Military Arsenal Systems: Preparing to Lead a Team
Question 1: Gibson’s Departure
Triple Constraint
Triple constraint focuses on three major aspects that include cost, time and scope. The cost element hold that all projects are accomplished in consideration to finite budget. Time involves setting project completion dates. The scope of the project should be well defined from the start to avoid confusions. For the project to be successful, all the three aspects should be maintained. However, this is the different case for XR-16 THOR program. The lack of effective communication among the team members contributes to the failure of the program. For example, Gibson agreement on the budget on some of the projects with customers and fail to inform other team members affects the elements of time and scope. According to Ebbesen & Hope (2013), if project cost is reduced, then either time is increased, or scope is reduced.
Project and Organization Management:
The XR-16 THOR program was well aligned with the organization management. Gibson was the leader of the XR-16 THOR program and always reported to the top management as required. However, his leadership style hampered the effective execution of the program. There was no link between team led by Gibson and the company chain of command.
Military Arsenal Systems: Preparing to Lead a Team
Team Functioning:
For the team to function effectively, communication and understanding of each other are necessary recipes (Nguyen, 2016). However, this was not the case for XR-16 THOR program. Gibson ignored and refuted the suggestion of Abraham of meeting every week to understand team dynamics. This was the beginning of the disgruntled team for XR-16 THOR program. 
Customer Management/Satisfaction:
Either customer management or satisfaction that was appropriate. Lack of communication led to the production of the products that did not satisfy the customer needs or did not meet their expectations.
Questions 2: Abraham’s Assessment on his new roles based on the following aspects.
Engineering.
Abraham has the essential engineering skills to help the revitalization of XR-16 THOR program. His experience as an engineer enough to assume to the position of Gibson.
Management:
Apart from an experienced engineer, Abraham possesses good leadership and management styles. He gets along with other team members as well as customers. From the observation of his leadership style, this paper concludes that he exercises transactional leadership style. This type of leadership calls for frequent interaction between the leader and his or her subjects (Ingram, 2014).
His Team:
Abraham has maintained good communication with his team, and therefore it will be easy to understand team dynamics possessed by different team members. Abraham believes in the power of team motivation.
Military Arsenal Systems: Preparing to Lead a Team
The Customer
He understands the customer needs well. For example, during the Gibson leadership, he would take customers through the steps necessary for the completion of their projects.
The Company
Abraham gets well with the top management of the company. He is open to them, and readily discuss any matters essential for the accomplishment of the company objectives and strategic goals.
Himself
Abraham believes in himself. That is why he went to the top company management and requested to volunteer to occupy Gibson position. He had strong self-belief that being in that position he will turn things around for the XR-16 THOR program.
Question 3: Abraham Team Members Analysis.
First, Abraham’s team members feel demotivated. This is because all their suggestions were despised during Gibson leadership. They have a feeling that their value and contribution to the project is not being recognized. Besides, the lack of effective communication among the team members has led to poor performance of the XR-16 THOR program. Therefore, the key issues that Abraham should deal with are motivation and effective communication. Apart from financial rewards, Abraham should focus on sending congratulation messages for the job well done. He should also focus on taking them to lunch and conducting team meetings frequently to highlight any arising issues. On communication aspect, Abraham should encourage team members to focus on understanding one another and learn to tolerate each other team members’ views and suggestions. Secondly, all issues concerning the team including meetings with the customers should be openly discussed by all the team members.Question 4: Recommendations to Abraham upon taking Team Leadership Position based on Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model.
Creating Urgency: For the Abraham to change his team, he has to establish a sense of urgency that can be resolved through change. This will spark the team members’ motivation towards getting things done.
Developing a Powerful Coalition: Abraham needs to connivance to his team members that change is essential. However, it may difficult for the Abraham to do this alone. Therefore, he needs the support of the senior management team. Both Abraham and the company top management must portray that change is needed through leading by an example.
Creating a Vision for Change: A clear organization and team vision will help Abraham’s team align their efforts with the strategies of achieving the desired vision.
Communicating the Vision: The vision will remain meaningless if the leader does not communicate it to his or her team (Auguste, 2014). Likewise, Abraham will be required to communicate the organization vision to his team. In the event of communicating the vision, Abraham should “walk the talk.”
Removing the Obstacles: Any change will be faced with hurdles. This is because there are those who will change and those who will be against change (Auguste, 2014). Abraham should reward people accepting the change and identify the ones against change to help them realize the importance of the anticipated change.
Creating Shor-Term Wins: Success is the key motivating factor (Auguste, 2014). Despite the long-term objectives of the team, Abraham should create sub-projects and reward his upon the project success.
Building on Change: Declaring and celebrating the victory without building on the project will lead to the failure of the project (Auguste, 2014). Therefore, in addition to the short-term wins, Abraham should focus on identifying what went wrong and what needs to be improved. This will facilitate continuous building on the change.
Incorporating the Changes in the Organization Culture: Corporate culture determines how people behave and interact with one another at the workplace. Integrating the changes in the company culture is the ideal goal of initiating change (Auguste, 2014). Therefore, Abraham should make sure the team takes the changes as the norms that should be observed all the times while in the workplace.Question 5: Tuckman Model for Team Formation in Relation to Abraham Case
From the analysis of this case, it is clear the Abraham team is at norming stage. At this phase, team members respect the authority of the leader, appreciates their teammates’ efforts and can resolve their differences (Wilson, 2010). For Abraham’s case, Hampton, a teammate, is respected and liked by other team members for executing her tasks effectively. Similarly, Welker can communicate with his leadership ambitions to his colleagues. This means that team members understand each other and are capable of accommodating one another.
According to Tuckman, at this stage, the team can fall back to storming phase (Wilson, 2010). Additionally, the team will not work effectively if do not shift into performing stage. Abraham can advance his team to the next level by observing the following approaches. First, avoiding friction among the members. For example, Wallace is not getting well with her fellow team members. Secondly, Abraham will delegate much of his work and focus on developing the team. Thirdly, he should make sure the new employees who join the team will not disrupt its performance. This will help execute the project at hand to the end. Military Arsenal Systems: Preparing to Lead a Team