NPD Resources
5 Ways to NPD Team Harmony
How to Apply Conflict Management Styles for Team Success
A TYPICAL MEETING Today, we are looking in on a New Product Development (NPD) team meeting in Columbus, Ohio.
We see a standard corporate meeting room: a whiteboard, blue fabric rolling chairs, a large table littered with papers and half-empty coffee cups, several buzzing and glowing laptop computers, and a small window with the blinds pulled shut so meeting participants can better view the endless PowerPoint slides projected on the screen opposite the window.
“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times,” growls Bob, the technical expert on the Project Team. “Getting the battery design RIGHT is most important. I could care less about your schedule and your trade shows,” he barks as he leans back in his chair and shoots a menacing glance at Chantella, seated across the table.
Chantella is the Marketing Director for A1BC Battery Corporation, a provider of batteries for mobile devices. Chantella, who worked as a nurse to put herself through business school recently finished her MBA and came to work at A1BC with excitement and enthusiasm to tackle new product marketing challenges. She sighs quietly and responds gently to Bob, “I understand your frustration and I sympathize with your anxiety regarding the tight schedule. Unfortunately, our team didn’t get to have much of a say in establishing the schedule and now that there’s been a publicity splash by the Sales Department, we are committed to this schedule.” She glances furtively at Gary, the X1D1 Mobile Battery Department Manager.
Gary, in his mid-50s, was named the Team Leader for the project simply because he was the manager for the department. He readily admits to everyone he meets that he was never an especially good engineering student so he sometimes struggles with Bob’s strongest technical arguments regarding the battery design. Gary’s subsequent promotions to management were primarily based on seniority and not on his specific leadership abilities. As Chantella looks at him, he scratches his head and wonders if now is a good time to take yet another vote on where the project is headed.
But before Gary can voice his suggestion for another project team vote, Manuel stands up and walks over to the whiteboard. “Let’s see,” he says. “We have this set of properties on battery weight here,” and he circles a set of numbers on the left hand side of the whiteboard. “And we have this set of properties here,” and he circles another set of numbers on the right hand side of the whiteboard. “Regarding the lifetime of the battery charge, can’t we just compromise and combine these properties by taking the average value in each set of numbers? I’m sure the R&D Department can work with both manufacturing and engineering to find an intermediate solution.” He looks to Tara, seated at the back of the room, away from the table.
Tara, a young engineer just two years out of school, is the manufacturing representative on the team. She knows that it would be operational suicide to try to manufacture a battery with the properties that Manuel has just proposed without substantial, and expensive, upgrades to the factory. But emotions are running high in the room, she doesn’t want to add to the conflict, and so she avoids eye contact with the R&D Director, looking down and concentrates instead on rifling through her files.
CONFLICT AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENTThough these are all fictional characters, most of us have run into similar personalities and confrontations during New Product Development (NPD) and other team meetings. What is the best way for Bob, Gary, Chantella, Manuel, and Tara to reach agreement on the stalled project and move forward?
First, in order to move forward, this team needs to move backward. Moving backward will allow the team to focus on the project goals (size, weight, and lifetime of the battery), and to align on Conflict Management resolution schemes, which should be included as part of the Product Innovation Charter (PIC). Understanding the five Thomas-Kilman Conflict Behavior Modes and each of their own predispositions toward use, overuse, and underuse of the behavior modes can help this team make more effective, and more timely, decisions. After a brief description of what constitutes conflict, let’s take a look at each team member and his or her predominant conflict management style.
Read more about Conflict Management here or download the full white paper here.
Learn more about R&D Teams and Project Leadership.
