Reference no: EM132172721

Directions

Read the following case, APPLY THE DECIDE DECISION MODEL and develop solutions to the problems of the Neptune Electronics Manufacturing Company. The situation describes typical issues that managers face in organizations.

Background

A team has been pulled together from various parts of the Neptune Electronics Manufacturing Company to work on a new process improvement project that is needed to improve how the company manages and supports its client base. The team lead on this project is Sandra who has 15 years’ experience as a project manager/team lead managing process improvement projects.

The other members of the team include:

Peter: 10 years’ experience on various types of projects, expertise in scheduling and budget control (office location: San Diego)

Sarah: 5 years’ experience as an individual contributor on projects, strong programming background, some experience developing databases (office location: Chicago)

Mohammed: 8 years’ experience working on various projects, expertise in earned value management, stakeholder analysis and problem solving (office location: New York)

Donna: 2 years’ experience as an individual contributor on projects (office location: New York)

Ameya: 7 years’ experience on process improvement projects, background in developing databases, expertise in earned value management (office location: San Diego)

In the past projects were developed and teams staffed at local “on-site” facilities so as to facilitate interpersonal face-to-face interaction. However, given the size and scope of this project team members have been selected from company locations that are geographically dispersed.

Sandra has worked on projects with Sarah and Mohammed, but has never worked with the others. Donna has worked with Mohammed. No one else has worked with other members of this team. Sandra has been given a very tight deadline to get this project completed.

Sandra has decided that it would be best if the team met face-to-face initially, even though they will be working virtually on the project. She has arranged a meeting at the New York office (company headquarters) for the entire team. They will spend 2 days getting introduced to each other and learning about the project.

The Initial Meeting: The day of the face-to-face meeting in New York has arrived. All team members are present except Donna who had a conflict in her work schedule; she emailed the team members that she would conference call into the meeting. The agenda includes:

Personal introductions

Team building exercises

Information about the process improvement project

Discussion around team roles and responsibilities

Discussion around team norms for working together

Introduction on how to use the SharePoint site that will be used for this project to share ideas, brainstorm, store project documentation, etc.

The team members are very excited to meet each other. Each of them has heard of one another, although they have not worked together as a team before. They believe they each bring value to this project. The team building exercises have gone well; everyone participated and seemed to enjoy the exercises, even Donna who participated “virtually.” While there was some discussion around roles and responsibilities - with team members vying for "key" positions on the team - overall there was agreement on what needed to get done and who was responsible for particular components of the project. However, Donna was strong suggesting that she lead certain components of the project and cited herself as expert on continuous process improvement methods; Mohammed supported her in her argument, however, Sandra elected to assign Donna to a non-leadership role.

The onsite meeting is going well. The team members are getting to know each other and have been discussing their personal lives outside of work - hobbies, family, etc. Sandra is thinking that this is a great sign that they will get along well - they are engaged with each other and genuinely seem to like each other! Sandra is concerned about Donna’s lack of participation and not returning e-mail/telephone calls outside of scheduled team meetings during the 2 days.

The Project Work Begins

The team members have gone back to their home offices and are beginning work on their project. They are interacting via the SharePoint site and the project is off to a good start. And then the arguments begin.

Peter has put up the project schedule based on conversations with only Mohammed and Ameya on the team. Donna and Sarah feel as if their input to the schedule was not considered. They believe because they are more junior on the team, Peter has completely disregarded their concerns about the timeline for the project. They challenged Peter's schedule, stating that it was impossible to achieve and was setting up the team for failure.

At the same time, Sarah was arguing with Ameya over who should lead the database design and development effort for this project. While Sarah acknowledges that Ameya has a few years more experience than she does in database development, she only agreed to be on this project in order to take a lead role and develop her skills further so she could advance at the company. If she knew Ameya was going to be the lead she wouldn't have bothered joining this project team. Additionally, Mohammed appears to be off and running on his own, not keeping the others apprised of progress nor keeping his information up to date on the SharePoint site. No one really knows what he has been working on or how much progress is being made.

Sandra had initially taken a side role during these exchanges, hoping that the team would work it out for themselves. However, she understands from past experience managing many project teams that it is important for her to take control and guide the team through this difficult time. She convenes all of the team members for a virtual meeting to reiterate their roles and responsibilities (which were agreed to in the kick-off meeting) and to ensure that they understand the goals and objectives of the project. She made some decisions since the team couldn't come to agreement. She determined that Ameya would lead the database development design component of the project, working closely with Sarah so she can develop further experience in this area. She reviewed the schedule that Peter created with the team, making adjustments where necessary to address the concerns of Donna and Sarah. She reminded Mohammed that this is a team effort and he needs to work closely with the others on the team.

During the virtual meeting session, Sandra spent most of the time telling team members what they needed to do and by when; she also pointed out that if the project failed they would be terminated from the company.

Over the next few weeks, Sandra noticed that arguments/disagreements were at a minimum and when they did occur, they were worked out quickly by the team without her involvement being necessary. Still, she monitored how things were going and held regular virtual meetings to ensure the team was moving in the right direction. On a monthly basis, Sandra brings the team together for a face-to-face meeting. As the working relationships of the team members started improving, Sandra started seeing progress on the project but not at the rate expected.

All is Going Smoothly ()

The team has now been working together for nearly 3 months. There is not a sense of teamwork among the team members. There are few arguments and disagreements that can't be resolved among the team; however, communication within the team has become limited to coalitions with some team members not included in critical updates to discuss project status. Support for each other on the project - problem solving issues, making decisions as a team, sharing information and ensuring that the ground rules put in place for the team are followed – has diminished to “lip service” only. Additionally, Mohammed has slipped back into his old ways of keeping to himself and not sharing information with any of the team members.

In the last team meeting Donna and Sarah requested to be taken off of the team and reported that they had formally requested the reassignment through their senior management. Sandra’s response to them was anger and threatening, telling them that she considered their behavior to be sabotage.

The project is not on time and within budget. Milestones are not being met – senior management has suspended the team’s activities.

Management has asked your team to evaluate the situation and recommend actions to get the project back on schedule and budget.