The SpeedServe exercise presents a brief scenario which puts the student in the role of a human resources team member who needs to respond to their boss, Maria Martinez, the number two executive in a rapidly growing firm of 500 employees. The boss is looking for the employee's thoughts on how to prioritize spending for the human resources budget, particularly given emerging talent trends since the global pandemic and the desire to create high employee engagement. Martinez has a list of possible areas for focus and wants the employee to rank order them prior to a taskforce meeting later in the day. This exercise is designed to have individual students put themselves in the role of the human resources team member, to rank order the potential areas of focus. Following that individual prioritization, students are put into groups which serve as the taskforce. Each student group needs to discuss and compare individual thinking and develop a final consensus ranking for their taskforce group. Taskforce results can then be discussed across the student teams. The instructor can use the exercise to discuss team dynamics as well as the employee engagement topics of the exercise. This exercise can be conducted in a physical or virtual classroom environment. While similarly structured to popular "survival" experiential learning activities, this exercise is different because the content of the ranking process is relevant to organizational issues and worthy of discussion in addition to the topic of team process.

Digital transformation encompasses an organization's ability to adapt, respond, and position itself for success in the face of rapid technology evolution. A critical structure in achieving successful digital transformation is the digital project team, yet there is little research to study how they are created and developed. Much of the focus has been on agile methodologies and processes but there is less research to inform organizations on digital team dynamics such as roles, empowerment, learning, and leadership development. This article describes our findings from a multi-level study of the IT function of 60 companies, including fieldwork at 5 company sites involving more than 130 semistructured interviews with senior level IT professionals. We identify four essential team-based levers that enable digital transformation: (1) diverse and targeted team composition, (2) iterative goal setting, (3) continuous learning, and (4) talent management. Using company examples and practices, we describe how digital leaders are using these levers to propel their organizations forward in the journey toward digital transformation.

This case series profiles the leadership transition of a rising executive at global corporation. In the A case Deborah DiSanzo is asked to take on a new assignment within Philips Medical Systems as general manager of the patient monitoring business, a highly profitable but low growth unit, and to leave behind the high growth cardiac resuscitation business where she has been an entrepreneurial leader. The challenge for DiSanzo in her new role is to create a vision for growth in an organization that has seen high turnover, has an entrenched senior team, and has already tasted high success. The case chronicles the ways in which DiSanzo re-aligns the organization around a new shared vision, provides insights into how to effectively navigate as a new leader, and how to drive organizational change and renewal. The brief B case shows the business unit is successfully growing, and in the process creating greater complexity. DiSanzo is faced anew with the challenge of mobilizing her larger team and keeping the excitement of her hard-earned vision tangible. Courses in which this case can be used include Strategy Implementation, Change Management, and Organizational Behavior and the case is suitable for use in both graduate and executive education contexts.

This case series profiles the leadership transition of a rising executive at global corporation. In the A case Deborah DiSanzo is asked to take on a new assignment within Philips Medical Systems as general manager of the patient monitoring business, a highly profitable but low growth unit, and to leave behind the high growth cardiac resuscitation business where she has been an entrepreneurial leader. The challenge for DiSanzo in her new role is to create a vision for growth in an organization that has seen high turnover, has an entrenched senior team, and has already tasted high success. The case chronicles the ways in which DiSanzo re-aligns the organization around a new shared vision, provides insights into how to effectively navigate as a new leader, and how to drive organizational change and renewal. The brief B case shows the business unit is successfully growing, and in the process creating greater complexity. DiSanzo is faced anew with the challenge of mobilizing her larger team and keeping the excitement of her hard-earned vision tangible. Courses in which this case can be used include Strategy Implementation, Change Management, and Organizational Behavior and the case is suitable for use in both graduate and executive education contexts.