Leadership and Team Management at DSS Consulting: Case Study

This case study examines the team management practices at DSS Consulting, focusing on Chris Peterson's leadership of the Southwest Region team. It explores Peterson's decisions in developing and leading the team, including the relocation of team members, the organization of meetings for communication, and the definition of the DSS system. The case study analyzes the factors that influenced Peterson's decisions, such as recruiting experienced individuals and creating an optimistic environment. It then evaluates the effectiveness of these decisions, highlighting the team's cohesion and ability to solve problems. Furthermore, the case study considers alternative actions Peterson could have taken and analyzes the factors influencing Meg Cooke's response to the project. Finally, it explores how Chris Peterson should respond to Meg Cooke's questions, offering insights into future project management and leadership strategies within the context of DSS Consulting. The analysis draws upon several academic references to support its conclusions.

TEAM
MANAGEMENT
AT
DSS
CONSULTING

How did Chris Peterson develop & lead the Southwest Region team?
Team Members Development (7)
2 members from Contract Negotiations
2 members from Information Technology
2 members from Procurement and Systems
1 member from Facilities
Team Lead
Relocate to a new space
Complete existing consulting projects
Arrange meetings for flexible communication and sharing of experiences
Define the DSS system specifications and its usage
Plan and Budget for the system
Share work and receive feedback
Build the system into four components suitable for small districts
Inform the boss about the difficulties
Continue the project without any assurance of help
Generate project closure and get ready for beta-testing

What factors influenced Chris Peterson’s decisions?
 Recruit experienced and skillful people
in DSS consulting process and can
maintain a cohesive attitude in the
work atmosphere
 Co-locating the members to a new
space will prevent distractions and
allow to focus strictly on the
development of the product
 Arranging meetings for sharing of
experiences will make the members to
enhance free communication
 Conduct a team outing for
refreshment of the team members
(Rybakova, Vinogradova and Sizikova
2020, January)
 Maintain an optimistic environment
and constantly encourage the members
to be productive (Tabassi et al. 2017)

How would you evaluate these decisions?
 The team members believed that they had
great potential to work together and
agreed to work with competent friends .
(Lee and Ko 2019)
 They could focus on their work in their
new space and saw less members from
other teams
 They considered their group to be the best
one
 The members solved disagreements
without any animosity and was
comfortable to share information with
one another
 The team could finalize the
specifications after the outing and
recognized the steps to develop the
products and its associated protocols
(Alaidaros and Omar 2017)
 They conducted independent research
and completed the project within 10
days for beta testing (Aslam et al. 2017)

What could Chris have done differently?
Chris could have not relocated her
team to a new space to generate
communication with other teams (Sousa
and Rocha 2019)
He should have updated Meg about her
team’s progress quite more often like
other team leads
She could have awaited for the help
from the functional specialist regarding
the technical knowledge
She could have waited for Meg to
take more direct actions in helping
them out
She could have been more determined
to make the DSS project for larger
districts rather than confining the
project for smaller districts only(Andreu-
Andres et al. 2018)

What factors led Meg Cooke’s response?
 DSS could support limited
new products
 The other teams informed
that no district showed
interest in this type of
product
 Large districts will not
approve of this project
 Smaller districts will neither
benefit much from this
product
 Chris did not update Meg
continuously about the
progress of the project

How would you respond to Meg Cooke’s question as
Chris Peterson?
Return to the IT practice
group
Be appointed as a
functional specialist(Tsoy
and Staples 2018)
Gain specialized knowledge
about the DSS software
Identify different solutions
to the complex problems
that arose in this project
Gain confidence and in-
depth understanding to
carry out these projects
successfully in future

References
Alaidaros, H. and Omar, M., 2017. Software project management approaches for monitoring
work-in-progress: A review. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12(15), pp.3851-
3857.
Andreu-Andres, M.A., González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, F.R., Garcia-Carbonell, A. and Watts-
Hooge, F., 2018. Contrasting innovation competence FINCODA model in software engineering:
Narrative review. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, 11(4), pp.715-734.
Aslam, A., Ahmad, N., Saba, T., Almazyad, A.S., Rehman, A., Anjum, A. and Khan, A., 2017.
Decision support system for risk assessment and management strategies in distributed
software development. IEEE Access, 5, pp.20349-20373.
Lee, M.H. and Ko, K.M., 2019. The Influence of Supervisors’ Leadership Skills and Team
Cohesion on Team Performance in Environmental Service Industry. Ekoloji, 28(107), pp.1013-
1017
Rybakova, A., Vinogradova, M. and Sizikova, V., 2020, January. Advancing Leadership Careers
with Leadership Competences. In 5th International Conference on Social, Economic, and
Academic Leadership (ICSEALV 2019) (pp. 74-79). Atlantis Press.
Sousa, M.J. and Rocha, Á., 2019. Leadership styles and skills developed through game-based
learning. Journal of Business Research, 94, pp.360-366.
Tabassi, A.A., Roufechaei, K.M., Bakar, A.H.A. and Yusof, N.A., 2017. Linking team condition and
team performance: A transformational leadership approach. Project Management
Journal, 48(2), pp.22-38.
Tsoy, M. and Staples, D.S., 2018. Role of reputation cues in trust formation for a developer's
decision to join Open Source Software projects.