Reference no: EM132584166 , Length: word count:800

Lead And Manage Team Effectiveness

Question 1:

Scenario:

You are the leader of the customer service team for an organisation. You are responsible for ensuring that the shop is always staffed with assistants who make customers feel welcome, attend to their questions and needs knowledgably and promptly and who are able to maintain the shop's displays at all times.

At any one time you have a team of 15 assistants with six needed per day. Due to the nature of the work you have an average turnover of one position per month.

At a recent senior management meeting the business strategic plan was developed, from which you now need to develop a performance plan for your sales team. You also need to remember the ongoing team requirements as well as those new requirements brought about by the strategic plan.

In essence, the strategic plan states that, over the next 12 months, the organisation is aiming to:

Increase turnover by 30% by:
• introducing 20 new products including a range of six health lollies that have added nutrients
Build market loyalty by specifically targeting tweens as customers by:
• designing new packaging specifically designed to have greater appeal to the 7-12 age group
• introducing a club membership for tweens that gives them free gifts for purchases over specific amounts
Increase efficiencies by:
• increasing average customer sales from $4 per person per visit to $6 per person per visit
• purchasing and installing a new computerised till aimed at tracking sales by each salesperson
Your task is to:
a. Define the sales team goals for the next 12 months. Ensure that they are SMART.
b. Define the KPIs and standards for each goal.
c. Define the time frame for each goal.
d. Select one goal and create an action plan which clearly documents how you will achieve this goal. Detail the methods/ processes that you will engage in, the resources that you need and risks or constraints.
250 - 500 words

Question 2: 

Scenario
At Global Mining Resources your team of geologists have been busy creating the feasibility study into a new exploration site in northern South Australia. The work has been a very large project that started 18 months ago with the team spending six months on location taking drilling samples and analysing them.

Of the six geologists and three administration staff that currently form the team, two geologists are new as is one administration person. All the others have been on the project since its inception. Up until now the team has got on well together, seemingly communicating well and resolving any differences with minimal effort. However, you have noticed lately that there has been some trouble. The difficulties in communication seem to have started since a new geologist joined the team, management gave indications that world affairs might have a serious impact on whether the project could be funded or not and you changed some allocation of team tasks.
Specifically the communication issues have been:

o The monthly progress report had a section missing and, when you questioned the authors about it, it turns out that each thought that the other person had done it.
o Two team members have made comments to you that they think that the new geologist ‘thinks that they know it all' and is very irritating to work with.
o You have overheard comments from a couple of team members to the effect that there is no point doing a good job on the report as management have already written it off. Comments were also made that there was no point talking to you as you always sided with management.

o The new administration person is not completing their tasks on time and seems to be overwhelmed by what they have to do. You have seen them ask the other administration staff for help once or twice but despite their efforts, they are still very slow at their work and seem reluctant to ask again. When you ask them if they need help, they say that they are fine.

Questions relating to the scenario:

1. What factors are affecting the communication in this team? (100-150 words)

2. What can you, as team leader, do to correct the situation and restore it to one of open, effective communication amongst all parties? (100-150 words)