BUSI 1215 Kwantlen Polytechnic University Organize Team Retreat Case Study read outline and case it is group project and the only thing you have to do is m

BUSI 1215 Kwantlen Polytechnic University Organize Team Retreat Case Study read outline and case it is group project and the only thing you have to do is my question that i attached in photos. The Nuevo Project
Case Overview/synopsis
This case follows a project team as they work to implement a safety database tracking system
within a major international pharmaceutical company. The company was formed through the
merger of two organizations. Team members are located in the United States and in France, and
conduct much of their work virtually. In spite of their technical skills and abilities, the team
struggles to collaborate; after more than a year of work, key conflicts remain unresolved—many
of which are not apparent to all team members. The case concludes with senior management
appointing process advisors and implementing a conflict escalation process. Whether these
interventions are effective or even appropriate remains an open question for students to explore.
Review this case as if you are a consultant hired by the company to improve the team’s
dynamics. As you read, keep in mind that the case is written primarily from the perspective of
the Americans on the team. Look for the merits in their points of view, but consider how the
same facts might be interpreted differently.
Case Description
SafePharm International
Headquartered in France, SafePharm International is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical
companies. It was established two years ago when two formidable pharmaceutical companies,
MontPharm and SafeCom, combined. Although officially termed a merger, in practice, it might
better have been described as an acquisition of MontPharm, a Swiss-based company with
extensive U.S. operations, by SafeCom, a French-based company.
Like all pharmaceutical companies, SafePharm is obligated to keep detailed records of how its
drugs perform. To do so, SafePharm relies on sophisticated database systems that track and
record adverse events associated with the use of its products under development and already in
the market. The Drug Security Division of SafePharm is charged with fulfilling this obligation.
1
The Nuevo Project
The division is headed by Peter Johnstone, M.D. Johnstone is based in the United States, but the
division has managers and employees in numerous countries. Johnstone’s deputy director,
Monique Lamontaigne, M.D., is located in France.
The Drug Security Division is in the process of implementing a new adverse event database
system called Nuevo, which will be used by division employees around the globe. The data
entered into the system will be used to generate reports the company is obligated to provide to
various regulatory agencies around the world (in the United States, for example, that agency is
the Food and Drug Administration). The two-year project began about one year after the merger.
Project Team Structure
The core team responsible for designing and implementing Nuevo consists of:
•
Jacques Allante (France), Project Manager.
•
Gerry Fisher (USA), Communication Lead. Gerry is from the Drug Security Division
and is charged with keeping all managers in the Drug Security Division updated on the
status of the project.
•
Joanne Bruchet (France), Global Information Systems (IS) Lead. Joanne is from the IS
Division. Her role on the team is to ensure that the system (including software and
hardware) is appropriately integrated and compatible with other company systems and
applications.
•
Simone D’Allard (France), Global User Lead. Simone is part of the Drug Security
Division. Her role is to ensure that the system meets the tracking and reporting needs of
the Drug Security Division.
•
Ina Yong (USA), Validation Lead. Ina is from the Drug Security Division. Her role is to
ensure that the system is fully tested and that all test results are documented before
releasing the system for use.
•
Michelle Prentice (USA), Training Lead. Michelle is from the Drug Security Division.
She is charged with making sure users are trained on how to use the system.
•
Charles Toucher (France), Quality and Compliance (Q&C) Lead. Charles is part of the
IS Division. His job is to ensure that the system meets all the regulatory requirements of
government agencies worldwide.
2
The Nuevo Project
Drug Security Director
Peter Johnstone USA
Deputy Director Monique
Lamontaigne FRA
Project Manager
Jacques Allante FRA
Comm. Lead
Gerry Fisher USA
Global IS Lead
Joanne Bruchet FRA
Global User Lead
Simone D’Allard FRA
Admin IS
Subteam Lead
USA
Admin User
Subteam Lead
USA
Data Entry IS
Subteam Lead
USA
Data Entry User
Subteam Lead
USA
Workflow IS
Subteam Lead
USA
Workflow User
Subteam Lead
FRA
Migration IS
Subteam Lead
FRA
Migration User
Subteam Lead
FRA
Report IS
Subteam Lead
FRA
Report User
Subteam Lead
FRA
Validation Lead
Ina Yong USA
Training Lead
Michelle
Prentice USA
Q&C Lead
Charles Toucher FRA
In addition to the core team, five subteams were formed. These subteams each have a user lead
from the Drug Security Division and an IS lead, and report directly to the User Lead (Simone
D’Allard) and IS Lead (Joanne Bruchet) respectively. Each team also has two to four additional
members, most of whom are involved with the project on an intermittent basis. Overall, half of
the subteams’ members are located in the United States and half are based in France.
–
An administration subteam (located in the U.S.) is responsible for ensuring that Nuevo
maintains separate databases for each product in all of its dosage strengths. For example,
if a particular medicine was sold as a 10 milligram pill and also as a 20 milligram pill,
Nuevo must separately track any adverse events for both pill sizes.
–
A data entry subteam (located in the U.S.) is charged with identifying all of the fields that
would appear on the system’s screens.
–
A workflow subteam (members evenly divided between the U.S. and France) is
responsible for determining the ways in which the system automatically passes work
3
The Nuevo Project
from one user to the next. For example, a case entered into the system would typically
first be handled by a data-entry clerk before being transferred to a medical evaluation
expert and finally to a reporting officer who would submit the case to regulatory
authorities.
–
A migration subteam (located in France) is responsible for mapping all the data from the
legacy (existing) systems to Nuevo.
–
A report subteam (located in France) is charged with designing the reports that will be
generated from Nuevo.
While each of these subteams has a different focus, they are interdependent. For instance, if the
data entry subteam failed to include a particular data field, the migration subteam would not be
able to move related legacy data into the new system.
Most of the U.S. core and subteam members were previously employees of MontPharm. At the
project’s start, they were looking forward to working on this initiative. Before the merger,
several of them, including all of those on the core team, played key roles in efforts to develop a
similar system called Vision. The work had been intense and time-consuming, but the team
members were stimulated by that project. They put in long but collaborative hours and were
nearly finished when the merger occurred and implementation of Vision was put on hold.
Several months later, the newly merged organization decided to scrap Vision in favour of Nuevo.
There were two main reasons. First, having been designed before the merger, Vision’s capacity
was too small to accommodate the needs of the larger organization created through the merger.
In addition, it was not clear that Vision’s design could support the new business processes (e.g.,
workflow procedures) that were implemented post-merger. The Vision team members were
disappointed, but understood the rationale for the change in direction. As work on Nuevo began,
those who had been a part of the previous project looked forward to sharing the benefit of their
experiences. Not long after work on Nuevo began, however, their enthusiasm waned.
4
The Nuevo Project
Core Team Dynamics
The Nuevo core team, some of whom had worked together before, started the project by holding
a one-day, face-to-face kick-off meeting in Paris at the corporate headquarters. Meeting as one
large group, all project team members attended, including those on the subteams. There were
formal introductions to ensure everyone knew each other. The roles of the various subteams were
articulated and the project timeline established. “At the time, recalls Gerry Fisher, the proposed
schedule seemed reasonable and the subteam structure made sense to us all. Looking back,
however, there was no opportunity to really get past formalities. It would have been good for the
core team to have also met separately for more in-depth discussions about how we would work
together. None of that ever happened.” After the initial meeting, most of the core team’s
subsequent interactions were conducted via weekly teleconferences. These teleconferences were
frequently cancelled by Jacques Allante, the project manager, without notice and without him
having sought input from the rest of the team as to whether there were issues they wanted to
discuss.
Jacques strongly controlled the way meetings were run by restricting the kind of information that
was exchanged and the ways in which it was exchanged. In and of itself, this would not have
been a problem for many of the team members. As Ina Yong, the core team validation lead,
explained when she was interviewed for this case, “It’s a project manager’s job to monitor what
occurs during team meetings. The problem with Jacques’s approach, though, was that he was
too autocratic to be practical. For instance, he frequently put together an agenda for meetings
without input from other team members. Further, he would allot only 10 minutes for other issues
not on the agenda and only if time permitted.”
Early in the project’s life cycle, Gerry Fisher, the communication lead, presented a
communication plan to the core team during one of their conference calls. Jacques remained
quiet during the presentation and offered little in the way of comments on the plan presented;
however, following the meeting he called Gerry, stating that nothing was to be presented at core
team meetings without his prior knowledge. Frustrated and angry, Gerry became more
withdrawn; he felt that as a part of the core team, his discretion and expertise were being
undermined.
5
The Nuevo Project
When there was discussion, many of the U.S. core team members felt their ideas were given little
or no consideration. As Michelle Prentice, the core team’s lead for training, once quipped to her
American colleagues, “the norm here is – ‘don’t provide your opinion until asked’- at which
point they’ll tell you what your opinion is.” At various points throughout the project, the U.S.
team members tried to raise issues and suggestions based on their experiences with Vision.
However, their France-based core team colleagues (all of whom had been part of SafeCom prior
to the merger), especially Jacques, consistently responded negatively to any input based upon the
previous project. In fact, it had gotten to the point where it seemed that any mention of Vision
was considered taboo.
Communication across subteams was a key point the American members of the core team
wanted to stress to their French colleagues. From their work on Vision they had learned how
important it was to keep people informed of what other subteams were doing. “System
development is dynamic,” explained Ina Yong. “We had learned how quickly any two subteams
could head down different paths if the communication and coordination was not as dynamic as
the work itself.” She went on to stress that too frequently, the result would be one or both teams
having to rework their design—creating time delays that rippled throughout the project schedule
and leading to bad feelings within the team. “It’s not that our colleagues in France wanted poor
communication,” Michelle Prentice added, “but they were committed to dealing with this
challenge through a chain of command.” Simone and Joanne wanted to be the focal points for
passing information across subteams. That may work fine in theory, but not in practice.
Instructing the subteams to communicate through the user and IS leads slowed things down.
Anyone who has ever played the grapevine game knows how much gets lost when layers are
added between the start and end of a communication chain.” Referring to the physical distance
that separated some of the subteams, she stressed, “It’s not like we could even rely on informal
communication in the halls to fill in the gaps.”
The Core-Core Team
In many instances, decisions which could have been made collaboratively by the core team were
not made that way. Instead, Jacques, acting unilaterally or at best in consultation with French
team members, made decisions that were then communicated back to U.S. team members as
6
The Nuevo Project
being finalized. Increasingly, U.S. team members felt as though their input was not valued and
that their perspectives were not being given due consideration.
In one telling example, during a core team teleconference, the team was discussing important
data entry fields that would need to be included in the system. Among other things, these
unanticipated additions were going to affect system report generation as well as eventual
training. As the team was exploring the implications of the changes, Jacques stopped their
discussion by declaring that the team as a whole need not be concerned. Referring to himself and
his French colleagues, he said it was an issue that could be taken up by the “core-core team.” To
the Americans on the team, the remark only reinforced their sense of alienation.
In May, roughly 10 months after the project had begun, the core team as a whole had agreed to
include a brief cross-cultural awareness workshop as part of an upcoming face-to-face statusupdate meeting that again would include members of both the core team and the subteams. The
Americans had hoped to use the workshop as an opportunity to discuss and improve team
processes. Only later did the U.S. team members learn that this portion of the program had been
cancelled.
When Jacques was asked about the change of plans, he said that top management made the
decision. In subsequent discussions with some of those senior managers, however, it was
discovered that they were not involved in the decision and that it had been made by Jacques.
The U.S. team members were disappointed that the workshop had been cancelled, but their
biggest concerns had to do with the unilateral way the decision was made. Moreover, the lessthan-truthful reason given for cancelling the workshop severely undermined what little trust and
rapport remained. As the project moved past the midpoint in its life cycle, the Americans on the
core team were increasingly reluctant to raise issues and participate fully in conversations.
Enthusiasm for the project had all but ceased to exist, and U.S. team members even began
thinking twice about providing their European colleagues with information.
7
The Nuevo Project
Tensions Spread to the Subteams
The subteams continued to fall behind schedule, but the delivery date remained firm. The
timeline slippages were obvious, but almost no one was willing to discuss them openly—least of
all the Americans on the core team. “It was easy for us to see how the slippages were related to
subteam communication breakdowns, but we’d been down that road so many times we didn’t
know how to raise it anymore,” explained Gerry Fisher.
“By late August,” Ina Yong added, “we could see how frustrated our colleagues on the subteams
were…some informal communication was possible among U.S.-based subteams—we could only
assume the same kinds of things might be occurring in France—but even that was less than
ideal.” According to Michelle Prentice, there was nothing subtle about the mounting stress and
confusion: “Tensions had gotten to the point where people were actually storming out of
meetings because they were frustrated by what they were being asked to do on short notice or
without sufficient information.”
In September, the U.S. core team members felt they needed to escalate their concerns. After
consulting with Ina and Michelle, Gerry approached Peter Johnstone, the head of the Drug
Security Division. According to Gerry, Peter, who was also based in the U.S., took his concerns
seriously and promised to act. “I assumed,” said Gerry, “that meant Peter would work through
Jacques, perhaps coaching and counseling him on how to open up dialogue and communication
within the core team and throughout the project overall.”
Instead, Peter chose another approach. He sent an e-mail message to the entire division, not just
those working on the Nuevo project. The message was sent under his name and that of his deputy
director, Monique Lamontaigne, who was located in France.
8
The Nuevo Project
Colleagues,
When we launched the Nuevo project by forming the core team and subteams, we
expected that all team members would collaborate to develop best practices for a new
security database system. We anticipated that this would mean building on lessons
learned from past projects and processes and taking into account evolving regulatory
requirements and thoughtful consideration of other best practices.
We appreciate the challenges this project poses and understand the time pressures this
project requires. Our success depends not just on what we know but how we work
together. As team members, everyone must remain professional and open to different
proposals and opinions. It is crucial that we consider ideas fairly and ultimately act in
the company’s best interest. We do not expect total agreement but do expect that after
candid but respectful discussion, each team member will ultimately support the team
decision even if they would have preferred another approach.
With these goals in mind, we are appointing Helene Diamond and Lars Raymond as
subteam sponsors. As you know, both of these individuals belong to the senior
management team for the division and report directly to us.
When teams reach an impasse, these sponsors will provide additional conflict
management mediation and decision-making authority. We expect their involvement to be
the exception rather than the rule. Team members should ultimately abide by majority
opinion. However, for those times when team opinion is evenly split or when the
disagreement pertains to key strategic objectives, the team sponsors should be contacted
so they can work with team members and other appropriate staff to finalize a course of
action.
Best regards,
Peter & Monique
9
The Nuevo Project
The e-mail message was a surprise to Nuevo team members, and to others throughout the Drug
Security Division who had not been aware of the problems within the Nuevo team. “I had people
coming into my office and asking me what was wrong with the project,” explained Ina. “I was
concerned how this might affect confidence in what we finally deliver.”
Gerry, who had contacted Peter, was also surprised. “I’m glad that senior management was
willing to get involved, but I’m not sure this was the solution I was looking for. I had expected
that they try to work these issues from within the team. I know none of us in the U.S. were
consulted on the approach outlined in the message, and as far as I know no one talked to
Jacques or the other core team members in France.”
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The Nuevo Project
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