using the New Model of Motivation from our readings, the IntensCare team and organization need to work on their corporate culture. They haven’t been fostering mutual reliance and
friendship within either the team or company. They are not valuing collaboration, although their intent is to gain efficiency from the cross-functional team design, it is not working. Collaboration within the IntensCare team is poor, and only happens between a few members at a time. The weekly meetings are likely a waste of time as some of the members have already met to discuss problems and therefore hide the issue at the weekly team meeting. Leadership problems at the Team Level From a team stand point, the leadership is dysfunctional. Fogel seems to only manage when needed and is not taking a positive role to help the team solve its problems. He even states that he only works with most of the product development areas, he fails to mention regulatory and marketing. Although Fogel is the team liaison he isn’t working well with his team members or with reporting information up to the executive committee. He also doesn’t look out for the team’s interests. Merz and
others see him having a narrow view of what is needed to accomplish the mission. There is a lack of direction setting leadership. Leadership doesn’t have to come from the project leader; others in the team might assume that role. Merz is trying, but is getting push-back from others in the group and she might be burning bridges as she is extremely energetic about getting her points across to the team. Another leadership role that Merz seems to be filling is the operational coordinator. She has all the responsibility of making things happen, yet has no power within the team or organization to do so. A potential way the team could help to improve the leadership effectiveness is if they utilized Drucker’s method. The team doesn’t seem to have an action plan other than a milestone tracker or
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product development calendar. They do not run productive meetings. The IntensCare team also does not say “we”, but instead everyone is out for themselves. The team is not focusing on the opportunity
that they have to make a difference in the medical industry. They have been funded with 20 million dollars and have a top rate team on paper, but they cannot get organized and agree on anything to make progress. They are not seeing the big picture, especially Fogel. If they can figure out the right steps to take for the well-being of the organization they will likely start to turn around their team effort. Additionally, analyzing the leadership issue using House’s Path-Goal theory it appears that Fogel as the project leader is not exercising any type of leadership behaviors. He is not providing the environment and direction to facilitate the team’s efforts to achieve task goals. Fogel’s job is to help the organization and team achieve their goals, but he is not removing internal or external obstacles for the team to be successful. Also, there are not any rewards in place that would motivate the team to perform well on the project. A team leader needs to create an achievement oriented environment, but none exists for his team. According to the leadership Levels of the Hierarchy model the IntensCare team is at Level 1 of the Hierarchy. In order to meet the second level of hierarchy the members must be a contributing team member. All of the team members are not contributing their individual capabilities to the achievement of team objectives and are working ineffectively with others in the team. Leadership and Communication problems led to Team Effectiveness Issues The intent to put together an effective team for IntensCare was good, but the leadership and communication execution was poor. The president needed more information on the team members he was looking at in order to build a better team. In order to have a better idea if the IntensCare team will be effective the president needed knowledge criteria, affective criteria, and outcome criteria. Some of the factors that affect a team’s effectiveness are the team’s composition which encompasses diversity,
personalities, size, and team orientation. The IntensCare team is diverse, but they are not using that to their advantage. Their diversity is causing each member to have different performance goals and commitments to the team; thus, having a negative effect on the team. The team’s personalities are
also clashing. None of the members seem to be agreeable on many of the issues. Emotional stability is getting worse within the group as Merz almost lost her nerve when she overheard O’Brien & Fogel talking behind her back. The team doesn’t seem to be extraverted and open .
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Another excellent way of looking at team effe ctiveness is using the Pygmies’ model which has seven key lessons. The lessons are to trust one another, protect and support each other; have open communication amongst the group; to share a common goal; have strong shared values and beliefs; put the group above self; and to have distributed leadership. The IntensCare team does not seem to be practicing any of these lessons. They don’t trust each other, their communication is dysfunctional and
certain members of the group only talk to others based on past experience. It is not apparent that the team has any goals established except to finish the project. The team members put themselves and their respective divisions before the team effort and don’t protect and support one another. It is easier
for a team member to talk to their supervisor as they have no empowerment within the team and they don’t report to anyone else except up the chain of command in their respective divisions. The project leader isn’t addressing many of the issues and is not managing the team well.
An additional team effectiveness factor is the team structure. The IntensCare team has only a few roles and task roles defined and they don’t seem to have any socioeconomic roles in place. Currently the team has more destructive individual roles than anything else. The norms that the team has formed also are counterproductive to developing the IntensCare product. They barely meet once a week and the male members of the group have informal meetings that are causing problems for the rest of the group. Also a problem for the team is task structure, each member seems to be doing their own work, but do not help with the other tasks of members. 3. Alternative recommendations (pros and cons). Think about the alternative courses of action and the full set of consequences. Analyze each alternative and consider what the trade-offs are. What are the risks and uncertainties? Remember to relate your analysis to your recommendations Recommendation 1 (Analysis linkages - Rewards/Motivation/Processes/Team Management/Conflict Resolution) Get senior level leadership involvement to ensure that the goals of the organization and product development teams are being met. The president can’t just sit by the way side as one of the most
important projects for his company is going astray. The president needs to step in and reenergize the IntensCare team along with assistance from the executive committee. Mr. Beaumont needs to open the channels of communication between him, the executive committee and the team. The president needs to create a position on the executive committee just for product development and have the team liaison reports to that position. Both the president and executive committee need to provide necessary support from top in order to assist in addressing problems of the IntensCare team. Their knowledge, experience, and ability to find the right resources would tremendously help the team. Having a training
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session on how operate the committee and its relationship with the product teams and president would also help improve communication. The president and executive committee need to receive feedback from the team as what are their issues between team members and production issues. In conjunction with executive committee develop a rewards system for product development teams to improve motivation. The senior leaders need to develop an evaluation system that incorporates both their individual work and product development work. Some of the pros of this recommendation are improved team motivation, improved communication with senior level management and between product development teams, evaluations will be include both team and individual work, organization can gather data to develop better ways to build teams, and show top level management support for the IntensCare team. A few of the cons for this recommendation are the executive committee and president are more involved with product development and interaction, top management expending more energy than planned, and extra resources needed to support rewards system. However, there was a 20 million dollar plus up for the IntensCare product development so some of those funds should go to team rewards. Recommendation 2 (Analysis linkages - Team Management/Processes/Conflict Resolution/Selection) The IntensCare team needs to make leadership changes within the team. The team needs to move to a distributive leadership format, such as how the Pygmies use leadership within their society. The team needs to implement a hasty team training session to discuss role responsibilities, processes, and requirements of the team. This will help with team management and resolve some conflicts. The team needs to develop team norms for meetings, working, communication, and leadership. Discuss who fits which roles best by using collaboration and constructive communication techniques. Team members need to discuss their backgrounds and strengths and weaknesses to help build understanding and trust. The team needs to realize that in order to become an effective team they need to understand each other and communicate openly. Trust needs to be the most important foundational aspect of the team. The Pygmies rely on trust, as should the IntensCare team. Some of the pros of this recommendation are a reinvestment in the team, putting the right people in the right roles to better manage and execute the goal of the team, allow the team to make goals and decisions together instead of separately, and to improve interaction with team members. Some of the cons of the recommendation are the potential for increased tension and problems because of roles changing within the team, a refusal of team members to change roles or refusal to work with team any longer, and taking time away from product development, which is due for release in less than six months. A delay in product release could be another con of this recommendation.
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Recommendation 3 (Analysis links - Development/Conflict/Effectiveness) The IntensCare team needs to conduct an immediate team goal setting session. They have individual goals, which do nothing to help the team except cause delays and team conflict. They must have team goals as that is what effective teams do. The Pygmies have similar goals and support each other to be effective. The team needs to ensure that an open environment for discussion is available. As part of setting goals the team needs to develop reinforcement for meeting goals and supporting the critical path of project. By using either collaboration or a compromising technique for transitioning individual goals to team goals the team will be able to solve their problems and move forward to finishing the project. Some of the pros to this recommendation are that it gets the team to function for the team and organization rather than themselves and their divisions, it helps team see the big picture, the will have established team goals, team effectiveness will improve, and more open and transparent communications will improve the team’s effectiveness in meeting the deadline for product release. Some of the cons for this recommendation are that goal setting will likely be time consuming and that the team might not be able to come to a consensus on goals for the group, thus either wasting time or causing further delays to the project. Recommendation 4 (Analysis links - Team Processes/Conflict/Development/Leadership) The team needs to immediately conduct a conflict resolution meeting with the team. They need a neutral executive from outside the team to mediate with each individual on the team to find out the issues and conflicts that each person is having. Next, they should have entire team meet to integrate their views and perspectives with the mediator running the meeting. A key point of the meeting needs to be putting all of the current issues on the table; this includes the modularity of the product, the outsourcing of software development, product testing, component fitting issues, and schedule and other important team norms. The team needs to develop a detailed and specific plan for change with the mediator’s assistance. The mediator will collect feedback and the team reconvenes to process the
feedback and provide further adjustments to move forward with team dynamics in a positive direction. Some of the pros of this recommendation are that the team can either collaborate or come to a compromise, if collaborative problem solving within the team does not work, the goal is a win-win for all individuals on the team as they need to move in a positive direction to finish the IntensCare project on time, by using integrative bargaining they will likely have the best results during its conflict resolution, and the team will hopefully reestablish trust within the team and rebuild cohesion. Team development will improve as they use the Storming Stage of the team developmental model. Some of
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the cons of this recommendation are that it might not work and that each team members might see the effort to resolve the conflicts as too little too late. Recommendation 5 (Analysis links - Conflict/Effectiveness/Team Management) The leadership of MediSys could step in along with a team decision to cancel or delay the program for IntensCare. This would allow the company to reorganize and refit with a new team. The company could revise their team selection processes and potentially train their executive committee, president, and HR department on how to make better decisions when putting a cross-functional team together. Some of the pros for this recommendation would be that it saves the organization money by not wasting it on a failing project, and that it would end the current team conflict. The cons to this recommendation are that there is a major loss in potential for leading an emerging market that doesn’t have any competitors, although competitors are planning on entering this segment of the market; there is the potential failure of the company, t eam members haven’t learned anything about being on an effective team, and team members don’t get to develop team leadership and communication skills. Recommendation 6 (Analysis links - Conflict, Team Management) The president and executive committee could meet with the Fogel, the project leader, and determine that they should do nothing, allowing Fogel and O’Brien to meet with management and see what happens. The only pro to this recommendation would be that the company leadership might be able to gather more data about why the team failed at meeting the company’s deadline. The con of this recommendation is that the team will likely get worse and project will be in danger of failing. Also, if this project fails then the company as whole could be in danger or failing. 4.
Suggested recommendation and implementation. Assess the feasibility of your solution by
developing a plan of action necessary to implement your recommendations. A combination of recommendations 1, 2, 3, and 4 is needed in order for the IntensCare team and the product to become a reality for MediSys. First, using recommendation one the president and executive committee get involved with the IntensCare team. The IntensCare team has Mukerjee fly back from India immediately, if he is not already back at the company, to ensure that all personnel from the team are present. The president needs to clear the air and restate or tell the team the organizations vision, mission, and goals to refocus the team on what is important. The president will also work with the executive committee to create a separate post within the committee that is the product development lead (it may have to be one of the committee members, Peter Fisher might be the best
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choice as he worked on the IntensCare project) that will work as the primary source of communication within the committee. That person will then provide the committee and president with bi-weekly updates to product development schedules and how they are meeting their milestones. Communications from the project level will also be adjusted so that the team liaison (could be the project leader or designated person within the team) will report directly to the committee head for project development. The president will also get with the human resources department to develop an evaluation system for individuals that include both project development work and their divisional work. Additionally, the executive committee will develop a rewards system for individuals and teams within the organization. Teams that meet project milestones 10% faster, but also meet the quality standards prescribed by the team will receive a team bonus of $3000 per milestone. Individuals within teams are encouraged to nominate other team members that have contributed to their own success on the team. These rewards are intended for immediate impact and the product development committee member will hand out a $200 gift card to one of the major retailers in their area and recognize the deserving individuals during quarterly company town halls. Next, the IntensCare team will incorporate recommendation four and meet to conduct a collaborative conflict resolution within the team. The new product development committee member or potentially an outside conflict resolution consultant will be used as a mediator to assist the team in resolving its issues and moving towards rebuilding trust and communication. The mediator will lay out an agenda for the team so that off- topic issues and problems don’t interfere with productive conflict resolution. Specifically the team members will share their information that is bogging the team down and effecting communication, leadership, effectiveness, productivity, and trust. The team must discuss the issues of modularity integration, product testing as part of the release with initial customers, component fitting issues with the current specifications that customers want, the concerns with outsourcing the software development to India and its effects on the critical path, and the problems of having to work two jobs at once. Individual team members will concisely describe their problems in terms of behaviors, consequences, and feelings. As the meeting moves along the mediator will ensure that all team members understand where each other is coming from. One way of ensuring this is happening is having others within the team restate the issues that others are having with them or the current team processes. Once all of the issues are on the table, then they will work on solution generation. The team must be open and allow all ideas to be heard. This will allow for the greatest involvement and potential for the best solutions to arise. The team must decide on which solutions to follow collectively and come up with a plan to implement their ideas.
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Thirdly, the team will incorporate recommendation two into their conflict resolution meeting in order to best determine who should assume specific leadership and other roles within the team. A quick training session will be held to discuss the roles and responsibilities on a team and how they can work together to improve communication and leadership leading to better team effectiveness. Team members will express their concerns about leadership within the team, but will do so in a professional and constructive manner. Each member will let the other members know their backgrounds and experience in product development. They will also address their strengths and weaknesses, specifically with a focus on cross-functionality. This should lead the group members to understanding that the role they were placed in might not be the best fit for them. The team must decide as a whole to reorganize and establish the proper people in the proper roles within the team. The mediator will provide the leadership seed that distributive leadership, such as that of the Pygmies, is a potential model that the team could use to move forward with the IntensCare product development. Lastly, after the team conducts its conflict resolution it will incorporate recommendation three and either reestablish its team goals or create new team goals to meet the product release timeline for IntensCare. The team will address and adjust their current schedule and milestones and develop comprehensive team goals that will support meeting each milestone. The team will remove any previous individual goals and build in personal ways to be involved in each team goal. The team in addition will develop reinforcement protocols so that the team can implement measures to address not meeting the team goals. Team members will be held accountable collectively for missing milestones. This will give empowerment to all team members to positively influence the project instead of pointing fingers at one another for missing important deadlines. The combination of these recommendations will realistically affect the original August deadline for product development. However, if the team can resolve a majority of their issues quickly then they might be able to develop a team synergy that will allow them to catch up and allow them to be close to their original product launch date. 5.
Justification (how does your solution address the problems) By implementing multiple recommendation steps towards solving the problems MediSys and the
IntensCare product development team it is likely that the company can produce a successful product. Having the president and executive committee providing leadership, guidance, and involvement in the product development will help the team to meet its goals. Also, with the team members sitting down to discuss their problems with a mediator will likely be the best way to improve the team’s ability to
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function and meet their overall deadline. By addressing the team’s leadership role alongside their other issues that arose due to communication issues they will take another step towards meeting their objective. Additionally, by developing team goals and providing reinforcement and feedback the IntensCare team can meet their product release goals. Incorporating opportunities for training is also important as the team and senior leaders would have likely been better prepared to have an effective team that produces a top of the line product. Recommendation 1: The president and executive committee will benefit by having a better understanding what is happening at the product development level. They will also be incorporating high-involvement management at the organization. By adding a dedicated committee member as the primary communication node there will be less issues with multiple members receiving data at the same time or conflicting reports. The team will also benefit by having a more open communication channel with the senior leaders in the organization. The ability to have resources or solutions to product development available will help at the team level. A proper evaluation system will motivate the team and hold them accountable for their work. A rewards system will also motivate the team to come together and work towards finishing the project. Recommendation 4 & 2: Addressing the team conflict head on will benefit the team. By having the team resolve their issues together and coming to a consensus they will feel a stronger responsibility to their decisions and likely become a better team. By establishing trust and open communication channels each team member will be able to support and understand where each individual is coming from in respect of their issues or concerns. By building better bonds within the team they will be able to accomplish more instead of act as a team divided. By finding a combined solution when different perspectives are present will help to build the team’s strength s. Also, the team will gain more commitment from its members as they are able to come to a consensus on specific goals. This will allow the team to come to agreements on complex issues, especially as they are under pressure to meet an August deadline. It is likely that the team will find solutions to product testing during its initial distribution to customers, along with working on product sizing with the components, and a way to address the outsourcing of software dilemma. The team will also discuss how they need to adjust their work schedules so that the IntensCare development takes priority over their current divisional work. Additionally, by setting schedule, working, and communication norms they will be able to work more efficiently as a team. Instead of not communicating, they will be able to work on issues as a team. Distributive leadership will help the team to make decisions, but they will all back each other up and provide support for each of those decisions. Establishing the right roles for the right personnel will act
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as a force multiplier and allow the team to be more efficient and effective. Communication and leadership issues will not be a problem and the team can work towards positive ends. Recommendation 3: By meeting to establish team goals instead of individual goals the IntensCare team will be setting itself up to be successful in the completion of its product development. They will be able to determine how they can get organized to meet their revised goals. Also, by listing their team goals that need to be accomplished they can then come to a consensus on how to reach those goals and the tasks that need to be finished by each team member in support of each goal. By setting hard due dates and getting buy-in from all the team members they will self-enforce the major pieces of work that need to get done to meet team goals. Reinforcement will help the team to accomplish their goals and provide them with motivation to continually solve the hard problems together. The four combined recommendations will address the major problems at MediSys. By involving company leadership, opening communication channels, resolving team conflict, addressing team leadership and setting realistic team goals the IntensCare team will likely be able to meet production goals and have a successful product launch.
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