Throughout my college life, I have been in a number of different teams both for academic purposes and extra curricular activities. The structure and dynamics of every team is different and thus some teams are better coordinated than others. Teams can be organized in many ways and the optimal structure for a particular team depends on the function of the team, its goals and objectives, communication level, number of people, etc. Some of the common organizations of teams include one boss, hierarchical structure, circle network, and all channel network.
To further discuss the organization of teams, I will talk about my experiences in the consulting organization OTCR Consulting. OTCR is a student run consulting organization providing pro bono work offering solutions to the client's unique business problems. Being completely student run, the organization structure was very transparent with the senior members informing the junior ones, about key decisions making processes that impacted the firm, especially related to budgeting. The firm was headed by two partners, one responsible for the internal operations and the other for external operations. Under them was a team of engagement partners, each one who had a special chair or duty. Some of the special chairs for example were Recruiting Head, Social Chair, Project Sourcing, Alumni Chair, etc. In this hierarchical structure, under the engagement partners were the project managers, then the senior consultants and then finally the consultants. This is the top down structure of the firm. Depending on the number of projects we get we staffed into different teams.
Each team in OTCR handles one client and thus one project for the duration of the semester. A team constitutes around 4 to 5 consultants and one project manager. The engagement partners oversee and check in with the project managers to ensure smooth functioning and that project deliverables are being met. The structure of this team has an all channel network wherein each group member communicates with one another to get the work done. This is only possible because of the small size of the team and type of work which needs to be done. In consulting, teamwork and interdependence is extremely important. Often times the work involves brainstorming and cannot be done separately. Thus all consultants in the team share a connection, with the PM (project manager) being in charge of us. The PM is thus our supervisor who directs how are work should go. He is also the single point of contact to the clients for updating them on the progress and asking any questions from our side as well. This structure works, because the client can not individually schedule time with all consultants if the need arises, thus it is channeled through the PM for ease of communication.
Describing the team from the viewpoint of Katzenbach and Smith's, we did exhibit features of a high functioning team. Our top managers, provide training and standard guidelines and then let the PM's handle their teams how they see fit as long as the requirements are met. This gives more freedom, which leads to creativity and energy. We are given set work-streams which are due every week and reviewed and edited the following week. Thus keeping us measurable for our work in a short period of time. Our team is also small, 4 to 5 people thus keeping us at a manageable size. OTCR consulting constitutes of approximately half of its students from the college of engineering and the other half from the college of business. This makes us have a good mix of expertise. We have both the the technical aspect of a business with the business aspect giving us a complimentary and holistic skill set. All members are students who are some of the brightest students in the campus. We all thus share a common commitment to working relationships. We all are seeking to gain experience and grow our network both professional and social. Although OTCR does receive money from the clients, individuals do not get any money. The reason for working is as mentioned above, because we want to, thus I feel every member holds themselves accountable for doing their work and contributing to the team.
I think being a good teammate means to contribute both individually and to the collective good of the team and its members. This encompasses all aspects of a good teammate for me. You do your own work, the specific task you were assigned to do. But also help out other teammates if you can, collaborate with them efficiently and effectively. This will help the overall objective get achieved more smoothly. I think everyone wants to be a good teammate because they want to contribute. They want others to like them and think that they are intelligent, smart, or otherwise contributing in a significant way.
Hmmm. I hadn't heard of OTCR before so I Googled it an found the Web site. It is odd to me to have the name of an organization be an acronym without knowing what the letters stand for. Do you know if there was once a long name for the organization? Also, I do know of IBC (Illinois Business Consulting). So I wonder what the difference is between OTCR and IBC. Do you have any thoughts on that?
ReplyDeleteYour essay would benefit from making some things more concrete with an example. Why does a company come to OTCR rather than go to professional consultants? What is their expectation? Given the nature of this work, how does one know if it is well done or not? What are the tests of that?
Project management itself has its own methodology and discipline. Did the project managers have training in that already. There is also certification in PM that has value as a job credential. Do you know whether the project managers with OTCR had such credentials?
The type of consulting that OTCR does is in some sense similar to open source software development. Programmers who are paid to work by one company nonetheless get involved with open source development - partly to learn new skills, partly to showcase their abilities as programmers, and because the effort has social value. There is a book about this called The Success of Open Source that you might enjoy reading.
Finally, you might contrast working for OTCR with taking classes. It sounds like student commitment to OTCR is greater than what it has been in our class. It would be interesting to see you speculate on why that is.
Hello Profesor,
DeleteYes. There was once a full form for the acronym when it was founded. It used to be Office of Technology and Consulting Resources. Since it was always referred to as OTCR, I think somewhere along the history people stoped using the full form and slowly forgot about it altogether. This was also because the acronym caught recognition as the organization grew. It was much shorter and simpler name, and could be stylized more easily unlike the full name. I think these reasons can also be seen in other big companies in the consulting world. For example, Ernst and Young is called PWC and the main website is www.ey.com with PWC being stylized as the company logo. People nowadays mostly refer to it as PWC and slowly people might forget what it stands for. Similarly for EY and many other companies.
Yes, both IBC and OTCR are consulting organization run on campus. OTCR however has an even mix of college of engineering and college of business students. We both get a wide range of clients and have a healthy rivalry as competitors.
A client comes to OTCR because of our value proposition. We offer 70% services for 30% of the cost. By this I mean compared to a professional consulting firm, we would be able to do 70% of the work, and cost only 30% of what they would spend on a professional firm. We get clients who like this value for multiple reasons. Some clients are just testing out a remote possibility and dont want to spend that much money. Other could be startups who dont have the money. Our Alumni who work professionally sometimes refer us to clients. We are used as second consultants by some larger firms, and a few of our clients are local organizations.
All our senior level students have held internships at some of the leading firms in the country. We have alumni who are full time professionals, faculty affiliated with the organization, and companies who have close ties. Consulting in itself is a hard way to measure if its done right or wrong. There are so many different ways, but the finding the most optimum way is ideal. Thus, I think we are measured by the deliverables we produce, the quality of work which is backed by evidence and actually produces the solution requested. If the client is happy, gets what they asked for, be it answers to a problem or insight in a new industry I think we did our jobs. Many of the companies also have an idea of what to expect before hand.
Our PM's have training for that potion. they go through various training sessions and in addition most have held internships and thus have an exposure to the professional setting.
Yes, student commitment to OTCR is quite high. This is because the work requires a lot of hours and is equivalent to a class. It is also because we are dealing with professionals, and our image as students part of OTCR and he University of Illinois is such that we want our work to be of the best quality. I think it is much more commitment although there is no monetary reward like money or grades. Also because there are a lot of training and social events that we attend which takes time but is also fun.
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ReplyDeleteSimilar to Professor Arvan, I looked up OTCR Consulting and did a little bit of reading on it. I too found it interesting that OTCR Consulting is known by an acronym. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but does it say on the website what it stands for?
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most interesting about OTCR Consulting was the written descriptions of OTCR Consulting on both Collegiate Link and illinois.edu websites in the "About" sections. Statements such as "We are forty top-students..." and "OTCR is comprised of 50 top students..." makes me wonder what kind of students OTCR is equipped with. You also say in your post that they are "some of the brightest students in the campus". I'm curious as to know how the application process is and the GPA and extra curricular requirement for acceptance to be classified as a "top student" by OTCR standards.
Being a team member for OTCR Consulting seems like a fair amount of work. I can see why working as a team would be very beneficial.
It used to be Office of Technology and Consulting Resources. See my response to the above comment for how the name evolved.
DeleteNot to sound boastful by making such comments but i can provide a few statistics showcasing our organization. From the last numbers I have (we have grown since then) we had 61 Students across 3 Colleges 49% Engineering, 46% Business, 5% Other. 15 different majors, with an average of 3.71 GPA, 63% students involved in honors program. 71% members hold positions in other organizations. 100% of seniors have gotten a full time a position, and 100% junior year internship with 83% sophomore year internship. And we have alums and heavy ties with top consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, etc.
The recruiting process is also quite tough. We got around 146 candidate out which 20 were selected last time. We have 4 rounds of interviews. 2 case interviews, one McKinsey style, one Bains style case. 1 behavioral interview with a market sizing question. And finally a group exercise/ cultural fit interview to test on the spot thinking, creativity and team work.
Hope that answers your questions!
Best,
Nihar