Nothing Impossible

Management Introduction Review of Management Articles Article assigned ANALYSING the thinking of F. W. Taylor using cognitive mapping Introduction Scientific management is one of the three major branches within the classical approach to management. Although the concept was suggested approximately a century ago, it still makes a significantly important role in 21st century management with new conditions and a considerable number of challenges. Frederick Winslow Taylor who was regarded as the father of scientific management suggested his concepts in 1911.Scientific management is defined as a theory that emphasises careful selection and training of workers, and supervisory support (Taylor, 1911). Taylor (1911) believed that precise procedures that were developed after careful study of an individual at work should replace the tradition on decision-making. The purpose of this essay is to review three articles that analyses the Taylorism and present how Taylorism is applied in current mana gement sphere. Analysis of Assigned Article Cossette, P. 2002. Analysing the thinking of F.W. Taylor using cognitive mapping. Management Decision, 40 (2): 168-182 The author of this article used the cognitive map and the Decision Explorer to present and analyse the thinking of F. W. Taylor to produce a more in-depth and detailed knowledge and understanding of his ideas. Cossette (2002) demonstrated that the two key variables in Taylor’s scientific management were â€Å"Maintenance of a rapid pace†¦Loafing or soldiering† and â€Å"Harmonious relations between employers and men aware of their mutual interests†.As Taylor’s scientific management related to efficiency, the first concept that the author highlighted had completely reflected the Taylorism. Cossette (2002) concluded that â€Å"the maintenance of a rapid pace† was the most important concept for Taylor, since it was also by far the most important â€Å"consequence† of the cognitiv e map. Taylor’s scientific management was always considered as the division of labour pushed to its logical extreme, with a consequent de-skilling of the worker and dehumanisation of the workplace (Kanigel, 1999).However, the author showed another aspect of Taylor’s idea which was related to harmony. In cognitive map, the concept of â€Å"Harmonious relations between employers and men aware of their mutual interests† had the second largest number of direct links and the third centrality score compared to other concepts (Cossette, 2002). In addition, Cossette (2002) stated that â€Å"the prior conditions required to improve production and the results of this improvement for both employees and employers, are the two main dimensions that Taylor appears to use as a basis for his conception of the organization of work. Although a small number of concepts from Taylorism were less relevant, they suggested that Taylor’s thinking was not significantly complicated . This article helped us have a better understanding of the ideas of F. W. Taylor, demonstrated the relative importance of the concepts suggested by Taylor and revealed another side of Taylorism. Analysis of Article 1 Wrege, C. D. & Hodgetts, R. M. 2000. Frederick W. Taylor’s 1899 pig iron observations: Examining fact, fiction and lessons for the new millennium.Academy of Management Journal, 43 (6): 1283-1291 However, the authors of this article were in dispute with Taylor in a particular circumstance. Wrege & Hodgetts (2000) stated that Taylor simplified the observation by presenting only some of the information and, he omitted many significant facts. The insight thinking of the authors was that contemporary organisation should apply new tools and techniques to achieve their objectives, and managers should increasingly concentrate on data collection and analysis and fight the tendency to accept anecdotes and hearsay as accurate (Wrege & Hodgetts, 2000).The authors studied an d analysed the case called pig iron observation, which came from Taylor’s scientific management principle, and concluded that although Taylor had made a great contribution to management history, he did neglect some significant real facts in this case such as failure to take the cost of damaging gondolas into account.In addition, the authors suggested five points that we could learn from this observation, which are â€Å"anecdotal data are often erroneous, primary sources must be consulted, all data have inconsistencies, replication is hallmark of good science and digital archiving is now critical† (Wrege & Hodgetts, 2000). Moreover, the authors had concluded some suggestions that are valuable for the managers in new millennium. Wrege & Hodgetts (2000) demonstrated that researchers’ being more systematic and sophisticated was important in their approach to chieving their goals, and that â€Å"benchmarking† was going to be a critical activity in the 21st ce ntury. This article revealed the limitation of Taylor’s scientific management, and the authors of this article recommended a considerable number of approaches and methods to help today’s managers reach their objectives successfully and efficiently. Analysis of Article 2 Boyns, T. 2001. Hans and Charles Renold: entrepreneurs in the introduction of scientific management techniques in Britain.Management Decision, 39 (9): 719-728 The author of this article used the case study of Hans Renold Ltd to extend Taylor’s scientific management theory, and explained how it was applied in this enterprise during the first and second decades of the twentieth century. The core ideals of the author were to confirm the contribution that Hans and Charles Renold made to introduce and develop scientific management in Britain, and distinguish the different methodology between Hans and Charles. It has been accepted that Hans Renold Ltd has been the first company to introduce Taylor†™s scientific management in Britain (Boyns, 2001).Hans Renold â€Å"probably was the first British industrialist to appreciate the work of F. W. Taylor and adapt it to British management practice† (Urwick, 1956). He started to change the organisational structure and introduced a new functional organisation supported by a system of committees in 1908 (Boyns, 2001). Although there were some problems arising such as little resistance from the bulk of the workforce, scientific management principles were eventual successfully adopted at Hans Renold Ltd eventually (Boyns, 2001).The author of this article introduced the first application of Taylor’s scientific management in Britain and emphasized the fundamental position of scientific management in management history as it has already been applied for a century and it still plays a significantly important role in increasing the efficiency in the organisations in the 21st century. Application to Current Management Practice A round the Twentieth Century, Taylor’s scientific management theory had been widely used in the manufacturing and services industries.In the 21st century, scientific management does play an important role, and it is applied in several modern organizations. McDonalds is the world’s most famous brands, which is leading in the globally branded quick service restaurant applied the scientific management successfully in their business operations. Initially, Taylor (1911) stated that wage systems without incentive result in low productivity if no matter how much is produced the employee will gain the same pay. McDonalds stimulates employees in many effective ways.Regardless of the base pay, McDonalds develops competitive wage and promotion programs, hard work, motivation and results are recorded and rewarded at McDonalds (McDonalds, 2006). In addition, McDonalds also establishes great incentive programs in which employees have an access to gift and free food (McDonalds, 2006). McDonalds also offers an incentive pay system and provide the opportunity to earn competitive total compensation for employees when they successfully achieve the goals (McDonalds, 2006).Moreover, Long-term incentives are ensured to employees who are qualified to both reward and long-term creation at McDonalds (McDonalds 2006). Secondly, one of the most important principles of Scientific Management is scientifical training. Taylor (1911) suggested that each company should train the workers scientifically rather than passively leave them to train themselves. McDonalds has a strong belief in training, and training becomes a tradition at McDonalds, because they know its value to the bottom line of their business.Everyone in the business should attend a significantly important training, whether part, full time, hourly paid staff or salaried managers undergoing their compulsory restaurant training (McDonalds 2006). When a new employee joins McDonalds and starts his first working day, he will accept training at once. McDonalds even set up a Hamburger University, and the purpose of this action is to provide all McDonalds Corporation and Franchisees employees with training exclusively in various aspects of the business (McDonalds 2006). Those training systems make their staff more efficient and professional.Finally, Taylor (1911) taught that the only one method of work that maximized efficiency was to develop a standard method of performing each job efficiently by companies. McDonalds builds up a series of detailed and strict working standards, which guarantee that every product from any chain restaurant has high quality (McDonalds 2006). Moreover, McDonalds staff is specialized in different production procedure (McDonalds 2006). McDonalds has developed a standard method of performing each job and the employees can perform efficiently. ConclusionIn conclusion, the authors of the above three articles explained the Taylorism precisely and explicitly. The core thinking o f Taylor’s scientific management was efficiency particularly was speed, and it is widely applied in most modern organizations such as McDonalds to help increase the productivity. Although Taylor’s scientific management has some limitation as sometimes managers could overlook to collect important data by relying on it excessively, it still made an important contribution to the business world in the 21st century.Taylor laid the foundation of management, and with the application of scientific management, production efficiency has improved. Much of core of Scientific Management remains with us today, only been modified, updated and given a human face (Freeman, 1996). Term Paper on Functions of Management Eritrea Education Sector Development Program – Program Management Unit ESDP-PMU Management Functions 1. Introduction: Management is defined as the process of getting activities completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people . It encompasses an a rray of functions with which it accomplishes different tasks done successfully.These functions include planning, staffing, organizing, directing, and controlling. The Eritrea Education Sector Development Program – Program Management Unit, abbreviated as ESDP-PMU, is an institution destined to accomplish education sector program objectives that have to be viewed in terms of the government policy to boost the education sector in all aspects. Through the educational sector intervention, ESDP-PMU works to ensure increase in access, improve quality, boost capacities in all levels of the sector, and ensure equity in delivery education services.This paper explores the management functions in the ESDP, highlights strengths and weaknesses in view of the theoretical aspect of management function. Finally, it highlights some few salient points that are worth mentioning and by way of recommendations it tries to shed lights on issues that need improvement. 2. Overview of the management fu nctions: Henry Fayol defines management as a science of forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. The most commonly cited management functions are planning, staffing, organizing, directing, and controlling.Planning refers to the base of the other management functions. It is the management of the organizations’ future in an uncertain environment . Plans can be strategic, tactical, and operational. They can also be long-term or short-term. Plan should be built on specific, attainable, and challenging objectives. In the materials for the management course of SMAP it is mentioned that planning is important in that it offsets uncertainty and change, focuses attention on objectives, helps in coordination, gains economy of operation, helps in control, and increases organizational effectiveness.In that sense it divides plans to standing and single-use plans. Organizing refers to the organization of resources in an organization. Such organization ca n be charted on an organizational chart . Through this function management tries to determine the inside directorial configuration, establish and maintain relationships, and also assign required resources of the organization. Staffing functions follows the organizing function of management. Staffing refers to the filling and keeping filled positions on positions created by the preceding organizing function .Thus, staffing encompasses tasks such as recruitment, selection, training and retraining of employees. Directing refers to the control and supervision of the actions of the staff, thus, enables them to achieve the company’s goals and also accomplishing their personal or career goals which can be powered motivation, communication, department dynamics, and department leadership . Controlling refers to activities related to setting performance standards based on the objectives of the organization, measuring and reporting actual performance, comparing the two, and taking corre ctive or preventive action as necessary.As management is a creative problem solving , the coordination of the various functions mentioned above contribute to an efficient and effective accomplishment of tasks. The section below review the management functions in the ESDP-PMU. 3. Review of the management functions in the ESDP-PMU: The ESDP-PMU is destined to accomplish education related projects. These projects are financed through the proceeds coming from International organizations such as the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Union, as well as other UN bodies such as UNICEF and UNFPA.Each financier or development partner requires the need to follow ones procedures. The other dimension of the matter that needs attention is that each financier or development partner is set up to achieve each project objectives. Thus, there are kind of awkwardness in reaching a harmonized program objectives. Planning function in the PMU The PMU believes that proper planning is a prerequi site to success. It is concerned with the future impact of today’s decisions. In the PMU there is a section that deals with planning issues.It prepares tactical and operational planning in view of the project objectives. The planning that is made part of the Financing Agreements with the respective development partner can be taken as a strategic one. The Planning Section of the PMU prepares an Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWPB). On the basis of which, the procurement section derives its procurement plan, and the finance section derives its financial and disbursement plan. Therefore, we can see the following relationship in the planning function of the PMU. Graph 1.Planning function relationship From the foregoing planning relations graph, we can observe that all the activities envisaged to be done in a year or a year and half through the plans of the respective sections. Overall, all these plans reflect the scenarios â€Å"where we are now? †, â€Å"where do we want t o be? †, and â€Å"how do we get there? †. It is good also to note that the submission of plans and seeking approvals is mandatory. This procedure is deemed appropriate and practically does positively affect the projects. Organizing function in the PMUTo the PMU organizing function refers to establishing the internal organizational structure of the business. The focus is on division, coordination, and control of tasks and the flow of information within the organization. It is through this function that the manager distributes responsibility and authority to employees. The organizational structure of the PMU is shown below. It takes into consideration the objectives and tactics already identified in the planning stage. The structure decides the division of labor, delegation of authority, departmentation, span of control nd coordination issues. When we come to the division of labor, the PMU is divided into 5 sections, viz. , Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PM&E), Pr ocurement, Finance, Engineering, and Administration sections. And all the employees are recruited in such a way that they are fully occupied. In regards to the delegation of authority, as reflected in the organizational structure, the authority is exercised as per the stipulated structure. The sections coordinate their work so as to achieve the objectives. This means that no section can stand alone.Staffing function in the PMU Staffing encompasses the tasks of recruiting, hiring, training, lay-off, and compensation of employees. The PMU recruits its staff with due regards to the management and labor needs. In so doing, it prepares job description, builds a pool of applicants, review the applications and select those to be interviewed, do the interview, check references, and select the best suited candidate and hire him. The PMU provides training to its staff in view of the timely job related developments and requirements.For instance, the staffs are made to be actively involved in t he endeavors to upgrade themselves. Similarly, the PMU lays off its staff in view of staff’s reflections of incapacities in doing the tasks or showing other behaviors that are believed against the norms of the organization. It is the right of the employees to receive the needed compensation related with the job they undertook during their stay in the PMU. Directing function in the PMU Directing is influencing people's behavior through motivation, communication, group dynamics, leadership and discipline.The purpose of directing is to channel the behavior of all personnel to accomplish the organization's mission and objectives while simultaneously helping them accomplish their own career objectives. Highly motivated people perform better than unmotivated people. Motivation covers up ability and skill deficiencies in employees. The PMU gives motivation top priority. Employees are motivated through the material, financial, as well as work environment privileges. This is very impo rtant aspect that expedites the realizations of the objectives.Besides, the communication issues are very important as part of the directing function of management in the PMU. The staffs are careful enough in their communicative efforts such as with the financiers, partners, suppliers etc. The staffs are appraised for what they do, and disciplinary measures are taken for incidents of misbehaviors. Controlling function of the PMU Controlling in the PMU is done in view of the performance standards (indicators) set in each financing agreement back before the start of the implementation of projects.The Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Section of the PMU take care of such tasks as monitoring activities and evaluating against standards. The Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Section undertake routine or surprise checks of activities. At the mid term and final term of projects, they also conduct evaluations. In so doing, the section seeks preventive and corrective measures such as th e incorporation of new mechanisms of implementations. The controlling function is done in all aspects of the program, such as controlling assets owned by the office, control on the staff in terms of their work hours. . General Observations in the PMU The PMU is known for its staff that is aware of the virtues out of team working, learning by doing, and complementarities. These attributes are very important for the management function to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in the tasks that are destined to accomplish. Most of the staff members are young professionals that they can learn easily from experiences of others, and that they possess the merit to catch up things through continuous reading. The team work in the PMU has assisted the effective accomplishments of activities as scheduled.Synergism is common place, and supporting one another is highly worked upon. 5. Recommendations From the foregoing we can understand that the PMU fully undertaking management functions. In order to cement the positive sides of what is going on in the PMU, I recommend the following points: †¢ that the various projects need to be harmonized †¢ that the staffing function be done in view of the experiences already nurtured. This means the job description in trying to hire staff has to be used in such a way that team work is given greater weight. that more training need to be provided to the staff †¢ that the young professionals be retained as a team in order to pursue the implementation of similar projects in other sectors such as agriculture, etc 6. Conclusion Efficiency and effectiveness are key words related to the realization of plans. The realization of this is the task of management. Management does these through the coordination of its functions. These functions are planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.The PMU is reputed for pursuing a management style that assists in the realizations of set objectives effectively and efficiently. Al l management functions are employed in the PMU, and thus the fruits of these concerted efforts are tangibly realized. 7. Works cited Website http://choo. fis. utoronto. ca/fis/courses/lis1230/lis1230sharma/plan1. htm http://www. ag. ohio-state. edu/~mgtexcel/Function. html http://www. ag. ohio-state. edu/~mgtexcel/Staffing. html http://www. buzzle. com/articles/management-concepts-the-four-functions-of-management. tml http://choo. fis. utoronto. ca/fis/courses/lis1230/lis1230sharma/history4. htm Kiflemariam Abraham, Reading on Principles of Management. March 2007 Management Term Paper * * Help Desk Operations for the Operating Forces Wilfredo Santiago Park University Author Note This is an insider view on how to streamline and improve the services provided by MCTSSA (Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity) Help Desk to the Operating Forces. Abstract MCTSSA Help Desk was established over 10 years ago to provide technical support to the operating forces.Today the Help Desk is referred to as OFTSSC (Operating Forces Tactical Systems Support Center) with a specific mission stated as: to provide continuous, distributed technical support, troubleshooting, and problem resolution for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) systems, in order to optimize those systems as force multipliers in assisting Marines to win battles. While the OFTSSC focuses on the needs of the Marine Corps, it offers technical assistance to all C4I system users across the entire Department of Defense (DoD), U. S. Government and all U.S. Foreign National Allies. The OFTSSC provides its customers with remote technical assistance by facilitating online access to supported system documentation, system software and offering live interaction with system subject matter experts (SMEs), via phone, online chat, and email. If a solution to a customer problem is not immediately available, OFTSSC personnel will actively work to obtain a solution by elevating customer issue s to MCTSSA support engineers, system vendors, Marine Corps Systems Command program managers or other commercial or DoD customer support agencies.Help Desk Operations for the Operating Forces The OFTSSC from the start operated in an ad-hoc manner maintaining its mission capability with a support staff composed of contractors and civilian government analysts and a limited number of uniformed personnel. This odd mix of employees with identical goals as a mission end state has presented a management challenge that has hampered efficiency and responsiveness in providing the services as defined in the stated mission. This paper will address three persistent problems that exist within OFTSSC.First, the lack of a verifiable control measure to gauge analyst productivity and quantified work output. Staffing is also a source of issues that continue to impact OFTSSC’s ability to maintain its credibility as a reliable source of SME (Subject Matter Experts) and it has a continuing difficu lty at retaining well trained employees to stick around. In fulfilling its function as a help-desk/support center for the operating forces, employees routinely receive calls from customers describing problems they encounter when employing tactical systems whether in garrison or on deployment.These calls are inducted into a database repository, Remedy. Here the adequacy of Remedy in providing as an output control comes into question. Although Remedy is widely used in the help desk community it is a system that requires a lot of labor intensive modifications to get take advantage of its capabilities as a help desk database tool. Currently, Remedy is employed as an out of the box software with limited modifications. Remedy can be modified as an output control tool that will enable management to effectively monitor employee productivity and efficiency.By design Remedy not only archives problems customers refer for solutions it also is a repository of all solutions created by analysts wh ich is then made available for future use or reference as a knowledge based article (KBA). As calls are received from customers analysts input all data related to problems being referred for assistance into Remedy. The information will include system type and nature of the problem and complete customer information. All these information is populated onto a standard template. The analyst then proceeds to research the KBA archives by using a key word search related to the problem.If a solution match is found this is provided to the customer and the problem is marked resolved and archived. The utility of the Remedy database is not fully exploited as any type of record created is only available only thru accessed. With all these information available within a central repository it should be made available for for all analysts at a glance providing a snapshot of the problem, the status, whether pending, resolved or in progress. This should be displayed on a large monitor for all to see. With this information on display all analysts will have current status of all problems available at a glance.At a minimum this should display two weeks worth of activity. This display will serve as visible output control measure to gauge analyst activity and productivity. This quantifiable and measurable display of work output can be used as an objective measure of performance and used as a basis for compensation rewards. For the analyst this will also serve as a current constant visible reminder of work that is pending, in progress or completed. Today the mix of employee analysts within OFTSSC has a variety of skill sets whose qualifications for the jobs are based on their past work experience with a particular system.This has been a detriment to OFTSSC’s ability to provide reliable analysts consistently without periodic unavailability due to SME absence. This is a cause for concern because of its impact on the service reputation that is expected by the customers – av ailability among others. To fill this requirement gap it is imperative that the depth of analyst skill sets be enhanced. There are thirty analysts currently employed supporting over forty varying systems which include a variety of tactical radios. The systems are grouped into Command and Control (C2) or Tactical Applications (TacApps) with tactical radios included into TacApps.This grouping is done for purposes of limited management and tasking deconfliction. Personnel tasking however blurs the lines of personnel assignments as analysts are often randomly assigned to provide assistance on systems that he or she is not officially assigned. The practice has in many situations caused unexpected disruptions in service quality. Because too often analysts assigned to tasks do not possess the subject matter expertise to provide support requested. To mitigate this situation a training program that will involved cross training all analysts need to be instituted within OFTSSC.Staffing has to be reviewed and a reorganization of the analyst teams will have to be done in a manner that permits a well defined tasking of all analysts based on skill sets and grouping them based on previous assignments. Within each grouping a program of OJT (On the Job Training) will be initiated by pairing each analyst together and each one go thru a training program designed to increase their depth of skill and familiarity with systems other than those they are qualified on as an expert. During the training period ample opportunity will be dedicated to having the trainer and trainee to conduct business as a team.This process will be akin to a mentoring process that facilitates the transfer of knowledge and skill that will improve the services provided to customers. Reorganization and staffing once completed will result in a reliable and available analyst well trained on the system supported. The improved skill sets will require to be maintained if the quality of service is to be credible, thi s can be achieved with a programmed sustainment training that should include in-service training and follow-on continuing education to keep current with the dynamic nature of technology.Summary The operation of a support center such as OFTSSC is unique in that its main customer is the operating thus the focus of its services are the uniformed personnel who maybe in harm’s way, because of this it is critical that the quality and accuracy of service and information provide require a level of expertise that is above the norm. Analysts are assumed to be the experts on the systems they support therefore it is imperative that their training and quality of service measure up to the standards.If the service provided is to have any value or credibility the provider must have the requisite knowledge and training to be consistent with the required standards. At the onset staffing should focus on critical skill sets that are vital to the operational demands of the customers and they shou ld sustain the currency of those skills. In order to maintain and improve the depth of knowledge and skill sets training is essential and once established sustainment will be required.Hiring standard is another area that will have to be visited to ensure that standards are maintained and qualified personnel are selected. This will preclude the impact of substandard services to the customer. References -3 points for not utilizing MG352 text to support term paper. 1. Operations Chief: OFTSSC Standard Operating Procedures, 2010 2. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 3, 2011 3. http://www. bmc. com/solutions/itsm/it-service-management. tml -3 points for improper citing of reference; below is how article from the Internet should be cited Author (2012, May 15). Name of Article, Date retrieved from the internet & http://www. link. com 4. http://www. marines. mil/unit/marcorsyscom/mctssa/Pages/OFTSSC. aspx -3 points for improper citing of reference; below is how article from the Internet should be cited Author (2012, May 15). Name of Article, Date retrieved from the internet & http://www. link. com