Expansion Change Initiative Buitoni

Challenges and Roles of a Highly Performing Team

Project management is a way of being utilized by professionals in a wide variety of vocations. Currently Buitoni a small medium size business producing frozen pizza, there has been a selection of a middle level manager to guide the expansion and implementation of a change initiative to advance the performance of the three sections; the bakery, garnishing and packaging. There has been also an increased focus on project personnel and techniques both women and young staff. Specifically, the most important is the dimension of the team and its roles that have been given limited attention in an increasing competition. So this paper explores the challenges and the roles while establishing a high-performance project team, which is basically manifested in the Buitoni as required knowledge and interest of the individuals, potential conflicts arising from poor communication, confusion of roles, poor working environment and how these issues can be handled.

Required Knowledge and Commitment of the Individuals

The challenge in the team the middle-level manager is selected to guide the implementation of a change initiative to improve the production of frozen pizza of the section has been identified to have several staff members working in the same area for quite a long period irrespective of the capability to change position but within the specific area. It means that the team has limited knowledge and skills, or they do not possess the needed varying knowledge and commitment required in other areas of pizza production, thus affecting the general production of frozen pizza.

Potential Conflicts

There is a likelihood that conflicts may arise currently that the team has included a new technical team, increasing the proportion of women and young staff members who are not adequately knowledgeable and skilled as the older team that has been there since 1988 in production, garnishing and packaging of pizza. As a result issues such as poor communication and role confusion will arise, bearing in mind that the previous staff members have been working in the same areas for a long time, making them quite knowledgeable in the entire production and packaging process. In any team, conflicts are inevitable and arise from a disagreement of perceptions, values, and goals in a field where individuals care about results (Bradley et al., 2012; Farh et al., 2010). The report will elaborate further on possible conflicts from poor communication and role confusion.

Poor Communication

Conflict will arise in this team where older team members would want to conduct their roles independently without interference from the new team members; therefore the communication within the team suffers due to not sharing important information related to the pizza production. Poor communication and consequently conflict is likely to arise now that there is high diversity of the staff members within the section that the middle-level manager is required to guide, ranging from younger staff, an increased proportion of women and older staff members. The manager will encounter cases that he or she has to deal with from the diverse team that will make mistakes, will poorly relate to each other resulting in lack of efficiency, misunderstanding, poor productivity and indolence in all sectors the members will be stationed (Liu et al., 2011). Poor communication and later conflict may arise the moment the middle-level manager fails to promote cohesion among the selected a contemporary technical staff and the older staff. Further conflict will arise if the manager fails to foster a productive communication among the older staff, the women, and the younger staff members, leading to failure of production flow of pizza.

Role Confusion

Before the new team meant to increased proportion of women and young members was brought in by the middle-level manager, the team had 288 staff members working in one specific field for quite some time now. In such a case there is a likelihood that the team members may lack an understanding of their definite roles or even choose not to pursue constantly with their roles (Kerzner, and Kerzner, 2017). Therefore, there is failure to develop a tenacious and well-operational unit, consequently leading to conflicts.

Poor Work Environment

Within the company, there has been identified that some of the team members work in a physically demanding environment, possibly arising from inadequate hard and human resources, ineffective communication, specifically at the garnishing plant where there are heavy materials such as 20kg of cheese that need to frequently added into the processing plant. As asserted by Anantatmula (2010), it hinders the team to work effectively and attain increase production of quality pizzas customers are yearning for.

Required Knowledge and Commitment of the Individual

A lasting achievement of any business requires a diverse team knowledgeable and skilled, capable of bringing in fresh and different perspectives, views and ideas to the workplace. So it is crucial for the middle-level manager in Buitoni to select a team knowledgeable and skilled in production of frozen pizza that can meet the competitive market expectations.

Poor Communication

The moment the new staff was selected, the middle-level manager should take an initiative and involve the older team to induct the new team members concerning the production processes in each section and the challenges so that to gauge the level of communication existing and the exact form of communication applicable to foster the completion of various production, garnishing and packaging and consequently the production of pizza that customers will value more than the competitors (Cheung et al., 2013).

Role Confusion

The middle-level manager in the section, need to create specific, well- construed functions for each team member. He or she requires explaining each role, in triviality, and how shifts will interchange to each new and old members of the team to avert confusion. Kerzner H. and Kerzner R. (2017) illustrates that manager also has to monitor the members of the team to ensure they comply with their accredited roles.

Poor working environment

Building from Dollard and Bakker (2010) assertion, every team requires a friendly place to work. It is supposed to encourage, empower the team members to thrive and grow. Therefore, the middle-level manager is required to foster a conducive environment adequately equipped with hardware and human resources, specifically at the production and garnishing area where there are heavy products to be handled capable of fostering morale, portrays a supportive and involved in the team foster an easy flow of the production, garnishing and packaging.
In summation, bringing a group of diverse people with varying skills and techniques in a food production company like Buitoni, challenges are unavoidable. Issues such as poor working environment, required knowledge and commitment of the individuals, poor communication and role confusion leads to conflicts and would render to low quality and quantity of pizza to compete with rival companies. It is quite applicable for any dynamic and complex team of 288 members to ask for a strong manager for guidance, also able to take the time to assess potential issues of team growth and develop methods to deal with them before they arise.

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Reference

• Anantatmula, V.S., 2010. Project manager leadership role in improving project performance. Engineering Management Journal, 22(1), pp.13-22.
• Bradley, B.H., Postlethwaite, B.E., Klotz, A.C., Hamdani, M.R. and Brown, K.G., 2012. Reaping the benefits of task conflict in teams: The critical role of team psychological safety climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), p.151.
• Cheung, S.O., Yiu, T.W. and Lam, M.C., 2013. Interweaving trust and communication with project performance. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 139(8), pp.941-950.
• Dollard, M.F. and Bakker, A.B., 2010. Psychosocial safety climate as a precursor to conducive work environments, psychological health problems, and employee engagement. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(3), pp.579-599.
• Farh, J.L., Lee, C. and Farh, C.I., 2010. Task conflict and team creativity: a question of how much and when. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(6), p.1173.
• Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
• Liu, J.Y.C., Chen, H.G., Chen, C.C. and Sheu, T.S., 2011. Relationships among interpersonal conflict, requirements uncertainty, and software project performance. International Journal of Project Management, 29(5), pp.547-556.