My M&M's

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2009/id20091217_120646.htm

In the fast passed world we currently live in, it is impossible to keep up without being innovative. Mars discovered that one of the best tools in innovation is team work. Dan Michael, the R&D director for Mars and his team knew that they could only create customizeable M&M's if they worked together on this process. They had a great idea that they worked on for the next three years, testing out different printers and products. When they went to the board who thought their product was great but unfortunately the team lacked any market strategy. The Mars company felt that they needed more information in order to know if the product would sell or not. Fortunately, Mars had recently started a program called Pioneer Week where teams of employees were given a budget and 90 days to create a product. Through this program, and their teamwork, the group was able to create the customizeable M&M's which were launched without any out side market research. The Mars company encourages their employees to participate in internal market research for any projects that were in Pioneer Week.

When Mars came up with the program of Pioneer Week they essentially allowed their employees to form self-managed teams. This allows the employees to have a break from their superiors telling them how to run a project and instead run it themselves. Because there are very few guidelines to this project besides the time and budget restrictions, the team members are essentially allowed to do whatever they want to do. This gives the team members a better sense of pride in their work and they know that if they don't work just as a hard as their teammate the project will fall apart. I feel that with the tight time constriction, it is important that the teams put in their best effort on their product design. They can't just go into it thinking that this is just like any other project for their job. In this case there are no extensions and the employees essentially have to work harder than they do in their traditional teams. They have to put in more effort to be able to handle both their company projects and their new inventions to make sure the company is still happy along with their product being created properly.

By simply looking at the product that Michael and his team produced in three short months, it is evident that they had a collective efficacy within the group. Although, I'm sure they might have doubted the project from time to time, overall the team knew that they could get this product out. They knew that it was possible and they would be able to prove their employers wrong about the product being able to sell. As we know with the My M&M's product, they succeeded, but I believe it wouldn't be possible if everyone didn't believe in the product and that it could be produced.

Overall, if Michael and his team didn't have the skills to work in their informal work group along with their formal work group at the same time while putting in more than enough effort, the My M&M's company would probably not exist today. Luckily through their use of communication, focus on the task ahead and use of self managed teams, they were able to produce a revenue generating product.

~ Rebecca Doukas