Situation Analysis

Can anyone help me on the following situation:
You are part of a team which has been assigned a project with a tight deadline that is not extendible. At the fag end of the project, one of the team members fails to deliver on the part of the project originally assigned to him, despite his assurance. All the other members of the team have performed flawlessly and completed their parts. There is no way that the project can now be completed even if all the team members provide their utmost help. Appropriate punishment has now to be meted out by the management. The team member is willing to own up his shortcoming and shoulder the responsibility. Should all the team members share the responsibility for failure equally or should they allow that particular team member to get all the blame and punishment? Take a firm position on the issue and support your stand with relevant arguments.
Samina Rafat

Hey Samina,
The same issue has been discussed several times in the near past. Maybe you should refer to them as well. I think the decision lies on the Leader of the team because it is his/ her responsibility to get the team together and ensure the deadline is met. Even if the team member is at fault and is willing to owe up to it, partly the leader is also to be blamed. If he played his/ her due role as the leader issues such as this will not occur.

Samina
when u work in a team and u leading a team for a particualr project. Being a leader, it is your responsibilty how to tackle the sisuation and to ensure te dead line is met. No doubt it is team work with same spirit. but leader always takes collective decision based on his/her team members.
his decision is final. so definalty leader is resoponsibilty for failure of project.
basant

Helo everyone
i read both the replies dont you think the team member who defaulted also needs to be punished by the management..as the situation says that the deafulter intially kept on assuring that he would submit his work on time.. i guess it would be better to punish the defaulter for his delays have caused loss to the company!!! for it would help in making him realize and noyt repeat his mistakes, moreover it would also be a lesson for others, as for the team leader he can get a warning on bieng more vigilant with the task assigned!!! i am open for further discussion on this!
Shikha Sahai

Hi,
First and foremost we are talking of a 'team'. So basically the team has failed. While the easy way out is to blame the team member who failed to deliver, the overall responsibility rests on the team leader. In hindsight, maybe the leader should have incorporated checks to assess the progress of each member and plans to help those lagging behind. A team works in harmony with one another and not individually. Brilliant individual performances have been brought to nought by one. So, was the team selection correctly done?

Gregory Huszczo has laid seven parameters which can help evaluate team performance.
1. Leadership
2. talentaed members
3. Clarity of goal
4. Clear responsibilities
5. Well defined procedures for team operations, specially team meeting and problem solving.
6. Interpersonal relationship where communication takes care of personality diffrences and understanding of conflict resolution techniques.
7. Good external relationship.
Punishing the person who failed to deliver may be good to convey that organization does not accept fall on promise, but if you want convert it to learning opportunity you must analyze along the parameters listed and take corrective measures.
Regards,
Shamik Vora

Very interesting discussion this.
My opinion is that when you are working in a team, you are responisible for not only your own role and input, but there is also a collective responisbility which the entire team shoulders. You cannot have water-tight distribution of responsibilites in a team working on a single deliverable within a single deadline. This is why review meetings are held, so that everybody is aware of the overall and individual progress, and if anybody is lagging, the other team members stretch themselves beyond their own roles, and help out the lagging member to come back upto date.
It is from this point of view that I would hold the team leader most responsible, because he has failed in his co-ordinating role.
Within the team of course, the employee who has failed in his deliverable despite all his assurances, he is responsible for letting down the entire team.
Warm regards,
Devjit

Agreed that the team leader is also heavily responsible for the mess up..but the question is asking us what we would choose based on the assumption that we are also a team member....it is asking "Should all the team members share the responsibility for failure equally or should they allow that particular team member to get all the blame and punishment"...so what should an ideal team member be thinking?

Hey ALL,
It is indeed an interesting topic.
In this case, there can be two ways of solving problem:
1- The team member, who could not do the job on time is to be punished only as he/she was giving assurance to others for completion of task, where he/she failed.
2-The team Leader and team Member both should be punished, as it is the duty of the Team Leader to take feedback or arrange review meeting in a timely manner.
If the team leader was taking feedbacks regularly there is no doubt the team member is at fault.
Regards,
Archna