MediSys Corporation

Beaumont saw areas in the corporation that seemed to required changes for MediSys Corporation to continue to growing its business. Lack of strategic focus in the corporation and the need to be the first to market having innovative products became the issue (Donnellon  & Margolis, 2009). We can learn that in reaction to lack of strategic focus in an organization, there is always need to create to come up with one. In this case, Beaumont came up with an Executive Committee comprised of five Vice Presidents that directly reported with Beaumont taking the role of President to sharpening the strategic focus of MediSys Corporation. According to the Vroom, Yetton and Jago’s normative decision making approach, it seems Beaumont made the decision through aristocratic way. Such a decision based on information available to him, intuition and his professional experience. The main lesion here is that coming up with a team to address issues in a corporation is important.

Through this case, we can lean that pressure can be exerted by teams in meeting product delivery deadline and to incorporate modular designs.  In the case, we can lean that Merz believes that the concerns are aligned with delivering the highly profitable product for MediSys. As the first in the market, IntensCare product will offer greater possibility of product profitability. At the same time, Beaumont makes it clear that the reputation of the corporation is on the line and makes it a requirement that MediSys has to first to market with IntensCare. This shows that team s can differ in opinion. It the same time, teams must always strategize while working on projects to avoid failure. The conflicts in the teams can be seen where the engineering team is dealing with several technical issues with their work being made difficult by staff cutbacks leading to scarcity of manpower. This leads to delay in software delivery.  In the case, the corporation tries to deal with this issue through outsourcing software development function.   The lesson that can be learned from this situation is that for a project to avert conflict of inadequate human resources, expert outsourcing can be an option (Thamhain, 2004).  Doing this can help to eliminate product launch date conflicts. The other conflict that arose in the team was that requirement for a modular design was not formally approved in the product design. Bret O’Brien declared making a demand to be “let off the team” if Fogel never got Merz “off his back”. Since O’Brien was an important team member, Fogel had to keep him in his team. This shows that it was Fogel’s interest to resolve the conflict.  The lesson that can be lean in this situation is that teams always need to have people with expertise.  In this case, avoidance in team conflict as what appears in the IntensCare team is important to make the team remain focused. From the design, set up as well as management of teams in the Medisys Corp, it is important to strategize in order to make the highest possible chance of success. Through the review of conflict between engineering team and Merz, there was a common ground between them.  This is evident in the fact that everyone appeared to be committed in delivering a profitable product. The main issue was timing of delivery and what to be delivered. We can lean that despite the fact that teams can have conflicts that result for outsourcing, remaining focused on the project is important.  When conflict come in teams, having a person to act as a mediator to create a win-win situation can make teams become more successful. For example, the conflict in this case is best resolved by Fogel through a ‘collaborative’ conflict-handling style. A collaborative conflict resolution in teams is important for approach for both parties to satisfy their and others’ party concern (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 2002) . In the case, the regulatory compliance issue acts led to conflict between Baio and Merz, O’Brien and Mukerjee. Merz, O’Brien and Mukerjee downplayed the importance of regulatory process implemented by Baio bringing a feeling that the team was not committed to regulatory requirements.  This forces Baio to show them the importance of compliance.  We can lean that teams must rein focused on regulatory demands if they want to be successful. Teams must always launch products that do not violate regulatory requirements because doing so can pose significant risk to the Corporation. Hence, team experts must hold competitive’ position in such conflict handling approach.

The above lessons are can be compared with what happens in Project management simulation.  Just like in simulation, the conflict and the resolutions in the teams   can act as what-if analysis to support decision-making in projects.  Since it was a software implementation in the corporation, it was similar to simulation as it was conducted through software tools. The IntensCare Product Development Team involved training as an interactive learning activity of a group exercise. Simulation   imparts competencies that ultimately improve performance.  Just like the IntensCare Product Development Team, Project management simulation analyzes real projects.  Hence, there is a clear comparison between IntensCare Product Development Team and Project management simulation.

References

Donnellon, A & Margolis, JD 2009, 'MediSys Corp: The IntensCare Product Development Team', Harvard Business Publishing, no. 4059.

Hersey, P, Blanchard, KH & Johnson, DE 2002, Management of Organizational Behavior - Leading Human Resources, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Thamhain, H 2004, 'Team Leadership Effectiveness in Technology-based Project Environments', Project Management Journal, vol 35, no. 4, pp. 35-46.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in customized term papers if you need a similar paper you can place your order for article critique writing services.