Guillermo Trevino
Course: MGMT 655
Instructor: Beth Koufteros
Case Study: Medisys Corp
07/25/12
1. What are the forces that are compelling change at MediSys?
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Losing market share to competitors.
New leadership (Mr. Beaumont).
Mr. Beaumont’s parallel development approach for speeding product development.
Medisys’ business goal of launching an innovative world class product by August 2009.
2. What forces are affecting the IntensCare’s behavior, culture and outcome?
Culture:
 The business environment influenced the selection of a new approach (parallel
development) in order to face new threats (competitors).
 Cross-functional teams forced individuals to keep in mind the big picture of the process.
Behavior:
 Intenscare group members’ performance evaluation included contributions to other
projects. As a result, some members divided their effort to different activities, which was
viewed as lack of commitment by other team members.
 Medisys’s original culture, prior Mr. Beaumont’s arrival, was influenced by technical
projects. Technical managers had a sense of entitlement over other non-technical areas,
which stagnated the sharing of information.
Outcome:
 The outsourcing of software development affected the original production plan due to the
inability of the hired firm to meet deadlines.
 The limited number of engineers available for the project aggravated issues related with
fitting the data displays and battery units into size specifications.
 Functional agendas resulted in conflict of interests and improper assessment of the
project’s priority.
 The cross functional identity of the team limited and deterred the decision making
process.
3. Describe the team dynamics.
The team was comprised of individuals technically competent in six key areas for product
development: marketing and sales; research and development; product engineering; software
design; regulatory and production. However, Mr. Beaumont did not perform a thorough
assessment of the organization structure or personality compatibility among members of the
team.
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Valerie Merz’s (Marketing Manager) concerns focused on the budget and delivery of the
product. She struggled to obtain information about the status of the project on a timely
manner from other team members. The lack of information constrained her ability to
assess the possibility to predict the product’s launch date. Her frustration resulted in a
negative demeanor (e.g. mistrust) and a demanding attitude with the rest of the team.
Jack Fogel’s (Senior Production Manager) concerns focused on the production details.
His one dimensional approach (technical production) limited his understanding of
marketing and sales issues (e.g. product launch and modular design). He communicated
well with technical savvy members: Bret O’Briens, Dipesh Mukherjee, and Aaron
Gerson.
Dipesh Mukherjee’s (Software Manager) concerns focused on managing issues in India
related to software development. He had little time to meet with other members of the
group in order to verify the proper integration of the software with the rest of the project.
Furthermore, he portrayed confidence about the ability of the overseas personnel to
deliver quality software.
Bret O’Brien’s (Senior Engineering Manager) concerns focused on how to utilize the
human resources available (two engineers) for this project and the daily activities of
Medisys. He opposed Valerie Merz’s product modularization proposal. He had an open
and honest communication with Jack Fogel about his concerns and status of the project.
Karen Baio’s (Regulatory Affairs) concerns focused on how to meet the strict quality and
regulatory medical industry’s standards. She opposed the idea of launching the product
without meeting quality’s standards. Team members avoided dealing with her due to the
nature of her role (quality).
Aaron Gerson’s (Research and Development) concern was the overseas software
development team. He communicated constantly with Mukerjee, O’Brien, and Fogel yet
withheld his judgment about the success of Medisys’s approach to outsource software
development.
Poor communication among team members developed a culture of limited information sharing
and slow decision making.
4. How does the functional structure at MediSys impact the success of the team
dynamics?
The main characteristic of the functional structure is to have employees specialized in one task or
area. However, the condition of the market forced Medisys’s leadership to try new methods in
order to expedite the product development process. The new approach consisted of appointing
six individuals specialized in the every step of the production process. However, team members
developed their agenda based on the company’s performance appraisal (functional structure).
Furthermore, their incomprehension of internal operational procedures and the availability of
human resources resulted in a partial understanding of the big picture: developing a product in a
short period of time capable of fulfilling the customers’ needs in order to maintain Medisys’s
market share.
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5. What are the goals for each core team member? Are they complementary or
competing? Explain your response.
Intenscare’s team members had individual goals focused on their personal agenda:
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Valerie Merz’s goals focused on the business side of the process and felt in line with Mr.
Beaumont’s goal: launching Intenscare before other competitor’s product and keep
Medisys’ market share. However, her goals put pressure on the technical side of the
process (e.g. software development, engineering, production, and quality).
Jack Fogel’s goals focused on technical details of the product and had almost no
consideration for business goals (e.g. launch date). His goals interfered with Medisys’s
marketing and sales goals, which consisted of getting ahead of competitors in terms of
product delivery.
Dipesh Mukherjee’s goal focused on making sure that his software development
outsource proposal succeeded regardless of the overall goal of the process.
Bret O’Brien’s goal focused on delivering a product that met customer requirements yet
did not provide extra features that could address future needs. His goals partially aligned
with Mr. Beaumont’s goal of speeding product development since Intenscare’s design
limited the possibility of adding any extra features.
Karen Baio’s goal consisted of developing and implementing adequate testing procedures
in agreement with industry’s standards. Nevertheless, her goals interfered with the rest of
the goals of the members since she had to approve the overall quality of the product.
Aaron Gerson’s goal focused on overseeing the proper evolution of the product he
originally envisioned and developed. He did not interfere with the goals of any team
member.
6. Did Beaumont provide enough resources? Explain your response.
Mr. Beaumont’s assessed incorrectly Medisys’s human resources. He allocated workforce to
Intenscare from other projects of the company without considering labor shortage in critical
departments such as engineering and software development departments. Medisys allocated extra
20 million dollars specifically for Intenscare yet Mr. Beaumont did not hire employees to work
solely on this project. Resources’ shortage and sharing among Medisys’s projects limited the
contribution of team members to achieve the goal of launching Intenscare before any major
competitor.
7. Who was the leader of the IntensCare Team? Explain your response.
Mr. Beaumont appointed Jack Fogel as Intenscare’s project leader. However, his goals interfered
with the overall business goal of the project, which consisted of getting ahead of competitors in
terms of product delivery. Conversely, Valerie Merz’s goals felt in line with Mr. Beaumont’s
goals yet she did not have good rapport with the rest of the team. Her limited ability to develop
alliances and manage conflict removed her from any leadership role in the project. On the other
hand, Aaron Gerson had good rapport with all team members and a deep understanding of the
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product yet he was replaced by Jack Fogel. In conclusion, Intenscare had no clear leadership due
to individual agenda and goals promoted by the functional structure.
8. What factors contribute to team conflict? Explain your response.
Personal agendas resulted in conflict of interests and the improper priorities assessment. Also,
the cross functional identity of the team limited and deterred the decision making process.
Furthermore, some team members worked part time for Intenscare and had other responsibilities.
Similarly, the individualism portrayed by Intenscare’s members made impossible to make good
decisions based on equal compromise.
9. Were there unwritten rules, constraints or assumptions that the team was working
under that were not explicitly discussed? Explain your response.
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Medisys’s original culture, prior Mr. Beaumont’s arrival, was heavily influenced by the
technical side of projects. This way of doing things positioned Medisys with a good
market share yet did not reflect Mr. Beaumont’s new entrepreneurial approach. He
assumed that individuals appointed as Intenscare’s team members had a clear
understanding of his vision and the big picture of the project.
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The parallel development concept was well received among Medisys employees yet it did
not enhance the product development process. The lack of process improvement resulted
from numerous conflicts of interest caused by maintaining the original functional
structure. Also, the workforce reduction was not considered during the evolving of the
parallel development approach. Employee’s laid off forced engineers to split their time
between Intenscare and their previous responsibilities.
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The modularization initiative driven by marketing and sales was not originally considered
in the scope of the project. However, Valerie Merz assumed this proposal was aligned
with Mr. Beaumont’s vision of speeding the delivery of new products. Human resources
and time constraints caused tension among technical and sales groups with different
agendas.
10. What ways did team members exert their influence to meet the objectives (in subtle
or not so subtle ways)?
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Valerie Merz negatively influenced team behavior by stressing the importance of product
launch without considering non-controllable factors influencing the performance of her
colleagues (e.g. performance evaluation, workforce shortage, India’s firm unsuccessful
deadlines).
Jack Fogel leadership emphasized an individualistic/functional approach to decision
making. Indirectly, he influenced the direction of the project by allowing the rest of the
members to pursue their own agendas and goals.
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Dipesh Mukherjee focused only on managing the software team in India. He had limited
communication with other members and only shared information about imminent
situations (e.g. not meeting software deadlines).
Bret O’Brien portrayed a negative attitude towards any business initiative. His attitude
was fueled by the stress of disposing limited amount of human resources to fulfill the
responsibilities. He complained with Jack Fogel about his discomfort dealing with the
demands of Valerie Merz. His complains looked for support and understanding about the
lack of enthusiasm to add new features to the product.
Karen Baio’s introverting demeanor exerted little influence over the rest of the team. Her
personality was shadowed by Valerie Merz’s vocal demands.
Aaron Gerson played a neutral role in the development of the product after his leadership
role was given to Jack Fogel.
11. What was the team’s approach to resolving conflict?
The case study did not present the team’s approach to resolve conflict. However, the literature
provided a description of how the project progressed after Mr. Beaumont recognized publicly
some issues with the project and team members.
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Mr. Beaumont decided to continue with the same organization and team
structure/members. He thought that the best thing to do was to allow the team to figure
out their own way to deal with project issues.
Product launch emphasis continued even after identifying some project complications
such as design features and quality standards.
Communications issues continue were aggravated when some team members informally
found about delays in several steps of the product development process.
Goals alignment would have been critical to the team’s success. Also, Mr. Beaumont should
have provided more guidance and perform organizational changes (centralized employees
reporting) in order to address the traditional individualistic management roles.