Rather than relying on design engineers alone to design new products, the CEO of San Remo Resources wants to form teams of people from several departments to develop more creative products.These teams will consist of design engineers, manufacturing engineers, marketing staff, and purchasing staff.San Remo's CEO believes that these teams will develop more creative products than design engineers did when working alone.Identify three potential constraints that might interfere with the CEO's expected benefits of team-based decision making and creativity.

The textbook discusses four constraints on team decision making and creativity.Students may identify any three of these.The question also asks students to 'identify', not 'discuss', so the answer may be briefer than is presented here.
Time constraints.Teams take longer than individuals to make decisions.Unlike individuals, teams require extra time to organize, coordinate and socialize.The larger the group, the more time required to make a decision.Team members need time to learn about each other and build rapport.They need to manage an imperfect communication process so that there is sufficient understanding of each other's ideas.They also need to coordinate roles and rules of order within the decision process.
Evaluation apprehension.Individuals are reluctant to mention ideas that seem silly because they believe (often correctly) that other team members are silently evaluating them.This is most common in meetings attended by people with different levels of status or expertise or when members formally evaluate each other's performance throughout the year (as in 360-degree feedback).Evaluation apprehension is a problem when the group wants to generate creative ideas, because these thoughts often sound bizarre or lack logic when presented.Unfortunately, many potentially valuable ideas are never presented to the group because creative thoughts initially seem ridiculous and a waste of time.
Pressure to conform.Conformity causes team members to suppress their dissenting opinions about discussion issues, particularly when a strong team norm is related to the issue.When someone does state a point of view that violates the majority opinion, other members might punish the violator or try to persuade him or her that the opinion is incorrect.
Groupthink.This is the tendency of highly cohesive groups to value consensus at the price of decision quality.There are strong social pressures on individual members to maintain harmony by avoiding conflict and disagreement.They suppress doubts about decision alternatives preferred by the majority or group leader.Team members want to maintain this harmony because their self-identity is enhanced by membership in a powerful decision-making body that speaks with one voice.High cohesiveness isn't the only cause of groupthink.It is also more likely to occur when the team is isolated from outsiders, the team leader is opinionated (rather than remaining impartial), the team is under stress due to an external threat, the team has experienced recent failures or other decision-making problems, and the team lacks clear guidance from corporate policies or procedures.