12 Nov For this assignment you will role play. Presume that you are the manager of one of the teams identified in the Week 1 course project and that you have been

Virtual Teams

For this assignment you will role play. Presume that you are the manager of one of the teams identified in the  Week 1 course project and that you have been asked to lead a new project team.

Company Name: Amazon

Your task is to create a virtual team consisting of experts from across the country who will share best practices. Members of your virtual team could include some representatives from the three teams you identified in  Week 1.

3 Teams Mentioned in Week 1:

· Operations Management Team

· Customer Service Team

· Product Development and Innovation Team

The goal of the new, virtual project team is to enhance organizational knowledge. In your role play scenario, a number of senior organizational members expect to retire in the next few years. Capturing their knowledge and wisdom will be crucial.

Your report should cover the following:

· Provide a brief description of the team, its purpose, the organization, and the current situation. Because this is a role play, you may create hypothetical details as needed to fill “gaps” in the scenario.

· Evaluate how you would invite possible remote members of this new team.

· Evaluate some of the processes used to form the team without having to incur significant travel costs.

· Define the virtual team mission all members will authentically own.

· Assess the external forces that could confine the team’s capabilities and decision making.

· Assess the potential conflicts that could arise from this new virtual team.

· Justify how you will run the virtual meetings.

· Analyze the various types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation needed to ensure maximum participation.

· Defend how you will obtain management support for this venture.

· Justify five strategic measures to demonstrate the effectiveness of the virtual team.

Your paper must be 7–10 pages in length, not including the title page and reference page and must include at least five scholarly (peer-reviewed) sources formatted in APA style.

Submission Details:

Due by 11/12/24 at 12:00am CST  

Requirements:

1. Make certain to include in text citations from your course text in addition to your outside leadership resources within your main  post. This adds credibility to your argument. [Textbook]: Butterfield, J. (2017). Teamwork and Team Building  (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.  ISBN: 9781337119276

2. No plagiarism will be tolerated. Must be in 7th Edition APA format with cited sources within the last 5 years.

3. No AI support, score must be 0% and less than < 10% score on Turnitin

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Organizational Team Building

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course Name

Instructor’s Name

Date

Organizational Team Building

Purpose, Goals, And Objectives of Each of the Three Teams

Team 1: Operations Management Team

Purpose: Amazon’s Operations Management is responsible for managing all operational and tangible ordering activities. This team focuses on warehousing, inventory, supply chain, and shipping. This team is crucial to Amazon’s delivery service provision by working to ensure fast delivery through optimization of costs and duration that it takes to process the orders.

Goals: Some of the major objectives include heightened work efficiency, reduction in cost and waste, and maintaining customers’ required filled rates and response times. The team challenges itself to reduce order processing time by 15% and achieve 99.9% order accuracy in the subsequent year at the primary fulfillment centers.

Objectives: Best practices training, using advanced automation tools, and optimization of last-mile delivery routes are the targeted objectives of Operations teams. The team also tracks the operating budget to ensure that it stays within the target and reducing the general expenditure by 10%. This balance of efficiency, cost, and customer happiness enables Operations to have objectives for short-term working and strategic planning.

Team 2: Customer Service Team

Purpose: Amazon Customer Service employees address the issues with orders, products, and services. These enable a customer-oriented culture within Amazon based on the efficient and immediate satisfaction of client needs. It manages the refund of products, problem solving, and customer grievances thus creating a link between Amazon and its consumers.

Goals: The Customer Service team always wanted to have a higher level of satisfaction and higher rates of complaints resolution. They should respond to consumers within five minutes and address all customer complaints in the first contact within a quarter. They strive to keep and even improve the score of 4.8 out of 5 for customer satisfaction.

Objectives: Project goals include increasing product-specific training, employing AI-driven response tools to streamline workflow, and conducting weekly quality assurance reviews. It also involves Operations in handling complaints on logistic issues such as delayed or missing shipments. These goals contribute to making Amazon a reliable market.

Team 3: Product Development and Innovation Team

Purpose: Amazon’s Product Development and Innovation — evaluates new and emerging technologies and products to maintain market viability. This team brings in new features, products and services for the clients to enhance their experience with Amazon; some of the examples are Alexa, Kindle and Amazon’s new offers.

Goals: This team has the responsibility of developing two major new products annually and enhancing goods based on consumer responses. They establish having quarterly goals to create and implement, as well as experiment with concepts and designs, and their initiative is to release one near-final mock-up every six months for customers to try.

Objectives: Specific objectives include holding monthly user input sessions to determine missing products, working closely with the software and hardware development teams, and decreasing the product development cycle by 10%. Ensuring new products align with the company strategy and consumer goals is another reason for cross functional with marketing and operations functions. These goals assist Amazon in developing innovative strategies and fulfilling customer needs.

Analysis of Each Team’s Type

Team 1: Operations Management Team

Team Type: Manager-Led Team

Analysis: Amazon Operations Management is mostly managed by managers. Teams responsible for critical operational operations use this structure to tightly control tasks and assure efficiency and accuracy. The Operations Manager oversees inventory management, shipping, and delivery workflows in a manager-led team to guarantee fulfillment center goals are reached. Amazon's scale and speed require swift decision-making, unambiguous responsibility, and protocol compliance, which this team type facilitates.

Team 2: Customer Service Team

Team Type: Self-Directing Team

Analysis: Members of the consumer Service team handle consumer queries and complaints independently. Although management sets rules and standards, customer care professionals can make real-time judgments to resolve situations like refunds and returns. This team structure allows response and flexibility, meeting customer needs efficiently. Self-direction allows this team's representatives to use their training and judgment to better resolve customer issues and satisfy customers by adapting to each engagement.

Team 3: Product Development and Innovation Team

Team Type: Self-Governing Team

Analysis: The Product Development and Innovation team manages itself and makes important choices on new product ideas, features, and innovation initiatives. Self-governing teams let members create goals, choose workflows, and lead projects using their expertise and creativity. Amazon's creativity relies on this team's freedom to think, experiment, and prototype without manager permission. They report to senior leaders and follow organizational goals. Team members may use their experience and make agile decisions to stay competitive in this self-governing framework, supporting Amazon's rapid innovation and market response.

The Current Stage of Team Development

Team 1: Operations Management Team

Amazon's Operations Management staff appears to be Performing. Team members know their operational roles, duties, and workflows at this point. After role delineation, dispute resolution, and standardization, the team works well together. Well-established daily and weekly routines optimize inventory control, shipping timing, and fulfillment accuracy. As an Operations Manager, you help team members focus on goals like fulfillment and processing time reduction. Continuous improvement meetings may help the team adjust processes based on performance indicators and feedback. This stage's high-functioning dynamic allows team members to anticipate each other's demands, eliminating managerial intervention in daily chores and boosting productivity.

Team 2: Customer Service Team

The Customer Service team is in the Norming stage of development, finding stability after alignment and protocol issues. Over this stage, team members build trust, understand one another's competencies, and collaborate on fulfilling customer satisfaction goals (Cresswell-Yeager, 2020). However, they might have passed initial impediments like handling diverse customers' requests and compliance with service standards, but now they are using every best means to ensure quick solutions. It is a necessary step for customer support teams to have applied their protocols from past stages routinely. Representatives may have some degree of individual freedom in response to client issues, but protocols are adhered to in this cohesive team in response to a given situation. In addition, the standards are further bolstered through regular training, feedback loops, and quality checks that offer chances for continuous improvement. The said team is, therefore, well set to enter the Performing phase as they ramp up service delivery.

Team 3: Product Development and Innovation Team

Creative and collaborative teams often enter the Storming stage, like the Product Development and Innovation team. There may be conflict as members advance their ideas and attempt to influence others and transform thoughts into better thoughts and ideas to arrive at the best product ideas. This dynamic usually encompasses disagreements over product strategies, features to prioritize, and a company’s budget. The storming stage is essential for a product innovation team to debate and come up with the best option to choose from. These issues require team members to manage their differences constructively and make sure that they understand one another well. Specific steps need to be followed before one enters the Norming stage; these include developing two-way communication within the team and ensuring everyone is on the same page regarding the projects. Once these problems are solved, they can become more integrated, which allows for a more integrated approach to innovation and product development.

The Dynamics of Each Team

Team 1: Operations Management Team

Operations Management has a clear hierarchy and structured, efficiency-driven interactions and work assignments. Operational work means being efficient and fast; consequently, team members are familiar with patterns and protocols. This alignment minimizes interpersonal conflicts because it assigns responsibilities. Interpersonal conflicts often arise from workflow issues, process coordination, and allocation of resources. These issues are solved by prompt and specific managerial actions such as reminding the team members about the protocols or changing duties and roles to align with their abilities (Hadorn, 2022). It also provides ordinary feedback sessions that sort out all the petty problems before they become significant misunderstandings. The Operations Manager maintains communication with the various parties and ensures conflicts are solved as and when they arise to enhance the efficiency and productivity of the team.

Team 2: Customer Service Team

Customer service team works collaboratively to address client demands with empathy and swift decision-making. Members work independently, providing a supportive culture where everyone can solve challenges. Customer service representatives may argue over policy or client interaction due to the many difficulties they face. To solve these issues, customer service supervisors lead team discussions and individual coaching. If procedural uncertainty generates disagreements, management may adjust protocols and train people to ensure uniformity. The team meets frequently to discuss recurring issues and share best practices, creating a collaborative environment that resolves interpersonal challenges. Team cohesion and problem-solving improve in this open atmosphere because team members seek peer input and support.

Team 3: Product Development and Innovation Team

Product Development and Innovation has a creative, autonomous, and open-minded culture. Since the team develops new goods and refines unique concepts, there is a natural difference of viewpoints and ideas, which might lead to conflict. There are often disagreements about project direction, idea priority, and creative vision. Team members can freely submit and critique ideas via structured brainstorming and assisted conversations to tackle these interpersonal challenges. A self-governing team uses consensus-building methods like voting on top ideas or getting feedback from other departments to resolve issues (Karjalainen, 2020). The team leader or mediator may also help clarify goals, refocus on project objectives, and keep talks productive. This open method to dispute resolution allows all views to be heard and the team to enhance ideas through constructive feedback while retaining trust and respect.

The Performance and Productivity of Each Team

Team 1: Operations Management Team

Clear metrics and goals drive Operations Management's performance and productivity. According to this week's manager-led team readings, defined processes and efficiency-driven protocols affect team performance (Butterfield, 2017). Manager-led teams benefit from “strong direction and clear objectives,” which defines responsibilities and assures predictable, efficient work completion, according to team performance literature (Islami et al., 2020). Fulfillment rates, inventory accuracy, and delivery speed are Amazon's key performance measures. The planned process and clear objectives help the team maintain high productivity because each member knows their role and how it affects performance. The readings also emphasize the importance of feedback loops in productivity; in this team, regular performance assessments and feedback sessions reduce inefficiencies and enhance productivity.

Team 2: Customer Service Team

Customer Service's reactivity and adaptation to customer needs affects performance and productivity, which correlates with self-directing team readings. The readings suggest that self-directing teams are more adaptable because they can make their own choices, and representatives work better as they are empowered to solve issues (Butterfield, 2017). There are specific key performance indicators that are utilized by the Customer Service department at Amazon, such as response time, first-call resolutions, and customer satisfaction levels. Self-direction enables the team members to accommodate the feedback received from the client, hence enhancing engagement and ownership, as postulated by Slemp et al. (2021). However, according to the readings, when people are granted autonomy and independence, which do not outline specific guidelines to follow, there might be some bias and even inconsistency. The structured training and management practices that Amazon’s client Service team implements help ensure client satisfaction, job efficiency, and consistency across various client experiences.

Team 3: Product Development and Innovation Team

This week's reading of self-governing teams suggests that the Product Development and Innovation team has performance metrics regarding how effectively it can generate feasible ideas and new products. The readings indicate that self-managing teams perform well in innovative environments since independence fosters inspiration and long-term objectives (Butterfield, 2017). The performance of this team is judged based on new products developed, innovations attained, and market achievements. Self-organizing teams allow for low formal control because of high flexibility and relatively high autonomy, which reflects increased rates of experimentation that are characteristic of an innovation process, thus decreasing short-term productivity. Amazon has kept this in check by having detailed development schedules and assessments of milestones, all of which are created based on the principles of self-managing teams. The activity helps the team remain engaged and encourages creative thinking and practical problem-solving through frequent check-ins.

The Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards

Team 1: Operations Management Team

The Operations Management team rewards extrinsically and intrinsically. Measures such as fulfillment speed, accuracy, and low error rates are practical tools since they focus on performance outcomes. Specifically, Aljumah (2023) evidenced that bonuses and recognition programs motivate manager-led teams with specific and attainable objective KPIs. This could also mean that this team enjoys better remuneration packages, perks, and promotions due to the quality of its performance. The member's motivation may emanate from mastery of the operational processes and achieving set goals or standards. Thus, intrinsic motivators can enhance pride in good work, where people feel their efforts significantly contribute to organizational effectiveness, as depicted by the readings above. Cross-training within the team and encouraging professional development are intrinsic benefits, as people can learn new skills and progress in their careers.

Team 2: Customer Service Team

Since the client Service team is mainly self-managed and focuses on the client, it obtains extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. This staff earns incentives based on customer satisfaction, initial call resolution, and other metrics. The readings emphasize that extrinsic incentives referring to performance and customers’ opinions can inspire customer-oriented employees since the rewards are based on the proper treatment of customers (Butterfield, 2017). Team members are motivated by serving the client and solving various issues. As stated by Kurdi et al. (2020), employment in customer service is fulfilling due to the positive impact made on clients and their loyalty, which serves a clear purpose. Self-directing enables team members to have confidence in making decisions and using their own discretion to satisfy client requirements, increasing personal and job satisfaction.

Team 3: Product Development and Innovation Team

The Product Development and Innovation team receives a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, with a significant emphasis on intrinsic motivation owing to their creative work. Team members may get bonuses for the new product launch, innovation, and the overall impact achieved by the team. As applied to actual outcomes, extrinsic motivation, such as performance-based monetary rewards, assists self-managing teams in evaluating and rewarding novel achievements, as pointed out in the readings. The motivation of this crew is the ability to be creative and come up with different ways of implementing their ideas. As suggested in the readings, self-managing teams gain the most from intrinsic motivation, such as autonomy, possession, and the opportunity to work on products. Innovating and making a difference aligns with the team’s purpose to transform Amazon’s products, motivating the members to challenge themselves continually.

References

Aljumah, A. (2023). The impact of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on job satisfaction: The mediating role of transactional leadership. Cogent Business & Management, 10(3), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2023.2270813

Butterfield, J. (2017).  Teamwork and Team Building  (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.  ISBN: 9781337119276

Cresswell-Yeager, T. (2020). Forming, storming, norming, and performing: Using a semester-long problem-based learning project to apply small-group communication principles. Communication Teacher, 35(2), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17404622.2020.1842476

Hadorn, S. (2022). Connecting Network Managers’ Work Contexts with Network Management. International Series on Public Policy, 127–181. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08808-7_5

Islami, X., Mulolli, E., & Mustafa, N. (2020). Using Management by Objectives as a Performance Appraisal Tool for Employee Satisfaction. Future Business Journal, 4(1), 94–108. Sciencedirect. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbj.2018.01.001

Karjalainen, R. (2020, May 21). Governance in Decentralized Networks. Papers.ssrn.com. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551099

Kurdi, B., Alshurideh, M., & Alnaser, A. (2020). The impact of employee satisfaction on customer satisfaction: Theoretical and empirical underpinning. Management Science Letters, 10(15), 3561–3570. http://m.growingscience.com/beta/msl/4068-the-impact-of-employee-satisfaction-%20on-customer-satisfaction-theoretical-and-empirical-underpinning.html

Slemp, G. R., Lee, M. A., & Mossman, L. H. (2021). Interventions to Support Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness Needs in organizations: a Systematic Review with Recommendations for Research and Practice. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 94(2), 427–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12338

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