ANSWERS TO OPENING CASE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why does Disney keep its development teams small?
Disney’s Director of Systems, Jonathan Geibel, had noticed that when teams had seven or more
2. What are the pros and cons of the teams being so autonomous?
Disney’s teams are not only autonomous in the structural way discussed by the chapter – they are
autonomous in their work routines, schedules, and decision making. Keeping the teams
autonomous and giving them great discretion over work habits probably encourages people to
3. Is Disney’s team approach mostly suited to creative projects, or would it work equally
well in other kinds of industries?
Organizations in many kinds of industries use autonomous teams, though not all will give as
much autonomy over work practices and schedules as is given at Disney. In a complex technical
ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why are there tradeoffs in choosing a team’s size and level of diversity?
Size and diversity are both factors that impact a team’s knowledge resources, and its ability to
communicate effectively. Larger and more diverse teams bring more knowledge, contacts, and
2. What are some of the ways that managers can ensure that a team reaps the advantages of
diversity while not being thwarted by some of the challenges team diversity raises?
First, managers can construct teams to tap diversity on some dimensions and commonality on
others. Team members may come, for instance, from different functional areas, but have worked
3. Can you identify an example of a development project and what type of team you
believed they used? Do you think this was the appropriate type of team given the nature of
the project?
Students should provide examples from their own exposure or experience. An example that was
brought up in one class follows: “The team established by the U.S. Navy to design flight helmets
is a good example of a cross-functional team. Team members included civilian and Navy
The team organized to develop the new helmet can be best described as a centralized venture
team because it was a permanent team working on continuous development of the product.
Through the use of civilian engineers and by concentrating Naval Air Systems development into
4. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of co-location? Are there some types
of projects for which “virtual teams” are inappropriate?
Co-location improves communication and can improve cohesion as team members develop
friendships and good working relationships. Face-to-face contact provides a channel for rich
communication, and can enable much greater information transfer than less contact heavy means
of communication. The long-term contact created by co-location also helps diminish the
difficulties faced by heterogeneous teams. On the downside, team members may not wish to
Virtual teams are difficult to utilize where the work requires a high degree of trust or the
exchange of significant amounts of tacit knowledge. A virtual team would be difficult in the
A virtual team worked very effectively for a group assigned to develop a new lending product for
a micro-lender operating on multiple continents. The home office assigned a consultant to serve
as the team leader and assigned one person in each office around the world to join the team. In
the first stage of the project, the team leader solicited input from all members via a written