The EPD division of Allentown Materials Corporation has serious problems in cross-functional conflict and coordination. These issues hurt the division’s performance on new product development, service, morale, and decision making. Part of the reason for these issues could be due to declining market conditions and poor divisional performance but there seems to be fundamental organization problems. EPD markets have been shifting as a result of decline in military spending by government. The result has been increasing sales in the computer, telecommunications, and consumer electronics markets, which required rapid development of product extensions at competitive prices and good service and not unique technological advantage in the product. Inability to Marketing to forecast and develop accurate estimate created more uncertainty. Even though EPD operates in an uncertain environment, yet in terms of management and organization, it is similar to Allentown that participates in much of more certain and stable OEM businesses where Allentown had technological advantage and capital requirements have prevented serious competition. The division has differences between functions in structure, goals, time horizons and personal orientations of people. Market planning as a function has been eliminated due to cost cutting, and Product Development is working on projects similar to those of corporate R&D. There is greater need of coordination but there are no processes in place for coordination other than organization’s hierarchy and decision making of the Vice President. Most coordination and decision making is handled at the top in the monthly Product Development meetings , but this processes is not successful due to almost 10 – 12 new products di... ... middle of paper ... ... his subordinates and other key people. He should clarify is expectations, set a tone and direction as well as settle conflicts and inspire the division by following through. He should develop a more receptive view of conflicts and based on the situation encourage constructive conflict. As a long term … A program should be developed for identifying potential project managers and consciously developing them through cross-functional work experience and various trainings. These trainings should not only include technical marketing and product development but also on communication and group effectiveness. If there is no corporate training program in place then EPD should initiate this program within its division. There should be a change in accounting and control system, which places gross margin responsibility at the plant. Marketing department should be like GE MDO…
Many people believe that in order to succeed in a business that is having difficulties, it is important to focus on a particular area in order to be better productive in each of them, and be able to reach the goal. Instead, Goldratt and Jonah demonstrates that is important to focus on the company as a whole, but at the same time, it shows that it is incorrectly to only focus in an specific manufacturing department, or one plant, or a department within the plant, because people should not be concerned in local optimums.
Custom Chip, Inc case describes the situation of a company where lack of coordination and cooperation among different departments is hindering them to achieve their common or ultimate goal as a single business entity. Applications engineering, product engineering and manufacturing are all inclined towards achieving their individual objectives and timelines rather than collaborating and synergizing their efforts in order to attain a common goal of effective production with improved cost reduction. Few of the primary reasons are insufficient and unorganized company policies for coordination and cooperation, poor networking with in the organization especially on management level, lack of communication and influence among managers and VPs, insufficient human resource, and measuring a department's effectiveness solely on its performance based on individual objectives, rather than checking its effects on over all company's performance.
Project managers are leaders of small and large groups destined to complete a strategic project plan. Leadership characteristics described above can make or break a team. In all successful project fulfillments, it is the leadership of the project manager that determines the type of success for the project’s members. The most...
Conflict is a difference in opinion. The leader must devise ways of dealing with conflict in the team. The focus is to promote a healthy discussion that does not lead to division in the team . The team members come from different department and thus may have differing opinion on tackling the problem. The leader should be able to reconcile the different opinions into one strategy. In such cases, the negotiation skill becomes vital (Harrison, 1971). The leader must negotiate with the team member to strike a balance on the decision. Furthermore, the decision made by the team must be presented to the management and approved. The leader must convince the management that the proposal is viable, and its implementation will be beneficial to the organisation. The ability of the leader to negotiate for resources will enhance the success of the
The skill abilities of team members within IDEO reflect the company’s doctrine of open innovation and the benefit of assembling those diverse teams. From their clients IDEO assimilates best practices and then integrates these practices back into their own business and proces...
...e is usually planned which is derived from the change in market (i.e. products, customer needs, action of competitors).
Project managers have different roles in making the corporation successful where they portray their skills in the marketing field.
People work in groups or teams everyday whether in their career, education, political organization, church, or any other social setting. Conflict while working in teams or groups is inevitable. When taking people of different backgrounds, personalities, moral, and ethical beliefs and putting them together in a group, conflict will arise. The key to achieving your team goals is to construct and conquer your goals with keeping the greater good of the team in mind. Conflict as it arises should be combated and abated through swift and thorough resolution techniques. When dealt with properly conflict resolution can give rise to a cohesive and productive team.
There is no surprise that this kind of internal dispute is taking place at EDP. The composition of both departments is a good example of the problem that the separation is causing, since the profile of the employees is considerably different. The marketing department is mainly a spin-off of the sales department; most of its employees are sales people and are more used to understand the market instead of product development process itself. As a vicious cycle, this leads to a lower level of trust, less interaction and higher distance among them.
In addition to urgency, Gustavsson could not create a powerful guiding coalition. He established a cross-functional team to develop a new moisture-resistant product. But the team did not include a sales manager who knows customers' needs and eventually sells the product. Although the team developed a commercially-viable product, their efforts, at least in the short term, were unsatisfactory, because with sales people's own doubts about the new product, they were afraid of jeopardizing the reputation of current product. Moreover, these cross functional teams operated within the established organization maintained the company's dominate culture and past norms. We know that structurally independent teams that are tightly integrated into the existing hierarchy with different cultures and processes are often more successful.
When managed correctly functional conflict helps managers anticipate and solve problems, feel confident and strengthen relationships. Dysfunctional conflict is a confrontation or interaction between groups that harms the organization or the achievement of organizational goals (Kumar, 2009). Cunningham is faced with a functional conflict. The conflict created by the merger that Cunningham is faced with can create positive consequences for both Synergon, and Beauchamp. Cunningham must solve the problems between the two companies and make it acceptable to all parties involved. Under functional conflict Cunningham can test the merits of arguments, assumptions and the value the ideas between the two companies. When Cunningham meets with Julian Mansfield, he is going to have to present high quality decision results while expressing their opposing views and perspectives on how they are going to create a constructive integration and keep the merger operational using functional
In the globalized economy, Successful project managers are in much demand across many industries. Organizations strongly need experienced project managers to lead their staff to accomplish their business goals and deliver successful projects. In an increasingly complex environment, project managers need to turn into many roles and have all kinds of responsibilities at each level of management within an organization. Good project managers are not born. They need to be trained. They develop their skills through study, practise and experience. They become better project managers after they finish a successful project each time. They learn new techniques and apply them on their projects. They learn their lessons from failed projects and then improve to be better project managers in the future.
Organizations are collections of people that work together and coordinate their actions to achieve a wide variety of goals and for a positive outcome. Conflict is a matter of perception. Managing and resolving conflicts are key factor which group needs to use to be productive. All stages in team development require the ability to negotiate and resolve team conflict. In the beginning stages, it would mostly be the manager negotiating with the employees. In the latter stages of team development, team members to negotiate and resolve conflicts amongst
Nike is made up as a matrix organizational structure, which consist of several specialists and some individuals report to at a minimum of two managers. In the company, the staff informs to a crew of managers who dispatches the development report to the manager of the department. Each product within the company includes of it is own section and has its own department who performs independently of the CEO. The managers and employees of Nike decide concerning design and manufacture while the department managers concentrate mainly on ethical issues. In addition, the managers are completely accountable for the employees. While operating a matrix structure, Nike makes choices and responds quicker than any other department. Unlike Nike, Microsoft uses a divisional structure because it offers various separations within the company that functions almost as their own separate entities. However, this does not mean that they do not collaborate on projects or cross reference with each other. The divisi...
may act as arbitrator or mediator. Lastly, if the leader’s management style causes conflict, then