MediSys Corp.: The IntensCare Product Development Team Questions
1. How well is this team performing? (Scale of 1-5 effectiveness, 5 most effective). Discuss.
Team is not performing well. I can give 2 or maybe 3 at most for its effectiveness. Because firstly, there is a serious motivation problem. Beaumont’s new policy of cross-functional team to look at the bigger picture did not change the way of reporting and evaluation of the team members. They were working both in the project and in their functional area but they were evaluated only on the basis of performance on their functional area. So there is no indication of extrinsic or intrinsic reward for the team performance. This situation is not motivational at all. Secondly,…show more content… So if there is a problem at the bottom line, all project is affected by that problem as a whole.
There is a value conflict between Karen Baio and the others. While she sees the project as an important healthcare initiative that will save many lives, the other team members, according to her, act like this whole project is some kind of game they are trying to win.
There is relationship conflict because of interpersonal differences. For example, almost no one likes Merz because of her aggressive attitude.
Maybe the silliest conflict in the team is task conflict about the modular design of the product between Merz and O’Brien. While Merz is thinking modularity may be introduced in the second version, after the initial product introduction, she has not expressed that idea just because she doesn’t want to create an excuse for engineering to ignore the demand for modularizing anything. O’Brien also had no intention of developing modules for the initial version of the system. However, since Merz didn’t reveal her actual view about the modules, they are in a serious task conflict.
Time pressure created by Beaumont is also exacerbating these conflicts.
Neither Fogel nor Merz do any coaching effort for the team work.
Beaumont says that “if I jump in there and shout or accuse them, what I’d basically be saying that I don’t have faith in people I’ve assembled to get
