1. CASE STUDY
MEDISYS CORP
THE INTENSE CARE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
TEAM
SUBMITTED TO
MR.. JOHN STEEN
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
SUBMITTED BY
MUDIT SRIVASTAVA
STUDENT ID:- 44265531
2. CONTENTS
• Introduction to MediSys Corp.
• Situation in MediSys
• Project Intenscare & Timeline
• Team of Intenscare
• Minto Pyramid-: Complications that are to be resolved
• Minto Pyramid:- The Modular design
• Recommendations
3. INTRODUCTION TO MEDISYS
BACKGROUND
• United States based private medial devices manufacturer founded
in 2002.
• Annual revenue in 2008 - $ 400 million
• Entrepreneurial culture encourages innovative thinking.
• Employee count – 1750
• Makes institutional products – caters to hospitals
• First two products-
• Pulmonary monitoring system
• Renal monitoring system
MediSys Corp.
4. SITUATION IN MEDISYS
• Art Beaumont, the new president, was hired to re-stimulate
the rapid growth.
• A huge investment ($20.5 million) in IntensCare has meant
that MediSys is exposed to large financial risk.
• Facing complications to be resolved for IntensCare project
• MediSys should not go for modular design in this launch
• MediSys need to resolve the complications faced by them
internally
5. PROJECT INTENSCARE & TIMELINE
•R&D person gets inspiration of the
project
Sept- 2006
•Sales person check feasibility in
market
Oct-2006
•Included a software developerDec-2006
•Ad-hoc team presented idea to
senior leaders
June-2007
•$500,000 allocated for developmentJuly-2007
•Art Beaumont hired as a presidentJan-2008
•Beaumont formalized team for
development
Aug-2008
•Intens care launch dateAug-2009
Intenscare is a patient
monitoring system that
would collect data on
patient in intensive care
unit-
• Post it to an electronic
database that would
provide an integrated
profile of an individual
patient’s health.
• Would send an email
message to various
physicians and nurses
6. THE INTENSCARE TEAM
Name Post Description
1 Valerie Merz
Marketing
Manager
Concerns focused on the budget and delivery of the
product.
The lack of information constrained her ability to work.
2 Jack Fogel
Senior
Production
Manager
Concerns focused on the production details.
His one dimensional approach (technical production)
limited his understanding of marketing and sales issues .
3
Dipesh
Mukherjee
Software
Manager
Concerns focused on managing issues in India related to
software development.
He portrayed confidence about the ability of the overseas
personnel to deliver quality software.
4 Bret O’Brien
Senior
Engineering
Manager
Concerns focused on how to utilize the human resources
available for this project.
He opposed Valerie Merz’s product modularization
proposal.
5 Karen Baio
Regulatory
Affairs
Concerns focused on how to meet the strict quality and
regulatory medical industry’s standards.
Team members avoided dealing with her due to the nature
of her role (quality).
6 Aaron Gerson
Research and
Concern was the overseas software development team.
Concern about the success of Medisys’s approach to
9. RECOMMENDATIONS
• Senior level involvement to ensure that the goals of the
organization and product development teams are being met.
• Addressing the team conflict head on would have benefitted
the team.
• The IntensCare team needs to conduct an immediate team goal
setting session.
• Change of work culture should have had a better
implementation.
MediSys Corp., a privately held medical device manufacturer, founded in 2002. With its annual revenue $400million, the company employed 1750 people. The average value of annual shipment paid per employee in the medical equipment industry was approx. $190,000.
MediSys first two products were highly successful. Its entrepreneurial culture had fostered innovative thinking across the company, and as a result, numerous initiatives were at a stage of development.
Though the company was relatively small, the company was highly profitable.
The Board of MediSys predicted the early signs that growth was slowing as, despite entrepreneurial culture which previously bought growth of MediSys, some managers had become entrenched in their functional roles.
To counter the threat of slowdown, Art Beaumont, an aggressive new president, was hired which had to sharpen focus on preserving the innovative culture and stimulating rapid growth.
Project Intenscare
Modular design??
It helps the customer to tailor the system to a variety of clinical situations such as
Neonatal intensive care
Day surgery
Field hospital
Benefits to MediSys
Will get much wider segment of hospitals to military organizations to a variety of clinical arrangements.
Timeline
Aaron Gerson from R&D came up with idea for patient monitoring.
Peter Fisher from sales tested it with clients and found great interest.
Both invited a third friend from software to chat who this might work.
Progress was slow and the team members were often pulled away for work on other priorities.
Peter Fisher got promoted to vice-president of Sales and Marketing.
Aaron Gerson and Bret O’Brien were from the ad- hoc team in newly formalized team.
The team of project IntensCare
The team formed was counter productive to developing the IntensCare product. They barely meet once a week, and the male members of the group have informal meetings that are causing problems for the rest of the team.
The lack of leadership, guidance and communication are causing critical issues to go unresolved.
Aaron Gerson had a good rapport with all team members and a thorough understanding of the product yet he was replaced by Jack Fogel by Mr.. Beaumont.
Jack Fogel goals interfered with the overall business purpose of the project, which consisted of getting ahead of competitors regarding product delivery.
Conversely, Valerie Merz’s goals felt in line with Mr. Beaumont’s goals, yet she did not have a good rapport with the rest of the team.
Minto Pyramid :-
The Pyramid has been broadly divided into two parts first parts covers the complications to be resolved by MediSys of its own whereas, the second part is about the external issue over which MediSys has no control.
A. Internal Issues
Management issues
Change of culture
MediSys employees well received the parallel development concept, yet it did not enhance the product development process.
The lack of process improvement resulted from numerous conflicts of interest caused by maintaining the original functional structure.
Time Management
The concept of Intenscare was shown by ad-hoc team in June 2007, but it took more than a year to MediSys to formalize team.
Unavailability of staff
Medisys allocated extra 20 million dollars specifically for Intenscare, yet Mr. Beaumont did not hire employees to work solely on this project.
Assessed Medisys's human resources incorrectly, allocated workforce to Intenscare from other projects of the company without considering labor shortage in critical departments such as
engineering departments
software development departments
Resources shortage and sharing among Medisys’ projects limited the contribution of team members to achieve the goal of launching IntensCare before any major competitor.
Team related issues
Mr.. Beaumont appointed Jack Fogel as Intenscare’s project leader. His goals interfered with the overall business purpose of the project, which consisted of getting ahead of competitors regarding product delivery.
Valerie Merz’s goals felt in line, yet she did not have a good rapport with the rest of the team.
Individualism portrayed by Intenscare’s members made impossible to make right decisions based on fair compromise.
Technical Issues
The constant delay by the Indian firm for software development.
Problems in fitting data display and battery units as per customer specifications.
Modularization initiative driven by marketing and sales was not originally in the scope of the project.
B. External Issues
It is given that two big competitors with massive financial backup has entered into the market and has announced the product similar to IntenseCare within the year.
Minto Pyramid :- should not go for Modular design in this launch
The Modular design for the IntensCare product is highly recommended which will ensure the success of the product.
But the current development stage suggest that MediSys must consider for latter stage as -
It will require redevelopment.
As it is the current development is facing problems.
Product might not be completed by release date which will act as a benefit for competitors.
Therefore the company must consider it for second generation of IntensCare product.
With not much time in hand, it is the responsibility of the president to step in and re-energize the IntensCare team along with assistance from the executive committee.
Mr. Beaumont needs to open the channels of communication between him, the executive committee and the team.
The president needs to create a position on the executive committee just for product development.
It was necessary for the team to resolve their problems together which would have given them a feel of a stronger responsibility to their decisions and likely become a better team. Establishing trust and open communication channels each team member will be able to support and understand where each is coming from on his or her issues or concerns.
By establishing team goals instead of individual goals, the IntensCare team need to record their team goals that need to be accomplished with this they can come to a consensus on how to reach these targets and the tasks that need to be done.
Introduction of Parallel work culture was not properly implemented and need regarding to it was also overlooked must be rectified.