CMI 505 Assignment Example
Introduction
Forming a team from three existing ones is harder than forming a team from nothing. Nobody arrives neutral. Each of the three legacy services has its own history, its own view of what students need, and its own opinion about which of the three has effectively been absorbed. The formation decisions taken over the coming weeks, about purpose, structure, roles and how difference is handled, will settle the team’s working culture more durably than anything attempted a year from now. What follows works through what has to be decided at formation, what marks a team as successful, why organisations run different kinds of team, which models and practices apply, what tends to go wrong, and how a team this new should be judged.
Table of Contents
LO1: Understand the purpose and characteristics of successful teams
AC 1.1 Examine the factors to consider when forming a team
A clearly articulated purpose that supersedes the legacy purposes. Each predecessor service had its own reason for existing, and simply summing them produces a merger rather than a team. The stated purpose, improving continuation and completion rates for students at risk of withdrawal, is broader than any legacy remit and belongs to none of them. Examining this factor first is essential in a merger, because in the absence of a genuinely new purpose, members default to the one they arrived with.
Existing relationships and history between members. Unlike a team assembled from strangers, this one carries accumulated relationships, including several that are difficult. Two of the legacy services have competed for the same institutional funding for four years. Examining prior history at formation, rather than discovering it later, allows deliberate design; ignoring it does not make it inert.
Perceived winners and losers. Where a merged team’s leader, location or operating model derives from one predecessor, the others read the outcome as absorption. This perception forms within days and is extremely difficult to reverse. It is a factor to be managed at formation, principally through visible even-handedness in early decisions.
Structure, grade and role design. Members arrive on different grades doing broadly comparable work, which is both an equity issue and a source of resentment. Role design must establish what the new roles are before people are matched to them, rather than preserving legacy roles under a new heading.
Formal consultation and employment obligations. Where a restructure affects roles, terms or reporting, statutory and institutional consultation requirements apply, and recognised trade unions are entitled to engagement. Examining this factor is not merely procedural: consultation conducted well is itself a formation activity, and conducted badly it poisons the team before it convenes.
Size and sub-structure. Twenty-six people exceeds the size at which a single team can operate as one unit, so the real design question is what sub-teams exist beneath the whole and how they relate.
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