Prepared by: Amy Burke, Manishka Ewing, and Aesha Pandya Tripathi
Alexis, Brooke and Charles are members of a leadership team in Acme Company. They have worked together for a substantial period of time and are well versed with each other’s strengths and weaknesses. All three team members have very different experience backgrounds. Alexis has managed business operations for over 10 years.
Brooke is the HR representative for the company and has provided support for 8 years. Charles is the leader in charge of Strategic Growth. The three departments currently do not have overlapping systems or employees cross-trained interdepartmentally. All three members have different approaches to different situations, which generally allows for thoughtful decision making and planning. Alexis tends to be more analytical and uses data to make decisions, while Brooke has strong gut reactions that help her decide, meanwhile Charles uses his prior experiences and education to formulate his decisions.
The group’s CEO has brought a new project to the team to come up with a solution. The CEO would like for all new contracts, employee data and operations documents to be housed in one centralized cloud based software. To do this, the group will need to piece together the knowledge from all three departments and team members to recommend a software solution. Answer the following questions in full sentence format. Remember to use cited key terms, definitions, and theories from your textbook in each answer. In paragraph citations (with page numbers) and a formal reference are always expected.
1. What is a mental model? Which type of mental model should the team possess in their decision making processes to work effectively as a group?
2. Knowledge sharing will be necessary in order to formulate a solution that is best for all departments. Will the team utilize Centralized or Decentralized TMS? And Differentiated or Integrated TMS? Why?
3. Since the program shall be utilized by three company departments, what are two strategies that the team should stay away from when collaborating within their team structure? What are two strategies that would aid in the effectiveness of the team dynamic?