You manage of team of 6 computer programmers Because your te

You manage of team of 6 computer programmers. Because your team has been so successful at completing high quality work, you boss wants to increase the size of your team to 18. Write a letter to your boss explaining why this is not a good idea. Use information gleaned from the textbook to craft your response.

Solution

To,

The Department Manager,

Computer Programming Division,

XYZ Company.

Respected Sir,

At the very outset I would like to thank you on behalf of my team members for acknowledging our hard work and wanting to increase the size of the team as a result of our high productivity and high quality output.

It is in this context that I would like to share my viewpoints. Keeping in mind management theory and theories as outlined in the domain of organization behavior it is a known fact that number of people on a team has significant impact on the overall performance of the team. The productivity of a team gets negatively impacted if the size of the team is increased substantially. Here we are talking about a three-fold increase, from a team of 6 programmers to a team of 18 programmers. Bringing about such a sudden change in team size will only lead to decay in effort as it will become difficult for team members to coordinate their efforts with other members. Another negative phenomenon that may arise is that of social loafing. When there are a high number of people in a team then there is a tendency by the team members to reduce their effort, productivity and output as they feel less responsible for the eventual outcome and the achievement of the team’s goals and objectives. Transparency level and accountability level will also reduce substantially.

My recommendation is to you is that we should increase the team size in a staggered manner rather than at one go. This will lead to better coordination and synchronization in the team. Accountability will not be diluted as members will be added one at a time and so there will be a clear demarcation of roles of different members within the team.

These suggestions are being made keeping in mind the best interest of the team as well as that of the organization.

Best Regards,

Mr. ABC.