Imagine you are the CEO of a small company that designs, manufactures, and sells musical instruments. You are considering entering the market for a type of instrument that you have never sold before. You assign the head product manager to be in charge of the decision of whether to enter this market, who then assembles a team of employees to help make the decision. After several team discussions, the product manager advises that you enter the new market, which you do. However, the new type of instrument fails miserably in the market. Later, you hire a management consultant to figure out what went wrong and how to avoid this from happening again in the future.

The consultant reveals that several avoidable mistakes were made in the team deliberation process that led to this decision.

First, list 1 aspect of team composition and 1 team behaviour that might have contributed to this mistake and why.

Then, list 1 possible behaviour of the product manager (not the employees) that might also have contributed to this mistake, and again explain why.

Finally, provide two ideas for how you might design the team or structure the team decision- making process differently in the future to improve decision making.