Eric Peterson and Biometra

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of the problems:

• Limited timeframe. The project has already been missing deadlines which put the entire team under the pressure and stress. Almost everyone was overwhelmed with tasks and before the present task was terminated, another one already arose. Since lots of restructuring was happening during the project, the good amount of time was spent to adjustments. It seems like in project’s planning stage, the management did not do its best to determine the right amount of time needed to perform all necessary tasks and allocate some additional time for unpredicted changes and its consequences.

• Poor communication with the senior management and lack of feedback from it. The communication with superiors and headquarters was very little. It looks like the direct bosses of General Managers were undetermined in their responsibilities. They could not provide clear directions and guidelines, thus not contributing to the project’s positive outcome. Apparently knowing the limited timeframe they took time to make decisions and could not prioritize the work. The reporting was also poor. It seems that Peterson could not inform in a comprehensive way his direct managers about the issues and the things to be done. The communication was bad in general and the project team for many reasons was unable to soundly cooperate with its senior management.

• Disclosure of internal issues. Since the team was not able to react efficiently on internal project issues, they were disclosed to the external participants of the launching process. This way knowing about the troubles faced by the company, poor communication with bosses and overall reputation, KOLs were hesitating regarding the early adoption of the product.

• Low control of outsourced manufacturing operations. Knowing the attitude of Latin labor toward the work, the team did not put enough control to it. Considering a soft culture Costa Rica’s employees are stereotyped as those who require more time to meet deadlines, show less responsible behavior and in general need more coaching and managing. Peterson postponed the interference of additional Biometra’s workers to a late stage. Moreover know the low amount of orders placed in comparison to total facilities’ capability, operational management weren’t putting enough efforts to control the prioritizing of outsourcers.

• Constant disagreements among different team members on every stage of launching process. It seemed that every member had some misunderstandings with one or several particular members of the project, which is normal in working environment, however not when the time is limited and the need for efficiency is high than ever. Seems like the team did not have enough of adjustment period to get to know each other’s ways of work and performing methods.

On the overall Peterson showed his good organizational skills and managing methods. He was involved in all operations and tries to take the issues of each team member individually and find the approach for it. As a leader he was unable to trust his team and to delegate authority. He wasn’t also good enough to build a solid communication with superiors and headquarters. His team did not have the right vision of its goals and did not realize the amount of actions to perform and the consequences of each action. The team led by Peterson was not efficient.

Actions that Peterson should take to turn the situation around and prepare for the meeting with Chip Knight:

• Peterson should bring superiors and headquarters on board with what the real project’s situation is and engage them into more deep and attentive cooperation with the team and encourage them to provide feedback, guidelines and make decisions faster being aware of the time frame. This especially concerns his direct boss Hardy. He should also help him to track team’s positive performance and motivate its members. All the decisions must be approved with Hardy, which is hard when he is lacking information he can rely on.

• Peterson should also find a way to put a president (Jenkins) in a real picture of project’s progress either through the existing chain of command or by his own means. This would help to engage superiors in the process and gain some addiction help and perhaps funding.

• Peterson should provide more coaching and support to his subordinates, who is of course uneasy under the time pressure, but it should lead to a higher efficiency in the future. Peterson should understand that replacing existing team members with new staff will lead to further delays and misunderstandings. Of course people are different, but it is often that a decent team can be built with a help of a wise leader who found right individual approaches to every member. Some short team buildings can be suggested too. It may help to adjust faster to the working environment and release some stress.

• Peterson should change its focus from current tasks to the future goals. When a leader concentrates too much on present job, they disregard the potential consequences on future results. It is in Peterson hands to predict the arising problems and prepare his team to deal with them.

• Instead of telling what to do Peterson should be able to guide its team toward success. He should provide clear guidelines, however he should also be able to delegate authority. A single person as Peterson cannot manage all the tasks necessary to run a successful launch or the quality of it would be extremely poor. General Manger should contribute to every single operation done during the process; however he should let the team do their job. He should be able to give up control when there are competent people around.

• Peterson should think more on how to behave with international outsourcing. Knowing all the issues with external manufacturing facilities, Peterson should apply his cross-cultural communication skills and find the ways to make the internationals work fast, efficiently and qualitatively.

• On the overall Peterson should create a vision with his teammates and supervisors. A good team which is led by a competent leader is the one that is united toward mutual positive performance. Once the project teams is clear about its goals, performance and is motivated to do its work efficiently, the process will go faster. Only with a strong cooperation the team will be able to achieve common goals.