Jun 2

Written by:
6/2/2006 9:21 PM 

Management

Schools of Management

• Classical/Traditional Management Perspective (F.Taylor)
  Command-Control-Communication
  Management Thinks, Employees Work
• Empirical School: studies management in other situations, not always similar.
• Behavioral School: Management must consider needs of individuals, reward systems, and the social context.
• Decision Theory School: Mgmt is a rational approach to decision making using models and operations research
• Management Systems School: Mgmt is the development of a business systems model. Business is a system of inputs and outputs intended to min/max some objective. Contains contingency theory.

Industrial-Military View of Mgmt: C-cubed
• Command: deciding what the mission is
• Control: assigning work and ensuring it gets done
• Communication: moving information

Modern view of Mgmt functions:
• planning
• organizing
• staffing
• controlling (measuring, evaluating, correcting)
• directing (staffing, training, supervising, delgating, motivating, counseling, coordinating)

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The Primary Management Pitfall: Knowing Thyself

Who is Me? The me I think I am The me I wish I were The me I really am The me I try to project The me others perceive The me I used to be The me others try to make me Author Unknown

Four Men It chanced upon a winter's night Safe sheltered from the weather. The board was spread for only one, Yet four men dined together. There sat the man I meant to be In glory, spurred and booted. And close beside him, to the right The man I am reputed. The man I think myself to be His seat was occupying, Hard by the man I really am To hold his own was trying. And all beneath one roof we met Yet none called his fellow brother; No sign of recognition passed, They knew not one another. author unknown

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Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Y:
• Theory X: workers are lazy, indolent, and require supervision.
  • workers dislike and avoid work
  • supervisors must threaten punishment and supervise closely
  • average worker avoids responsibility and seeks direction
• Theory Y: employees are willing to work without close supervision
  • average worker wants to be active and finds work satisfying
  • greatest results come from willing participation and self-direction
  • average worker seeks involvement and self-respect
• This is a spectrum.
• PM's may have to treat Th.Y (artistic) engineers/programmers as Th.X to stay on schedule
• Organizations, Managers, and Employees can be categorized as X-Y.
• Management/Org restructuring is often a compromise between X and Y; is the org structured to manage people or to manage work?

Herzberg's 1955 The Motivation to Work A 2-factor theory of work motivation
Satisfiers / Motivators Challenge Responsibility Achievement Recognition Advancement	Dis-Satisfiers / Hygeine Factors Physical Work Environment Context of work (salary, supervision) No wins, Just Losses

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Change Management
• all mangement tasks are Change
• Communication
• Trust
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

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Project Management

What is a project?
• unique, one-time
• constraints from within
• requirements from without
• multi-disciplinary
• complex
• change

Project Manager's Tasks
• Scope / what
• quality / how
• schedule / when
• cost
• Risk / uncertainty (profit pivot)
• HR / staffing
• Contracts / resources
• communications

Projects should be planned from the top-down.
Projects should be controlled by the bottom-up
"Good Enough/ Fixible" Paradigm
Projects have a Project Champion and a Project Manager
Projects should be approved by the chain of command, not managed by the C-of-C.
Authority is the key to the project management process.
Critical relationship: relationship between Project Mgr and Functional Manager.
The resources should be allocated to the project schedule, not vice versa.

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Conflict Management. The PM is the locus of conflict resolution.
• Know the high-conflict points:
  • Conflict over project priorities
  • conflict over admin procedures
  • conflict over technical opinions and performance trade-offs
  • conflict over manpower resources
  • conflict over cost
  • conflict over schedules
  • personality conflict
• Recognize the conflict-handling strategies:
  • withdrawal (abandoning the issue)
  • smoothing (de-emphasize conflict, emphasize common ground)
  • compromising (give-and-take)
  • forcing (win/lose)
  • confrontation (facing conflict directly)
• Negotiations should take place at the earliest/lowest level
• Definition of the problem must take first priority (issue, impact, alternatives, recommendations)
• Temporary management situations produce conflicts.
• Conflicts are increased in an atmosphere of constant and rapid change.
• Conflicts can be beneficial if they produce new information or enhance project success.
• Conflicts can be disfunctional if they result in poor decision making.

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PERT charts

Programmed Evaluation Review Technique
Used to estimate time and develop schedules
Expected Time = ( t:opt +4x t:nor + t:pess) /6
where t:opt= time/optomistic, t:nor = time/normal, t:pess = time/pessimistic
Most of the rest of PERT has been moved into CPM

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Critical Path Method

• Starting at the origin, count time moving along each path.
• Calculate ES (early start) times for each point (considering prerequisite tasks)
• Terminator points have no further progression.
• When you reach the final terminator, identify the time of completion.
• Working backward from completion, determine the LS (latest start) times for each task.
• The critical path consists of the path where the ES=LS.
• When ES.lt.LS, there is slack time in the amount of LS-ES.

Assignment:

1 of 2.Draw a chart representing this PERT work-flow:
• A and D start at the origin.
• J follows F but precedes K.
• C follows A but precedes G.
• H follows D but precedes L.
• B follows A but precedes F.
• K,L, and E are terminal activities
• K follows G and H.
• E follows B and C.
• F is independant of C.
• L is independant of J.

2 of 2.Answer these questions regarding the CPM chart below:


• What is the length (in weeks) of the critical path?
• What is the largest slack time available for any activity?
• Every activity takes two people for the length of time indicated. Build a schedule minimizing staffing but do not delay the project.

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Project Management ensures performance by:
• planning the work
• measuring performance on 3 axes against the plan
• identifying variance / slips
• fixing slips
• two resources: contingency and performance/productivity

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Twenty Project Management Proverbs

from Project Management, Harold Kerzner
• You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
• The same work under the same conditions will be estimated differently by ten different estimators or by one estimator at ten different times.
• The most valuable and least used word in the project manager's vocabulary is NO.
• You can con a sucker into committing to an unreasonable deadline, but you can't bully him into meeting it.
• The more ridiculous the deadline, the more it costs to try to meet it.
• The more desperate the situation, the more optomistic the situatee.
• Too few people on a project can't solve the problems-- too many create more problems than they solve.
• You can freeze the user's specs but he won't stop expecting.
• Frozen specs and the abominable snowman are alike: they are both myths, and they both melt when sufficient heat is applied.
• The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten, and the promise is remembered.
• What you don't know hurts you.
• A user will tell you anything you ask about -- nothing more.
• Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the lease convenient one is the only correct one.
• What is not on paper has never been said.
• No major project is ever installed on time, within budget, with the same staff that started it.
• Projects progress quickley until they become 90 percent complete; then they remain at 90 percent complete forever.
• If project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
• No major system is ever completely debugged; attempts to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find.
• Project teams detest progress reporting because it vividly demonstrates their lack of progress.
• Parkinson and Murphy are alive and well -- in your project.

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Communications

Projects are run by communications.
Communications is the process by which information is exchanged.
• Written Formal
• Written informal
• Oral Formal
• Oral Informal

Another view of Shannon and Weaver's communications model

Methods of Communicating vs Number of Tools
• F2F: face to face 3 tools
• Phone 2 tools
• Written 1 tool

Directives should be written with one simple, clear objective so that subordinates can work effectively and get it right the first time.
Orders should be written in a manner expecting immediate compliance.
Never issue an order you cannot enforce.
Oral instructions should be phrased as requests, and the requestor should ask the receiver to repeat the order to confirm understanding.

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Handouts Distributed

• Corporate Jungle Spawns a New Species: The Project Manager
• Statistical Concepts and Quality Tools
• Pictures Please: Presenting Information Visually, Wm. Horton.
• The Human Side of Management, Thomas Teal, Harvard Business Review
• Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy, Kim and Mauborgne, Harvard Business Review