1. What are the issues in the IntensCare Project team?

 IntensCare was not intended as a mainstream project in the beginning. Only $500,000
was allocated, and people were often pulled away to work on other projects
 A dedicated team was formed only after more than 1 year of work
 Jack Fogel was assigned as Production Leader in spite of having been observed as
laidback.
 O’Brien and Gerson were always looking out for each other and this bothered Merz.
 Merz felt she was responsible for all deadlines but did not have the authority to get the
others to meet their deadlines
 Due to budget cuts, the number of engineers on the team had reduced and they were
working part time on other projects too.
 The technical team was not concerned with the legal aspect of it which Baio was
pushing for
 Gerson wasn’t sure the offshore software development would be reliable.
 Merz wanted a modular design but O’Brien wasn’t ready to change the design
 There were space issues in the current design which weren’t resolved
 Project was behind schedule for the launch in August.
 Production had still not started due to design issues.

2. List out the factors contributing to the team conflict?

MediSys, a U.S.-based medical equipment maker, has been developing IntensCare, a new
medical system for monitoring intensive-care patients. MediSys has invested heavily in
IntensCare, which is eagerly awaited by the market. The product development team,
representing several functional areas of the company, has been working on the product for
the past six months but is now running into significant problems with the product design,
the schedule, and their own group dynamics. Recently, the pressure increased when they
learned that two more powerful competitors had begun work on their own products for
this market. Several team members are concerned about meeting the team's targets.
Struggling especially hard to overcome the various problems is the marketing manager
who has profit-and-loss responsibility for IntensCare.

Elaborating the factors even further –

 Cross functional team of professionals

 Stringent deadline & speeding product development
 All employees, including core team members, continued reporting to their functional
managers who continued to supervise and evaluate them
 Lack of trust on the person who had joined recently, Merz in this case. Also, Merz
didn’t have confidence in the competence of other core members
 All the core members were more concerned about the success of their own functional
areas than the overall success of the product
 The pressure had increased because two other deep pocketed competitors had
announced moving into the similar product line
 Sudden engineering problems in the product (Fitting data displays and battery units)
 Difference of opinion between Merz and O’Brien. Merz believed that customers
demanded a modular design, but O’Brien’s team was more concerned about solving
the internal space problems. O’Brien believed that the engineering department had no
intention modules in this version of the system
 Lack of coordination with the offshore software developer

3. What can Merz do now?

 She should first calm down and go and have lunch
 Over lunch, she can decide how to face the others
 During the meeting, she should get the facts on the table and discuss it out with
everyone so that everyone’s issues are clear
 Call all the bosses and Beaumont also so that they can know what issues are faced and
can take a decision as to the deadlines and work allocation.
 She should make it clear to O’Brien that she overheard what he said and doesn’t
appreciate it. She should ask him to talk to her directly for any problems he might
have.
RECOMMENDATIONS
 Beaumount should have tried to resolve the conflicts if he had got to know as it
happened in organization only.
 Beaumount should have followed transformational leadership style & There should
have been a reward system for the employees and the team leaders who worked
diligently and boost up the morale of organization.
 The leaders’ different departments should have come together and build an
environment of trust and should to organize meeting time to time or on a regular
interval so that if anyone had any doubts, they could clear it instead of having any
mis-conception.
 Proper training should have been given to the employees instead of distrust.
 The soft-ware which was being developed by Deepak Mukherjee should have been
developed in USA only so as to avoid hindrances in the communication and maintain
a proper flow.