Medisys: Team Assignment

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Beaumont made a poor selection for a team leader. Fogel was picked by Beaumont to lead the team because of his knowledge of production at Medisys as well as his success managing the interface between engineering and production. Fogel was a poor selection because he failed to assert himself as the leader. Fogel failed to see the bigger picture as well. He was focused on the details of the product side and far too little concerned about the business issues and the impending launch. Fogel was also non-confrontational and did not want to get out in front of issues. Fogel is not coordinated with the other functional areas that make up the project team. Fogel does not have a clear understanding of each teams issues or how to manage them.

Beaumont did not set clear rules of behavior for the team. It was left up to the team to establish the norms of conduct, which never came to fruition. All effective teams develop rules of conduct at the outset to help them achieve their purpose. The most critical rules pertain to discussion, confidentiality, analytic approach, end-product orientation, constructive confrontation and contributions. Beaumont provided the cross-functional team design and parallel development process but never developed the internal team processes for member interactions.

Recommendations

The first recommendation is of the group structure. As Hackman stated in “Why Teams Don’t Work”, maintaining structure is necessary to support good processes. Additionally, an appropriate group structure helps a team learn to interact with one another. (Hackman) This will help solve the poor interpersonal skills exhibited by some of the team members and help them establish rules of behavior going forward. Therefore, while the attempt was made to empower the group by having management curtail their style of management and reduce intervention, some intervention is appropriate and needed to help the team regain traction. Start with a team training crash course, air out conflict constructively, establish a team contract, and establish mandatory weekly meetings to encourage team communication and growth. Establish periodic review of the team’s progress by senior management and insist on mandatory regular team meetings. “Top management must….foster the basic discipline of the team that will make them effective.” (Katzenbach and Smith)

Due to the number of critical issues and decisions that could impact the launch date should establish himself as the project leader. Beaumont has a clear view of the big picture and the overall vision. Fogel is an inadequate leader that fails to make decisions in an effort to not ruffle feathers and is only concerned with his functional area of expertise. There are couple issues that arose such as the offshore development going way off track. The project is behind on design, clinical testing and production schedule.

Beaumont needs to evaluate the options the team has moving forward. Then make the necessary trade-offs and decisions on how to proceed. The team has an inability to reach a decision and needs Beaumont’s legitimate power to determine the actions to resolve these problems and the road map going forward. Furthermore, Beaumont should work to establish a structure for work and norms of conduct that helps to determine a process for how problems that develop will be resolved.

Beaumont needs to make a decision on whether or not to pursue the modular device design. Merz feels very strongly about this but the project timeline and impending product launch are not conducive to integrating the modular design specs. The conflict that is brewing between Merz and Engineering is coming to a head. Beaumont needs to essentially arbitrate a ruling on the modular design work. This will help to avoid a conflict between team members.

Beaumont should try to add additional resources to engineering. Consult with the department on their workload and current staff. Refactor and shift resources to the IntensCare project until it is completed and bring back additional staff if necessary. Again, look at other areas to see if resources can be moved around temporarily, or for the short 6-month term, hire contract personnel.

Works Cited

Bauer, Talya, Erdogan, Berrin. Organizational Behavior v1.1. Irvington: Flat World Knowledge, Inc, 2010.

Hackman, J. Richard. "Why Teams Don't Work." John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Leader To Leader. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., n.d.

Katzenbach, Jon R. and Douglas K. Smith. "The Discipline of Teams (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)." Havard Business Review (2000): 12.