Week 4 Individual
MGT/311 Version 1
University of Phoenix Material
Team Strategy Plan
1. Complete the following table to address the creation of teams at Riordan Manufacturing.
Strategy
Problem-solving teams
Self-managed teams
Cross-functional teams
Virtual teams
Multi-team systems
Strengths
Weaknesses
Able to work together to
make improvements on the
efficiency, quality and work
environment by working
together to solve an issue
without a hierarchy.
Similar to a problem-solving
team in that there is not a
set hierarchy as each
member helps to select the
other members and these
members also perform
supervisory positions over
each other, such as offering
evaluations.
A cross-functional team is
comprised of members
from a variety of
departments to improve the
quality and efficiency of the
work that the team is
performing rather than work
having to be tossed
between departments to
work on.
Unlike the other teams, this
is a team that collaborates
on projects using
technology rather than
being in the same space
together making it possible
for people in a wide-spread
company work together on
a project.
Employees are only
involved in creating
solutions on problems that
have come up currently,
and can only make
recommendations.
May not deal well with
conflict and can have power
struggles among the team
members.
This allows for a company
to use several types of
teams together to create
the best system possible for
It can be hard to establish a
workable cross-functional
team that has trust among
all the members, and each
member may not be aware
of what other departments
are able to offer to the
table.
This type of team needs to
be monitored closely to
ensure that they are
working on the team project
within the goals and that
the efforts of the team are
made visible to the
company. Also, it can be
hard to establish trust
through an internet
connection.
Teams may not work well
together and may result in
duplicated work.
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the work that needs to be
done, and is adaptable for
the situation.
2. Identify the team formation strategy that is most suitable for Riordan Manufacturing, and
provide the rationale for the decision. Your response should be at least 100 words.
The team formation strategy that would be most suitable for Riordan Manufacturing for
the team to create newly designed CardiCare Valve heart valves would be to have a
cross-functional team. A cross-functional team will “… share expertise and information to
solve problems at the team level and make sure that their program or projects get
accomplished in the best ways possible” (Schermerhorn, 2009, p. 165). This team will be
able to employ the talents of the design, manufacturing and other departments that can
come together to make sure that the launch of this new project will go smoothly without
having to find errors waiting on other departments to finish their portion of a task in the
project life cycle, and each member working together can help to make the process more
efficient.
3. What potential barriers may arise during team formation? How will you address these
barriers? Your response should be at least 100 words.
There are some potential barriers that may come up during the team formation process,
such as finding members that work well in a team, building team trust among so many
different departments, and worry over the contributions that other departments will offer
to the project. It would be best to find members to work on the team project by locating
team members that are interested in working well with others and do not prefer solitary
work when possible. In order to get over the barrier of trust and understanding, it would
be helpful to have the team meet before starting work on the new heart valves to work on
teambuilding games that will build trust and help to introduce the members of the different
departments together. This will also help to get each team members an understanding of
what the different departments will do for the team.
4. What measures will be put in place to evaluate if the team is operating successfully?
There can be five steps in trying to evaluate how success a team is operating together
after creation. According to Edwards, Scott, Raju, (2003), “The five steps are these:
review existing organizational measures, define team measurement factors, identify and
weight team member activities, develop team performance measure and standards, and
create a feedback system” (p. 291). First, it would be important to take the measures that
are used to define individual measurements, and then decide what the team will be
evaluated on. Then determine the measurements for a team that would be similar to
what the individual measurements used. It will be helpful to evaluate the team’s
members and how they work together. The finished product of the team should also
weigh in how successful the team has been working together.
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Week 4 Individual
MGT/311 Version 1
University of Phoenix Material
Conflict Management Plan
1.
Identify the available conflict management strategies and their strengths and weaknesses.
Strategy
Competing
Collaborating
Avoiding
Strengths
A competitive environment
can make for employees
that work harder than ever
to one up each other.
This has the strength of
trying to find a win-win
solution for everyone
involved with the conflict
where they both get what
they want.
The strength of avoiding a
conflict is that the
individuals that are involved
try not to have any contact
with each other.
This has the strength of
solving the conflict.
Accommodating
Compromising
The strength is that both
parties are willing to accept
the solution even if they do
not get completely what
they both want out of the
deal.
Weaknesses
There is no feeling of
teamwork, and there is a big
possibility for negativity
between employees.
The weakness is that there
are some situations where
that is just not possible
depending on the conflict.
There are several
weaknesses to this
depending on how closely
the individuals have to work
with each other during their
daily tasks. One is that the
issue is not resolved, and
the other is that individuals
involved may eventually
have to work closely
together later on.
The main weakness to this
is that one party is going to
come away from the conflict
feeling as though they are
the loser and the other party
got over on them.
The weakness of this is that
hard feelings may arise as
the other party may feel that
they did not get as much out
of the compromise as the
other person.
2. Which of the available conflict management strategies is most appropriate for the current
situation with David and James? Provide your rationale, including what factors you
considered in making your selection. Your response should be at least 100 words.
The situation with David and James would probably be solved in the best manner by
trying to come to a compromise. According to Robbins and Judge (2011), “In
compromising, there is no clear winner or loser. Rather there is a willingness to ration
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the object of the conflict and accept a solution that provided incomplete satisfaction of
both parties’ concerns” (p. 460). It would be important to come together in a meeting to
determine what exactly David feels that James is doing to cause problems on the
production line and what James feels may be causing David to feel this way about his
work. A compromise may be the best solution because it probably will not be possible for
both men to be satisfied with the solution completely through collaboration or be happy
working under a situation of accommodation.
3.
If the selected strategy is not successful, what is your alternate strategy? Provide your
rationale for this selection. Your response should be at least 100 words.
The alternative strategy to work on solving the problems between David and James
would probably be to institute an avoidance strategy between these employees as the
new team may be detrimentally impacted if they are unable to work through the conflict
that they are dealing with together. Putting together a new team with two individuals that
have previous conflicts with each other may be borrowing trouble for the new team to fall
into more conflict. The other team members may take the sides of each of the
employees making an even bigger divide in a team that should be working well together.
Although both employees are considered good employees with positive performance
reviews, they may not be able to put their differences aside enough to work together
effectively.
4. What potential road blocks might be encountered in resolving the conflict? How would you
address these? Your response should be at least 100 words.
There certainly some potential road blocks that might be encountered in resolving this
conflict. There is the fact that this is mostly a hearsay conflict where one person’s word is
pitted against another person’s word. Also, this conflict seems to be something that has
been building over time between the two employees, and they may not be willing to work
together to try to find a solution to the issue as they may both feel righteous about their
own position in the conflict. The best way to address this is to use a face to face meeting
with possibly an unbiased person to act as a mediator to help them move past the whole
one person’s word against another’s factor and to work out the long-standing issues they
have with each other.
References
Edwards, J. E., Scott, J. C., & Raju, N. S. (2003). The human resources programevaluation handbook. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Schermerhorn, J. R. (2009). Exploring management (2nd ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
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Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational behavior (14th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
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