This trend is here to stay and it means that managers need to be familiar with project management roles, terms and processes.
This is the table of contents for the book Management Principles v. For more details on it including licensing , click here. This book is licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.
Previously entitled 'Purchasing Principles and Management' this book has been essential. Principles of management, then, are the means by which you actually manage, that is, get things done through others— individually, in groups, or in organizations.
Chapter 1 - Project Management Principles Managers now find that they are frequently involved in projects that are being managed using a formalized project management methodology. Communications forms a key part of such projects and if you are going to be successful in your role as a manager it is essential that you have a thorough understanding of project management terminology, processes, and procedures.
Chapter 2 - Project Management Definition Everything that an organization does can be categorized either as a project or process. A process is something that happens continually and has a low risk associated with it, whereas a project happens once and has a relatively high level of risk. Chapter 3 - Project Management Perspectives Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals.
A project is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product, service or result. It has a defined beginning and end usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables , undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the constraints on scope, time, quality and budget.
Chapter 4 - Project Organization and Structure The way in which an organization is structured is largely a result of whether its day-to-day work is process driven or project driven. Every organization is unique and these classifications are only useful in that they illustrate the fact that project management is likely to present more of a challenge in process-focused organizations than in those that are project focused.
Chapter 5 - Projects in a Matrix-Management Environment In a matrix environment, an individual may 'belong to' a particular department but they will be assigned to different projects and report to a project manager while working on that project. An advantage of the matrix structure is that it can lead to a more efficient exchange of skills and information as people from different areas work closely together.
A disadvantage of the matrix structure is that it is a recipe for disagreement between the line manager and the project managers. Chapter 6 - Project Stakeholders Definition Project stakeholders are individuals, groups, bodies and organizations that are actively involved in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by execution of the project or project completion. Chapter 7 - Project Sponsor and Project Manager Definitions The sponsor is responsible for securing the financing and overall resource budget approval and owns the opportunities and risks related to the financial outcome of the project.
They may be referred to as the 'business sponsor,' 'project sponsor,' or 'executive' and are usually a senior manager with a direct interest in the business case behind the project.
The project manager has the authority to use cash and other resources up to the limit set in the project charter. If they believe at any stage that the project cannot be delivered within the assigned budget and timescale then they must notify the project sponsor so that remedial action can be taken.
Establishing a foreign subsidiary involves the greatest commitment of resources and the greatest risk of all of the stages in going international. Managing in a global environment entails the following challenges. The Legal-Political Environment: The legal-political environment does not have to be unstable or revolutionary to be a challenge to managers.
The Economic Environment: The economic environment also presents many challenges to foreign-based managers, including fluctuations in currency rates, inflation, and diverse tax policies.
In a market economy, resources are primarily owned by the private sector. In a command economy, all economic decisions are planned by a central government.
The Cultural Environment: Countries have different cultures, just as organizations do. National culture is the values and attitudes shared by individuals from a specific country that shape their behavior and their beliefs about what is important.
A framework developed by Geert Hofstede serves as a valuable framework for understanding differences between national cultures. Hofstede studied individualism versus collectivism.
Individualism is the degree to which people in a country prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups. Collectivism is characterized by a social framework in which people prefer to act as members of groups and expect others in groups of which they are a part such as a family or an organization to look after them and to protect them.
Another cultural dimension is power distance, which describes the extent to which a society accepts the fact that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. Uncertainty avoidance describes a cultural measure of the degree to which people tolerate risk and unconventional behavior. Hofstede identified the dimension of achievement versus nurturing. Achievement is the degree to which values such as assertiveness, the acquisition of money and material goods, and competition prevail.
Nurturing emphasizes sensitivity in relationships and concern for the welfare of others. Long-term and short-term orientation. People in countries having long-term orientation cultures look to the future and value thrift and persistence. Short-term orientation values the past and present and emphasizes a respect for tradition and social obligations.
The increased threat of terrorism, economic interdependence of trading countries, and significant cultural create a complicated environment in which to manage.
Successful global managers need to have great sensitivity and understanding. Managers must adjust leadership styles and management approaches to accommodate culturally diverse views. Chapter 5 Social Responsibility and Managerial Ethics This chapter discusses issues involving social responsibility and managerial ethics and their effect on managerial decision making. Both social responsibility and ethics are responses to a changing environment and are influenced by organizational culture Managers regularly face decisions that have dimensions of social responsibility.
Social Obligations to Responsiveness to Responsibility: Social obligation occurs when a firm engages in social actions because of its obligation to meet certain economic and legal responsibilities. Social responsiveness is seen when a firm engages in social actions in response to some popular social need. Purposes of Shared Values are: 1 They act as guideposts for managerial decisions and actions. Factors That Affect Employee Ethics 1. Stages of Moral Development. Research confirms three levels of moral development.
Each level has two stages. The majority of adults are at Stage 4. The higher the stage an employee reaches, the more likelihood that he or she will behave ethically. Individual Characteristics: A person joins an organization with a relatively entrenched set of values.
Values are basic convictions about what is right and wrong. Values are broad and cover a wide variety of issues. Individuals who score high on ego strength are likely to resist impulses to act unethically and are likely do what they think is right. Locus of control is a personality attribute that measures the degree to which people believe they control their own fate. Individuals with an internal locus of control think that they control their destiny, while persons with an external locus of control are less likely to take personal responsibility for the consequences of their behavior and are more likely to rely on external forces.
Externals believe that what happens to them is due to luck or chance. A third factor influencing managerial ethics is structural variables. The existence of structural variables such as formal rules and regulations, job descriptions, written codes of ethics, performance appraisal systems, and reward systems can strongly influence ethical behavior.
An organizational culture most likely to encourage high ethical standards is one that is high in risk tolerance, control, and conflict tolerance. A strong culture exerts more influence on managers than does a weak one. However, in organizations with weak cultures, work groups and departmental standards strongly influence ethical behavior. Finally, the intensity of an issue can affect ethical decisions. Six characteristics determine issue intensity a.
Greatness of harm b. Consensus of wrong c. Probability of harm d. Immediacy of consequences e. Proximity to victim f. Concentration of effect Improving Ethical Behavior Organizations can take a number of actions to cultivate ethical behavior among members.
In addition, decision rules can be developed to guide managers in handling ethical dilemmas in decision making. Job goals are usually a key issue in the performance appraisal process. Performance appraisals should include this dimension, rather than focusing solely on economic outcomes. At the least, ethics training should increase awareness of ethical issues. Social Entrepreneurship: A social entrepreneur is an individual or organization who seeks out opportunities to improve society by using practical, innovative, and sustainable approaches.
Social impact management: Managers are increasingly expected to act responsibly in the way they conduct business. Managers using a social impact management approach examine the social impacts of their decisions and actions. When they consider how their actions in planning, organizing, leading and controlling will work in light of the social context within which business operates, managers become more aware of whether they are leading in a responsible manner.
Decision making is such an important part of all four managerial functions that decision making is said to be synonymous with managing. The Decision-Making Process A decision is a choice made from two or more alternatives. The decision-making process is a set of eight steps that include the following: Identifying a problem: A problem is a discrepancy between an existing state and a desired state of affairs. In order to identify a problem, a manager should be able to differentiate the problem from its symptom; he should be under pressure to taken action and must have the authority and resources to take action.
Identifying decision criteria: Decision criteria are criteria that define what is relevant in a decision. Allocating weights to the criteria: The criteria identified in the previous step of the decision-making process may not have equal importance. So he decision maker must assign a weight to each of the items in order to give each item accurate priority in the decision. Developing alternatives: The decision maker should then identify viable alternatives that could resolve the problem.
Analyzing alternatives: Each of the alternatives are then critically analyzed by evaluating it against the criteria established in Steps 2 and 3. Selecting an alternative: The next step is to select the best alternative from among those identified and assessed. If criteria weights have been used, the decision maker would select the alternative that received the highest score in Step 5.
Implementing the alternative: The selected alternative is implemented by effectively communicating the decision to the individuals who would be affected by it and their commitment to the decision is acquired. Evaluating decision effectiveness: The last step in the decision-making process is to assess the result of the decision in order to determine whether or not the problem has been resolved. Managers can make decisions on the basis of rationality, bounded rationality, or intuition.
Rational decision making. Managerial decision making is assumed to be rational—that is, making choices that are consistent and value-maximizing within specified constraints. A rational manager would be completely logical and objective.
The assumptions of rationality can be met if the manager is faced with a simple problem in which 1 goals are clear and alternatives limited, 2 time pressures are minimal and the cost of finding and evaluating alternatives is low, 3 the organizational culture supports innovation and risk taking, and 4 outcomes are concrete and measurable. Bounded rationality. Intuitive decision making. Managers also regularly use their intuition. Intuitive decision making is a subconscious process of making decisions on the basis of experience and accumulated judgment.
Although intuitive decision making will not replace the rational decision-making process, it does play an important role in managerial decision making. Types of Problems and Decisions Managers encounter different types of problems and use different types of decisions to resolve them. Problems can be structured problems or unstructured problems and decisions can be programmed decisions or nonprogrammed decisions.
Structured problems are straightforward, familiar, and easily defined. In dealing with structured problems, a manager may use a programmed decision, which is a repetitive decision that can be handled by a routine approach. Managers rely on three types of programmed decisions: a.
A procedure is a series of interrelated sequential steps that can be used to respond to a structured problem. A rule is an explicit statement that tells managers what they can or cannot do. A policy is a guideline for making decisions. Unstructured problems are problems that are new or unusual and for which information is ambiguous or incomplete.
These problems are best handled by a nonprogrammed decision that is a unique decision that requires a custom- made solution. At higher levels in the organizational hierarchy, managers deal more often with difficult, unstructured problems and make nonprogrammed decisions in attempting to resolve these problems and challenges. Lower-level managers handle routine decisions, using programmed decisions.
Decision-Making Conditions Decision can be made under conditions of certainty, uncertainty and risk. Certainty is a situation in which a manager can make accurate decisions because all outcomes are known. Few managerial decisions are made under the condition of certainty. More common is the situation of risk, in which the decision maker is able to estimate the likelihood of certain outcomes.
Uncertainty is a situation in which the decision maker is not certain and cannot even make reasonable probability estimates concerning outcomes of alternatives. In such a situation, the choice of alternative is influenced by the limited amount of information available to the decision maker. Decision-Making Styles: Managers have different styles in making decisions and solving problems.
One perspective proposes that people differ along two dimensions in the way they approach decision making. Diagramming these two dimensions lead to a matrix showing four different decision-making styles. The directive style is characterized by low tolerance for ambiguity and a rational way of thinking.
The analytic style is one characterized by a high tolerance for ambiguity and a rational way of thinking. The conceptual style is characterized by a high tolerance for ambiguity and an intuitive way of thinking. The behavioral style is characterized by a low tolerance for ambiguity and an intuitive way of thinking.
In reality, most managers have both a dominant style and alternate styles, with some managers relying almost exclusively on their dominant style and others being more flexible, depending on the particular situation.
Some of decision making biases and errors are: 1. Overconfidence bias occurs when decision makers tend to think that they know more than they do or hold unrealistically positive views of themselves and their performance.
Immediate gratification bias describes decision makers who tend to want immediate rewards and avoid immediate costs. The anchoring effect describes when decision makers fixate on initial information as a starting point and then, once set, fail to adequately adjust for subsequent information. Selective perception bias occurs when decision makers selectively organize and interpret events based on their biased perceptions. Confirmation bias occurs when decision makers seek out information that reaffirms their past choices and discount information that contradicts their past judgments.
Framing bias occurs when decision makers select and highlight certain aspects of a situation while excluding others.
Availability bias is seen when decision makers tend to remember events that are the most recent and vivid in their memory. Decision makers who show representation bias assess the likelihood of an event based on how closely it resembles other events or sets of events. Randomness bias describes the effect when decision makers try to create meaning out of random events. The sunk costs error is when a decision maker forgets that current choices cannot correct the past. Instead of ignoring sunk costs, the decision maker cannot forget them.
In assessing choices, the individual fixates on past expenditures rather than on future consequences. Self-serving bias is exhibited by decision makers who are quick to take credit for their successes and blame failure on outside factors. Hindsight bias is the tendency for decision makers to falsely believe, once the outcome is known, that they would have accurately predicted the outcome. Chapter 7 Foundations of Planning Planning is one of the four functions of management. The term planning as used in this chapter refers to formal planning.
Purposes of Planning Planning serves a number of significant purposes. Planning gives direction to managers and nonmanagers of an organization. Planning reduces uncertainty. Planning minimizes waste and uncertainty. Planning establishes goals or standards used in controlling.
Planning and Performance Although organizations that use formal planning do not always outperform those that do not plan, most studies show positive relationships between planning and performance. Effective planning and implementation play a greater part in high performance than does the amount of planning done.
Studies have shown that when formal planning has not led to higher performance, the external environment is often the reason. If you really need the book, click the download button given below. We highly encourage our visitors to purch ase orig inal books from the respected publishers. If someone with copyrights wants us to remove this content, please contact us.
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