Marketing Project Team Experience, Coursework Example

The following team was organized with the purpose of developing and establishing a marketing T-shirt project. The main aim of the T-shirt project was to come up with a unique T-shirt print and design, which, on the one hand, would appeal to the large audience of customers and, on the other hand, would be competitive in regard to the already existing competitors in this field of business practice. However, the purpose of the whole team building and functioning process was to identify and put into practice the abilities that a team leader should possess and incorporate in order to ensure team’s successful functioning. Team size was determined by already existing criteria in the team building process. All together, there were five members, which, according to Holt (2002), corresponded to the optimum number of people on the team to ensure successful cooperation and to minimize the number of disagreements and personal conflicts inside the team.

When building a team, Bruce Tuckman’s four-stage team development model of forming, storming, norming, and performing was used (Lewis, 2004). The forming stage was identified with group discussion of individual abilities and roles and competencies assignment. The fact that the members of the team knew each other long before the project had started enabled a clear understanding of each other’s points of view, which, in this case, assured time-saving role-assigning and deadline-setting process. The storming stage was characterized by the team leader identification. At this point the prospective leader understood that the arising differences in the members’ viewpoints have to be properly managed for them not to turn into destructive conflicts (Lewis, 2004). So, the main steps taken during this stage were underlining the importance of compromise and mutual respect for team’s success, pointing out team’s mission clearly and assuring the significance of every individual’s contribution. The norming stage was a result of the successful fulfillment of the storming one. The members gained a strong sense of belonging to the team, which was supported by the rearrangement of personal schedules in order to meet team demands. Already during this stage break-through ideas could have been noticed, but they truly became evident during the performing stage. Productive brainstorming enabled the members to coordinate actions toward the accomplishment of individual assignments and ensured active participation in the maintaining and establishing process. The members were able to coordinate efforts in order to meet all the deadlines and requirements, which in the end resulted in the overall success of the project.

Talking about the most problematic part of the project, one should point out the brainstorming process. Taking in consideration the diversity and high competitiveness of the clothing industry, it was mind-boggling to come up with the T-shirt concept that would be able to stand out and attract customers in already existing clothing industry environment. In order to boost the ideas, members of the group gathered the opinions of their peers and acquaintances as to what kind of characteristics a T-shirt should possess in order to attract the attention as well as to awake the desire to purchase this particular one. Frankly speaking, it was easily sad than done. The brainstorming process turned out to be the most time-consuming and nerve-racking, as it usually is. In order to incorporate some assistance, the team researched the cases of already successful T-shirt campaigns that have gained the public appeal. Among those were the following: WWF, Race for Life, Ed Hardy and I © NY. It was clear that social issues and worldwide known sights were of the high interest to the public, but the team’s main concern was to come up with something simple and at the same time intriguing and eye-catching. In these challenging circumstances the leader of the team made an outstanding performance. The chosen proactive style of handling the problem consisted of constant assistance to the members to stay on the track of the issue, avoiding distractive ideas or side-tracked judgments. Combined with the clear understanding of the marketing strategies, leader’s proactive style gave the advantage of putting the team’s objectives as number one priority and encouraging cooperation and increased productivity by means of constant support and encouragement. As a result, the team was able to come up with a T-shirt concept, which encountered the ideas of all team members. It was a cooperated idea, which can be considered successful according to the appraisal and feedback, which the team gained from public. Interestingly, 75 out of 100 people said that they would purchase such a T-shirt if it was being sold in the store. Such result of the survey ensured the team that the project was a success and all the efforts were justified by public support.

All in all, there are a couple of factors that determine the effectiveness and productivity of the team work. First of all, the team work must be determined by certain rules. Among some of the ground teamwork rules are shared norms of behavior, which make the communication among members conflict-free and professional; other important rules are the equality of members’ rights and non-biased perception of every one’s ideas and ways of accomplishing the tasks, mutual respect and team interest (Mackin, 1994). The violation of the above rules most of the time result in arising conflicts and low productivity, as well as may cause the team to fail or withdraw from the project. Another point to consider is that team members must have a clear understanding of the project goals that are to be achieved. The goals should be clearly phrased in order to avoid false judgments or misleading interpretations. The goals can be also determined as a sum of clear, simple and understandable objectives or targets. As the number of objectives way outweighs the number goals, each member of the team should be assigned with specific role or roles. An obvious role is that of the designed group leader; others may be promoters, information gatherers, or liaison agents with other groups (MacGregor, 2007). The individual role assignments are to be coordinated by deadlines, which give each member a sense of importance of individual performance in regard to the level of accomplishment of the whole project. Another important element of team work effectiveness is team norms. According to MacGregor (2007) norms are standards of behavior or values that the group considers typical; they are usually determined by the group members and give a sense of belonging to the group and identification with it. Such feelings are essentially important as they encourage the members to cooperate and leave behind disagreements and conflicts. One cannot but agree the team’s cohesiveness depends on the communication among the team members. It is not only understanding and mutual respect that we are talking about here. Members must be able to reach each other and share ideas even outside the team gatherings. It is vital to keep in touch and contemporary technological gadgets lend a hand in accomplishing this objective. Nowadays, people are able to get through to each other and share information by means of cell phones, computers and internet. One can make a direct call or send a message, send an e-mail or use a messenger to get an instant response. Technology is an effective contributor to team work and it, together with the team rules, goals, norms and roles, are essential identifiers of team productivity and purpose accomplishment.

References

Holt, K. (2002). Market Oriented Product Innovation (p. 59). Springer.

Lewis, J. P. (2004). Managing Team Development. Team-Based Project Management (pp. 98-109). Beard Books.

MacGregor, M. G. (2007). Norms, Roles, and Expectations. Teambuilding with Teens (p. 42). Free Spirit Publishing.

Mackin, D. (1994). Team Behavior. The Team Building Tool Kit (pp. 53-57). AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.