It is the first meeting of a new product development team. The team's goal is to create the next generation of kitchen appliances for the company. The team is comprised of members from engineering, product design, marketing, manufacturing, and finance. This project will be the main work activity for team members for the next 8 to 10 months.

As the team leader, you need to get the team started quickly on the project. Management has given you an overall goal for the project, but you have had limited time to plan how to manage it. Because of the limited time for completing the project, you are concerned about getting the team off to a good start.

• What are some of the challenges teams face when in the “forming” stage?
• What are three of the most important issues for you (the team leader) to focus on at the beginning of the team project?
• What should happen at the first meeting?

• As the leader, how would you establish roles and norms?
• What steps would you take to build team cohesion?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Challenges teams face in the forming stage Unclear team goals In the initial stage team members may not have a clear understanding of the projects objectives resulting in ambiguity and lack of directi... View the full answer