Performance Of Team Baldwin At Success

Our team operated and managed the Littlefield Technologies facility over the span of 1268 simulated days. Our team finished the simulation in 3rd place, posting $2,234,639 in cash at the end of the game. We did intuitive analysis initially and came up the strategy at the beginning of the game. And then we applied the knowledge we learned in the class, did process analysis and modified our strategies according to the performance results dynamically. We have reinforced many of the concepts and lessons learned in class and had a better understanding of the operation of the Littlefield Technologies facility and how certain modifications would affect the throughput and lead time.

325.2.2: Improving Team Performance - The graduate analyzes the performance of a virtual team and proposes strategies to improve team effectiveness.

| Resource: The Lawrence Sports Simulation located at https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/vendors/tata/sims/finance/finance_simulation1.html Create at least three alternative working capital policies that reduce future difficulties, and make a recommendation on which policy Lawrence Sports should follow. Your recommendation must include:

Three key learning points from week one simulation that will be applied to the project plan are communication among team members, teamwork and research of project cost. Communication is vital to the success of this project because all participants need to understand the role they play as well as the impact each will have on the outcome of the project. Teamwork is another integral factor because everyone needs to be able to work cohesively and should someone fall short on their job, the other team members must feel confident enough to come to the rescue and step up to the plate. Furthermore, researching of the cost of all deliverables is equally important because knowing what the cost is will help in making decision as to how elaborate the project can be.

Instead of owning individual regions, the team discussed the previous year results and the upcoming year’s decisions together. We still gravitated toward initial biases: Jason gravitated toward marketing decisions, Ingrid spent time on capacity and operations, and Michael worked on the finances. Michael also managed the industry forecasting, keeping in mind major changes by ASF would also affect the Industry numbers.

Second, our team would have decreased our sales force even more (i.e. the number of sales staff). Each decrease in sales staff would have given us $50,000 additional money to use elsewhere in our budget...or not. We could have simply kept the cash on hand to go to our bottom line and increase profitability. Segment A had concerns around customer service and the ability to interact more with our sales engineers. To address segment A’s concerns, we would have shifted the allocation percentage of the remaining sales staff more to that segment. Totally cutting the sales force from segments C and D was the plan our team discussed and would have implemented. Lastly, the simulation is set up to make adjustments on a quarterly basis, our team decided we would not be as reactive to customer feedback. Making changes every quarter to address customer complaints and or concerns meant that we could potentially change an input too soon before realizing its true overall impact to our metrics. We agreed that we would have let some of the changes materialize over multiple quarters to see if there was a true

This part of the simulation deals with the effective team management features of situation and process.

Along with capacity, we also made it a focus to limit the amount of overtime and second shift workers. This kept our costs down and our profit margin wider. We paid attention to our inventory on hand and made sure to not schedule more production than was needed. Towards the later rounds, we really seemed to grasp the idea of the game, which can be seen in our large increase in profitability. In the Finance portion, we borrowed money in the first five weeks to pay off our current debt. As the game got into the later rounds we began paying off our current and long term debt because our profits were increasing at a higher rate. Overall, we believe that our group had a decent understanding of the concepts as we finished with high market share and profits.

We are team Baldwin, and we used two main strategies while playing Capsim. We focused on being broad cost leaders, and we were aggressive. During the practice rounds, we did not do well because of our lack of knowledge of the simulation and also did not really take the time to make appropriate decisions. When the real decisions started, we wanted to be broad cost leaders; dominant in all segments of the market, which included: Baker, Bead, Bid, Bold and Buddy. We were profitable, because we were competing against the other teams in all segments of the market. For this reason, we were able to compete against everyone and had captured 25.75% of the market share at the end of decision six. Additionally, we used an aggressive strategy; one of

This report provides an analysis of the following: the experience in the two Everest teamwork simulations, the results of the two sets of simulation and the communication structure and experience in the two Everest simulations. Method of analysis includes incorporating theories and concept in the course and discussing about the observation during the simulations. There are many concepts and theories which are discussed in this report such as the grouping modeling elements, communication structure, the effects of conforming and the benefits of conflicts and the benefits of effective communication. The report ends with a recommendation that the report could be improved if there is a comparison of the results of two teams

Virtual Team on the other hand is a group of people working across time, space, and organizational boundaries which communication links are strengthened by the internet. It should be noted that virtual teams can also mean individuals spread across different cultures and languages. (“Virtual Team - Origin, Definition and its Scope,” 2016). More so, this team of geographically dispersed professionals working together as a unit despite distance are committed to achieving a single objective, holding one another mutually accountable.

Despite of the fact that doing a simulation was our full challenge as first year students in the business diploma, we have enjoyed this practical learning experience. As we could involve ourselves during the BizCafé simulation, we have improved our knowledge of vital business factors and teamwork effects. Based on this beneficial experience, we have divided business essentials into two parts such as significant factors to start a business and to run a business. Therefore, through this summary, we would like to firstly focus on important aspects when starting up a business such as business and team organization, decision making, and team management. Secondly, we will describe noticeable factors when running a business as management, operations, marketing. Finally, we would like to suggest advices for effective performance that can motivate you to do differently in order to improve your business.

My assessment of the performance of our team (ACC-Baldwin) in Phase One is that we performed decently in terms of strategy, but we have a lot of room for improvement in terms of implementation of strategy in the simulation exercise.

If given the opportunity to re-do the simulation, our top priorities would be to manage the allotted time more efficiently in order to improve decision quality, provide resolution certitude and ensure that each team member is adequately informed and prepared prior to meeting. During the simulation, we were given a finite timeline in which to analyze and input decisions; however, we failed to create a sense of urgency within our group, which encumbered the decision-making process and consequently, led to rushed decisions as time ran out. A team member should have been appointed as a designated timekeeper for time monitoring purposes.

The simulation taught me the benefits of outsourcing, the advantages of an ambitious target scope, the relation between SL and TM and the importance of communication.