Developing an effective team is a mandatory piece of work which is directly interacting with the main business process of the company. Many companies are enriched with this team development process to give the maximum to the customer end and as well as to the benefit of the company businesses. Having an effective, smart, and hard-working team(s) inside the development process of the company will help to reduce additional time, cost and resources. There are specific structure of the team building. They are, Functional teams' structure, Light weighted teams' structure, Heavy weighted teams' structure, and Autonomous team structures. In most of time companies will chose the most suitable team structure with relevant disciplines to give the maximum output to the market.
Considering the Skullcandy team development process, the company is in the promising stage of various kind of projects and researches to deliver innovative headphone and earphone. For that Skullcandy Company has made proper, convenient structure of team which led the company to the best position in the market. Skullcandy is one of the pioneers of best-selling headphones in the market recently. In the development process of the teams had been tough sometimes because of various types of development processes existed and that cause lack of manpower. However Skullcandy came up with steady team formation system which mostly help to growth the profit and customer base of the company.
Although the team composition is a mandatory work to avoid dispensable cost of the company. For that company must have good cross-functional communications between all departments wise. If there are any discrepancy between the development teams and other sector, will cause the detrimental to the company. Team size is also considerable manner because the larger team will expand the more expenses, communication problems, and costly delays and consequence will have to bear by the company and the social loafing will also increase one by one. Inside the bigger team some individuals will not give the maximum effort and commitment to the team. To get the maximum results of the work the team size will also be considerable factor. Cross-functional teams are also interacting with the different sectors to make sure the proper work flow among development process and different firms. Having cross-functional team in the development process will also help to obtain broader knowledge base to add into the process and that will help to manufacture reliable and accurate products.
With the consideration of the case, Skullcandy is having heavyweight team structure. The teams is in the cross-functional integration with other firms so they have good communication between all departments. But the team members are still need to report to the functional manager and everyone in the team significantly committed to the development process so the social loafing will not be a considerable matter. Because the heavyweight team structure is typically considered as most appropriate I've demonstrated the structure of the heavyweight team by the following figure according to the case given in the book,
Rick Alden
CEO
External and Industrial Design
Marketing and Creative
Pete Kelly
Dan Levine
Project Manager
Josh Poulsen
Above heavyweight team structure is a good example of proper team composition in Skullcandy. Although the team consist with the proper coordination and communication so the inconsistency of the work will not be a huge problem and also this heavyweight structure will help to increase the phenomenon called homophily. So the preference of working and familiarity of the working with teammates will not be a big issue. As we know everyone likes to associate people with similar ideas so the Skullcandy has done this to get rid of many discrepancies within the industrial environment. Skullcandy also done this with using heterogeneous teams, so it always helps to get the maximum out of it, because heterogeneous teams will increase the creativity and innovative decision making. With this heavyweight team building, Skullcandy has tip out of the Monotonous system so the innovative ideas and creativity always become dynamic and had a warm welcome by the end users.
Inside the heavyweight team there's skippers to conduct and monitor all of the tasks of the given development. And he/she must report to the project manager with the evaluation of the productions. So the project manager can get the idea of progress without interacting with the team members. So the inconvenience between project manager and the members will be minimized because of the skipper. And members of the team can correlate with other teams to work with different product development processes and the convenience of working with different sectors will increase the commitment and effort of the teams.
Research and development is also considerable piece of work that will help develop the team to get the most suitable ideas to the production so the creativity and the communication will be more comfort. Skullcandy integrated R&D to the team structure with cross-functional method to get the most out of the product. Developing the ultimate DJ headphone is a good example of cross-functional work. Rick Alden has gathered the particular individuals to the development and he assembled the team to develop DJ headphones. Skullcandy collaborated with Calvin "Snoop Dogg" Broadus and Michael "Mix Master Mike" Schwartz of the Beastie Boys to make an innovative headphone like Skullcrusher and ultimate DJ headphone. It's a good example of heterogeneous team involvement of the developing process.
As a result of collaboration Skullcandy introduced their Navigator Headphone on last December 2012, according to the Bloomberg Businessweek "Skullcandy has unveiled Navigator Headphone which is similar to its predecessor and Navigator promise to deliver extremely smooth sound and tightly controlled bass and ergonomic design and high quality memory foam ear cushions wrapped in premium leather creating a level of comfort perfect for long wear."
With consideration I characterize Skullcandy development team as heavyweight team and have all the components that are needed for the Skullcandy future developments. By continuing with heavyweight team structure will help Skullcandy to manufacture much better products, grow up the respective fields of development and collaborating with popular artists to make more business advantages.
Discuss the main source of innovation, and what are particularly important for a company such as Skullcandy and why?
There are four main innovation sources available, they are, individuals' creativity, research and development by firms, universities and government-funded research, and private nonprofit organizations. So with these four sources the innovation will be change accordingly.
1. The individual creativity is unique piece of work depending on the person's intellectual abilities, personality, motivation, knowledge style of thinking, and inheritance of the family.
2. Research and development by firms is another factor that inclined with mostly on researches. The innovation will come through the researches and most of time this is the typical factor comparing with the real world because most on innovative things introduced to the market after dozens of researches done. So the end product will be most accurate and reliable on the end users hand.
3. Universities and government-funded research will be important source because it comes from the public research institutes like Universities, government laboratories. And government funded researches also give support by making funds to develop most of small business so even if it is small and the results will be big.
4. Private nonprofit organizations is another source to consider because these organizations will not get any profit. So there intention is to contribute to the innovative activities in many complex ways. Even If the innovative activity is big and need to spend more money the nonprofit organizations will give their support anyhow.
With the discussing of above innovative sources, in Skullcandy is consisted with individuals' creativity, research and development by firms, universities and government-funded research. So these things are consist in the Skullcandy, Inc. because most of individuals' creativity will be first considerable manner. There's always giving chances to masterminds, to give the maximum accurate innovative ideas so that will not be big deal. And research and development is another main factor inside the Skullcandy because there team structure system is having cross-functional activities with that they can get maximum of the research and development. Another important factor is involvement of universities and government. Skullcandy is having heterogeneous team building systems so they always give chances to different type of individuals' to get involve with the development. So the universities and government intellectual properties shared with Skullcandy. Inc. after the successful invention introduced by Skullcandy the profit will be shared. So the particular universities has made technological transfer offices to give maximum on commercial purposes.
When considering above innovative sources the main reason that they exist is to give maximum on the commercial wise. So involving people with smart ideas will be the main reason of company to development progress and also researches with cross-functional activities that make individuals' homophily will also be main factors of success product. As considering Skullcandy case throughout this chapter the important thing that apparent to our mind is Skullcandy is one of the high class head/earphone manufacture and they have better team structure and yes they are on the right track of capturing every other headphone, earphone manufactures. Because they had Rick Alden to get their company to the top of globe by making high-class entertainment on every end users ears.
