Question

Morning Dew Company Ltd is a private company that has grown from small beginnings over the past 20 years to become a major supplier of hair-care products to the hairdressing trade. Its products are well liked by professional hairdressers and the company enjoys a dominant share of the market.

Morning Dew has not, until recently, considered supplying their products to the retail market, but enquiries from a major national retail chain has led to the supply of samples and the testing of Morning Dew shampoos amongst the chain’s customers. The outcome of the trial shows that users prefer Morning Dew shampoo over competing products and discussions have now moved to the possibility of Morning Dew becoming a regular supplier. Morning Dew management is attracted to the idea; it would enable them to expand their production and sales without the need to spend money on marketing, or to invest in setting up a new distribution system.

It is envisaged that products will be shipped in large quantities to the retailer’s regional distribution centres by a third-party transport company. There is, however, one major drawback: Morning Dew outsources the shampoo bottles from a supplier located 250 kilometers away; the distance as well as the dependency on the supplier’s support also worries them. The quotation from the transport company shows cost associated with the transportation of empty bottles to Morning Dew’s plant and the finished products to the retailer’s distribution centres will be quite high. However, there is a local supplier who could supply the bottles at a lower cost, the issue is Morning Dew has never dealt with this company.

Morning Dew Ltd, is a functional organisation with various departments such as finance, information technology, new product development, production, sales and marketing, human capital management, procurement and warehousing. The management is aware that there is additional capacity and also inefficiency in the organization. Morning Dew believes implementing lean principles for its operations will enable them to ramp up their production and meet the increased demands without overextending prior to stabilisation of the new opportunity. The management is also attracted to Agile approach and would like to implement agile best practice to complement lean implementation in their business functions.

Morning Dew currently employs a very basic quality control system for production and delivery. The company understands that to survive and thrive in a personal care product business, they will have to continuously innovate and improve their products and processes. The company has heard of Seven Quality Tools and other best practices used by larger companies and is interested to invest in a ‘Continuous Improvement’ initiatives to improve their quality management to align with and meet the requirements of the proposed lean processes.

The senior management team has decided that they will manage these tasks under a project. To that effect, a team called the ‘THE TIGER TEAM” will be formed. It will be led by a project manager and initially will have 3 to 4 project members. The senior management team realises that there are various leadership styles that may be suitable to guide this initiative.

Your tasks

This assessment item requires you to work in a group (no more than 3 students). You group will be treated as a project management consulting company for this assessment task.

Your company has been engaged as a consultant to assist Morning Dew’s senior management team identify ‘THE TIGER TEAM’   comprising of the project manager and several key team members who will spear head the implementation of lean principles in the company. The senior management team has asked you to provide a REPORT that covers the following:

Questions:

1. In your opinion what leadership style(s) should be adopted by the project manager to help bring about the necessary changes (lean principles and agile practices).
2. Determine and discuss the skills and competencies required by THE TIGER TEAM including the project manager to effectively bring about the changes.
3. Develop a continuous improvement plan (using the best practices taught in this unit) that could be implemented by ‘Morning Dew’ to facilitate and enhance their lean business operations. List your assumptions.
4. Develop a risk management plan including strategies, techniques and a risk register of top five risks, to ensure that problems and issues are identified early and managed effectively.

Answer 1

Answer to the first question:

Question # 1. In your opinion what leadership style(s) should be adopted by the project manager to help bring about the necessary changes (lean principles and agile practices).

Answer: Adoption of lean principles and agile practices requires situation awareness to the highest level. bases on the circumstances and the situation the decisions need to be made. Lean principles need to be followed by all the team members and they should be capable of adopting lean principles and agile practices. There would be a much higher level of teamwork and cooperation is required. Under such scenarios the Coach- Style or a situational leadership style would be the best suited for the project manager as he will have to develop the capability of each and every individual in the team and train them enough so that they can make the best decision under the given circumstance. Under lean principles we can not afford any type of waste and even the wastage time in seeking approvals. Therefore, the team must be delegated with the set of authorities to take the best decision, and the project manager role would be mainly to develop the skills and competency of the team members to get the work done as per strategic direction.