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The birth of MacOne of the advantages of creating dedicated project teams is that project participants from different functional areas can develop into a highly
The birth of MacOne of the advantages of creating dedicated project teams is that project participants from different functional areas can develop into a highly cohesive work team that is strongly committed to completing the project, while such teams often produce herculean efforts in pursuit of project completion. There is a negative dimension to this commitment that is often referred to in the literature as projectities. As their attitude can emerge between project team members and the rest of the organization, the project team becomes the hubris and develops a holierthanthou attitude that antagonizes the parent organization. People not assigned to the project become jealous of the attention and prestige being showered on the project team, especially when they believe that it is their hard work that is financing the endeavor. The tendency to assign project teams exotic titles such as silver bullets and tiger teams, as well as to give them special perks, tends to intensify the gap between the project team and the rest of the organization. Such appears to have been the case with Apple's highly successful Macintosh development team, Steve Jobs, who at the time was both the chairman of Apple and the project manager for the Mac team. Pampered his team with perks, including the atdesk messages, coolers stocked with freshlysqueezed orange, a porcelain door for a grand piano, and firstclass plane tickets, no other employees at Apple got the travel first class. Jobs considered his team to be the elite of Apple and had a tendency to refer to everyone else as bozos who didn't get it Engineers from the Apple II division, which was the bread and butter of Apple's sales, became incensed with the special treatment their colleagues were getting. One evening, at Ellie McFlys a local watering hole, the tensions between Apple II engineers seated at one table and those of the Mac team at another boiled over. Aaron Goldberg, a longtime industry consultant, watched from his burst stool as the squabbling escalated. The Mac guys were screaming, we are the future, the Apple II guys were screaming, we are the money. Then there was a geek brawl. Pocket protectors and fans were flying. I was waiting for a notebook to drop so they would stop and pick up the papers. Although comical from a distance, the discord between the Apple II and Mac groups severely hampered Apple's performance during the s John Scully, who replaced Steve Jobs as chairman of Apple, observed that Apple had evolved into two pagewearing companies and referred to the street between the Apple II and McIntosh building as the DMZA Discuss the concept of projectitis as illustrated in the case study of apples Macintosh development team. What are the key factors contributing to the emergence of the wethey attitude between projects the rest of the organization? How can organizations mitigate the negative effects of projectitis while still fostering a strong and and committed project team? I need a v detailed explanation
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