...Chai Mengqi Lei Group #4 Shan Xu Anqi Wei Yiran Zhu Yuting Chai Mengqi Lei Course #7260 Group Case Analysis Paper Henry Tam and the MGI Team Question # 3 At the end of the case, what actions could Henry have taken to improve the team’s effectiveness? Course #7260 Group Case Analysis Paper Henry Tam and the MGI Team Question # 3 At the end of the case, what actions could Henry have taken to improve the team’s effectiveness? Henry Tam, a MBA student at the Harvard Business School, joined the start-up company Music Games International to compete in the HBS Business Plan Contest. The team of 7 had a diverse background in culture and professions. Still, such cultural and value differences slowed down the progress on the business plan for a CD-ROM music game, MGI’s self-developed product. With the plan due in 3 weeks, Henry should step out and lead the team to survive the chaos in terms of setting clear goals, rebuilding the team and smoothing conflicts. Goal setting is crucial to keep a team on the right track and build momentum within the team. Agreeing on a target is especially vital to the MGI team at this point. By suggesting that Alex conduct an objective industrial research and consulting experts in music education industry, Henry could show that this product will achieve huge success in education market and entering the entertainment industry could be the team’s long-term goal. Afterwards he and Dana could...
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...HENRY TAM AND THE MGI TEAM CASE STUDY Introduction In our opinion, this case study is deemed an exercise in management technique. The case study is detailed with diverse factors and encompassing the breadth of management science. The Music Games International (Hereafter referred to as “MGI”) team comprised of seven (7) members as stated - The group is extremely diverse comprising of the following, Henry Tam and Dana Soiman were final semester students at Harvard Business School (Hereafter referred to as “HBS”) working on the business plan not just for the competition, and as a professional challenge as soon. For the founders, Sasha Gimpelson was known for his unconventional ideas. Igor Tkachenko, an accomplished musician and Roman Yakub, a composer. Alex Sartakov -introduced to the group through a mutual friend of Igor and Sasha, he had music background, Dav Clark was a MIT graduate had a software background and was also planning to enter the MGI case for the MIT business plan contest. To our understanding, the gist of Henry Tam and MGI Case Study refers to development of a business plan for MGI (as a submission to the annual business plan contest of HBS and, the business plan should be the blueprint for the future; to commercialize their products via educational learning tool and/or an entertainment/gaming portal). Question 1 What is your evaluation of the MGI’s team process? What were the roots causes of the team’s process problems? In evaluating the team's...
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...Report on the case “Henry Tam and the MGI team” In partial fulfilment of WAC course Submitted by: Nishant Prateek Minz Executive Summary Henry Tam, an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School, is facing the problem of bringing together his team on common grounds regarding MGI’s submission for the annual HBS business plan competition which could provide him with good credentials and the company with the jumpstart it needs. The members of the team had approached Henry with their business plan and wanted to enter into the contest which could provide them with venture capitalist funding and expert advice for its future. The assembled team has a lot of disagreements and no clear hierarchical structure which has often resulted in clashes between individual ideas and no definite plan for presentation. With the deadline looming near, Henry was faced with the challenge of putting together a coherent business plan in time. It is recommended that the team mutually appoint a neutral third person experienced in business plan development to take the final decision regarding the B-plan formulation. Contents Executive Summary 2 Introduction 4 Situation Analysis 4 Problem Statement 4 Alternatives 4 Evaluation Criteria 4 Evaluation of alternatives 5 Recommendation 5 Action Plan 6 Introduction MGI (Music Games International) is a small start-up company which was founded by Alexander...
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...Henry Tam is a student looking for a challenge and jumps right into one when he decides to join with the MGI (Music Games International) ownership as part of a school competition (The HBS Business Plan Contest). There are seven members in the team comprised of the three founders of MGI– Igor Tkachenko, Alexandra (Sasha) Gimpelson and Roman Yukab, Henry Tam Jr. and Dana Soiman of HBS MBA class students, Dav Clark from MIT and Alex Jan Sartakov from Boston Berklee College. The team had little success thus far working together having experienced conflicts and tensions. But there are several issues in the team. The problems in the team are: 1. They did not divide the task into sub tasks. 2. There seemed to be a main group and subgroups with no integration. 3. No team leader was officially appointed or nobody was empowered to define the role structure, the decision-making process and assessing team performance. 4. They did not set the norms and values and did not spend time developing a good working culture from the start. Actually the team demonstrated some key strength. The team is consisting of multi talented team composition. The founders' commonality in ethnic background, close friendship and shared passion on their product was great and there was complementary skill sets contributing from the various team members and their shared commitment to the business. However, there is issue for the personality of the MGI team founders. They had a history of not getting along...
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...Henry Tam And The Mgi Team Case Category: Literature Autor: tasha129082 03 February 2010 Words: 1587 | Pages: 7 Henry Tam and the MGI Team Case - Main Managerial Problem On the surface, the seven-member MGI team which comprised of Henry Tam and Dana Soiman – both current HBS MBA Students, Alex Sartakov – a Berklee College of Music student, Dav Clar – a MIT graduate student, and Alexander (Sasha) Gimpelson, Igor Tkachenko, and Roman Yakub – the MGI founders, seems like an ideal team, with each member bringing different experiences and technical skills to help with the business plan contest at HBS. However, as we will see in this paper, interpersonal dynamics, a lack of clear leadership, resulting in unclear team goals and individual roles, and a lack of healthy group norms, contribute to an ineffective team process at MGI. With the deadline less than three weeks away and the team without even a first draft of the business plan, Henry is certain that the team would not meet the deadline if it continued to function as it had so far. Case Analysis Team Process is defined as the team members’ behaviors and interactions, occurring over time. It is through this process that all of the members’ expertise and knowledge, along with other inputs, functioning in the group environment, manufacture an output. MGI’s team process seems ineffective, resulting a lot of conflicts among the subgroups of the MGI team and inability to complete the business...
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...Henry Tam and MGI Team Within the MGI team there was four key factors that led to problems with the team: the organizational structure, the lack of establishment of team values or vision, no development of trust, and the lack of acknowledgment of the team members personal needs. From the first meeting it was clear that the team had no defined organizational structure. There was no designated leader and were no roles established. The problem with this was that the team members all had different goals and directions for the company. As a result you see different frustrations arise between the team members because there expectations for one another have not been clearly defined. For example, Henry and Dana saw themselves as strategic contributors to the business plan and direction of the company, while Sasha seemed to see them more as interns or business plan writers. Igor on the other hand, agreed with Henry and Dana’s vision of their roles within the team. Without a clear leader there was no vision or core group values system established. Some of the members wanted to market the product towards an educational route while other team members wanted to focus more on the entertainment industry. After the second meeting, Alex noted that the meeting was ‘’very unorganized brainstorming and there was here was no structure.’’ There was no one to control or guide the team or assess the team’s overall progress. Everyone was constantly drawn back to lengthy ‘’brainstorming sessions’’...
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...Indian Institute of Management Indore A Report on ‘Henry Tam and the MGI Team’ Sayantan Banerjee Submitted to: Professor (Dr.) Abha Chatterjee Subject: WAC 27th February 2015 Submitted by: Sayantan Banerjee - 2014PGP341 Letter of Transmittal Dear Professor Abha Chatterjee, Enclosed is the report you commissioned on 19th February 2015 on the topic of ‘Henry Tam and the MGI Team’. The main findings of this report are – * Unless roles of individuals in a team are well defined, it’s difficult for work to be completed * In the absence of a proper leader, even the best of ideas go to waste * Diversification in a team might lead to conflicts which must be sorted out fast I would like to thank you for the opportunity this report gave me to familiarize myself with the various aspects of team building and the various problems that can arise due to working in a team. It also helped me to develop my research skills and understanding of organizational behaviour, which will be valuable for future reports. Regards, Sayantan Banerjee Executive Summary Henry Tam and Dana Soiman were two HBS graduates who were working with Music Games International (MGI) to formulate a business plan for an upcoming business plan competition in Harvard. This would form the basis of launching the new product developed by MGI. However the team issues and constant addition of new members, conflicts among the team members and lack of zeroing in on one idea, the business...
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...Henry Tam entered the HBS Business Plan contest hoping to gain experience above and beyond the normal HBS curriculum. He teamed up with interactive music-based game start-up company, Music Games International (MGI). From the outside, Henry seemed to be part of a well designed and diverse team. However, the lack of team preparation has led to poor team processes and left MGI with no tangible business plan three weeks before the deadline. However, MGI’s team processes can still be improved through Henry’s integration efforts. The real crux of MGI’s poor ‘Team Process’ or, the “the interactions that group members undertake in a team environment that convert members skills, expertise, and other inputs into a group project or other form of output” (Polzer, HBS Case #9-403-094), was based on the following: a lack of common goals, lack of team roles, and lack of information exchange. Fundamental components such as the 'Available Resources', 'Incentives or Rewards', 'Roles and Responsibilities' were never reviewed during the Launch Meeting (Polzer, HBS Case #9-403-094). The MGI team’s failure to agree on common team goals and to define formal roles for its members upfront are the root causes for its poor team processes. Henry and Dana saw the business plan competition as an opportunity to gain business development experience with a start up and contribute to MGI’s vision; however, Sasha envisioned them as “interns”. When Sasha handed them an envelope of alumni names to cold-call...
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...9 -4 0 4 -0 6 8 OCTOBER 20, 2003 JEFFREY T. POLZER INGRID VARGAS HILLARY ANGER ELFENBEIN Henry Tam and the MGI Team Henry Tam felt tired and extremely frustrated. He was halfway through his final semester in the MBA program at Harvard Business School (HBS), and things were not going as expected. Spring break was about to start, but Henry, like many others in the class of 2002, was feeling the pain of the worst job market in over a decade. Henry recalled the troubled sentiment around campus: Going to business school during the aftermath of the Internet crash changed everything. Before the crash, the feeling was that if you graduated from HBS, you could take on the world. Now people were feeling a lot more insecurity. I was having some doubt about my own capabilities—about what I could accomplish on my own. Anxious to test his abilities and distinguish himself beyond the standard curriculum, Henry had decided to enter the School’s annual business plan contest. About six weeks earlier, in late January, Henry had teamed with HBS classmate Dana Soiman and the founders of start-up company Music Games International (MGI). The MGI founders—an HBS alumnus (MBA ’87) and two professional musicians—later brought two additional students from other institutions onto the team, creating a group composed of diverse views and talents. (See Exhibit 1 for team member bios.) The team was dynamic but very conflicted, and progress on the business plan had been slow. They had a promising product:...
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...Henry Tam and the MGI team Henry Tam and the MGI team Introduction When working with a team there is a number of issues that a leader of a group should address so as to ensure that the group works effectively. In group dynamics a leader should seek to understand the behavior of the team members and how the team works in attempting to make a decision or to solve a problem. A leader with expertise in team processes can help the team in achieving its objectives and aims by analyzing how the team is functioning in terms of decision making and problem solving, the leader should also be able to intervene and change the team’s operating behavior. A team is usually gathered for the purpose of accomplishing a given task, In the case of Henry Tam and the MGI team they are required to come up with a business plan within the contest deadline. There are a number of issues that challenge the team like team communication, analysis of issues and achieving group outcomes. In addressing this issues there needs to be a leader with expertise in group processes who will be helpful in playing the role of a facilitator. The team leader usually has a very strong influence on the team as he/she is tasked with the role of shaping the outcomes of the group. The influence that such a team leader has on the team will be determined by numerous factors namely; the leader’s personality, relative age, sex appearance, income, race and also the organizational structure in the given organization...
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...-4 0 4 -0 6 8 OCTOBER 20, 2003 JEFFREY T. POLZER INGRID VARGAS HILLARY ANGER ELFENBEIN Henry Tam and the MGI Team Henry Tam felt tired and extremely frustrated. He was halfway through his final semester in the MBA program at Harvard Business School (HBS), and things were not going as expected. Spring break was about to start, but Henry, like many others in the class of 2002, was feeling the pain of the worst job market in over a decade. Henry recalled the troubled sentiment around campus: Going to business school during the aftermath of the Internet crash changed everything. Before the crash, the feeling was that if you graduated from HBS, you could take on the world. Now people were feeling a lot more insecurity. I was having some doubt about my own capabilities—about what I could accomplish on my own. Anxious to test his abilities and distinguish himself beyond the standard curriculum, Henry had decided to enter the School’s annual business plan contest. About six weeks earlier, in late January, Henry had teamed with HBS classmate Dana Soiman and the founders of start-up company Music Games International (MGI). The MGI founders—an HBS alumnus (MBA ’87) and two professional musicians—later brought two additional students from other institutions onto the team, creating a group composed of diverse views and talents. (See Exhibit 1 for team member bios.) The team was dynamic but very conflicted, and progress on the business plan had been slow. They had a promising...
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...Henri Tam and the MGI Team : Written Case Analysis Henry Tam faced a difficult challenge as he began his business plan project with Music Games International (MGI). The root of the problem is that the company culture is not adaptive. This means that the team members do not come together and support change to enhance their productivity. In this instance, it causes the team not to be as effective as they otherwise would. During the course of the project, Henry encountered several difficulties. The group lacks an effective leader. He has to step in to establish better management of agreements and build unity and encourage collaboration through supporting, empathizing, and harmonizing. Finally, their group lacks greatly in having clear stages of development. He needs a clear understanding of the stages of group development. In order to advance the group, I recommend that they make changes in their strategy to form the cohesion in their group. First, they need to overlook personality conflicts to facilitate agreement. A group of highly talented people does not mean guaranteed success. They must delegate tasks and be consistent in their decisions. Another recommendation is to establish a clear team leader to develop credibility. This will allow the group to develop focus and influence, and motivate them to greater effort. Third, I recommend they set clear expectations and boundaries. Doing so will increase efficiency and clarify roles and agendas. Finally, they need to establish...
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...Introduction The overall team process of MGI seems dysfunctional and ineffective; members forming the MGI team brought a variety of skills set resulting from the multi-talented compositions, diversity in ethnic backgrounds, close personal relationships and a shared desire for the product. The main task for the team was to launch a product at the Harvard Business School (HBS) business plan contest, however, the team has failed in delivering such product for the lack of group roles, defining objectives and facilitating communication among themselves. The MGI lacked a manager to lead the group assignments and making sure every task is performed for the best interest of the group; which is completing the task in the given time frame. There was no structure and clear role assignment for members, this led to having more and more conflict among team members that affected the communication process as well as the outcome of the group. Not only ineffective communication was created in such team forming setting, but also a misunderstood perception for each member’s role was generated. One given example, when Dav joined the group, Henry and Dana did not know the intentions for the team founders as to themselves, as they had no idea what Dav’s role was in the team, which affected the team work as a whole. Also, as Henry thought they were very clear in respect to each member’s role that’s been placed initially, each member played a facilitator, moderator, task manager, and strategic thinker...
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...The Henry Tam case is in the course packet. Make sure to pay attention to both the case text and the exhibits when you prepare your analysis. 90% of the score will be based on content, as discussed in the critical thinking grading rubric. 10% will be based on style. While it will be okay to fill in the table below with bullet points, each bullet point should be a full sentence. The analysis should be comprehensive, yet concise; there is no minimum or maximum word count. Grammatical and spelling errors will lower your style score. Total value: 22 points. 1A. Please analyze the opportunity: Customer value 1. Who is end user and purchaser/decider? Is this a Pro or con and why? The target market is something the team struggles with throughout the case. The students (Henry and Dana) believe the ideal market is the education market (i.e. elementary school aged children), however the founders believed they should be going after the entertainment market (i.e. junior high and above). Both have sound reasoning for their opinions; however I tend to side with the students that the best approach in the beginning would be to go after the education market because of the inherent benefits available. I will be answering the questions based on the standpoint their target market is the education market. In the education market, the end user would be younger children (elementary school aged children) with the decision maker being their parent or their music teacher...
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...the MGI’s team processes? What were the root causes of the team’s process problems? The MGI team focused more on brainstorming new and alternate ideas rather than identifying and defining the existing problem and finding a solution for it. The team members had disagreements over each other’s expertise and often ended up in conflict. The Team focused more on their personal conflicts rather than working together and finalizing a solution. The Team was composed of individuals with diverse functional attributes. These attributes were different way of thinking, different approaches to time management and problem solving, which resulted in lack of leadership, roles and unclear goals. The Team was more focused on launching the business successfully then winning the competition. There was a lot of conflicting expectations and some confusion between different team members. We evaluated that the team forming took in different phases over few weeks. Not everyone was present in the first meeting. Roman was not present in the first meeting. Alex was introduced in the second meeting and Dav was included in the third meeting. This evaluation also highlights the importance of kick-off meeting. The team should have been organized from the start with clear goals, scope and newness should have been avoided or minimized. We also evaluated that the Team did not discuss the norms and values of the team which would have helped them achieve their goals. Some of the team members were...
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