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Archive for August, 2010

Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. This set encompasses a wide scope of activities, and these include planning, allocating, setting goals, delegation, analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing. Initially time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools and techniques.

Some authors (such as Stephen R. Covey) offered a categorization scheme for the hundreds of time management approaches that they reviewed

• First generation: reminders based on clocks and watches, but with computer implementation possible; can be used to alert a person when a task is to be done.
• Second generation: planning and preparation based on calendar and appointment books; includes setting goals.
• Third generation: planning, prioritizing, controlling (using a personal organizer, other paper-based objects, or computer or PDA-based systems) activities on a daily basis. This approach implies spending some time in clarifying values and priorities.
• Fourth generation: being efficient and proactive using any of the above tools; places goals and roles as the controlling element of the system and favors importance over urgency.

Some of the recent general arguments related to “time” and “management” point out that the term “time management” is misleading and that the concept should actually imply that it is “the management of our own activities, to make sure that they are accomplished within the available or allocated time, which is an unmanageable continuous resource”.

Time management literature paraphrased:

• “Get Organized” – paperwork and task triage
• “Protect Your Time” – insulate, isolate, delegate
• “Set gravitational goals” – that attract actions automatically
• “Achieve through Goal management Goal Focus” - motivational emphasis
• “Work in Priority Order” – set goals and prioritize
• “Use Magical Tools to Get More Out of Your Time” – depends on when written
• “Master the Skills of Time Management”
• “Go with the Flow” – natural rhythms, Eastern philosophy
• “Recover from Bad Time Habits” – recovery from underlying psychological problems, e.g. procrastination

Quality management is a recent phenomenon. Advanced civilizations that supported the arts and crafts allowed clients to choose goods meeting higher quality standards than normal goods. In societies where art responsibilities of a master craftsman (and similarly for artists) was to lead their studio, train and supervise the on, the importance of craftsmen was diminished as mass production and repetitive work practices were instituted. The aim was to produce large numbers of the same goods. The first proponent in the US for this approach was Eli Whitney who proposed (interchangeable) parts manufacture for muskets, hence producing the identical components and creating a musket assembly line. The next step forward was promoted by several people including Frederick Winslow Taylor a mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He is sometimes called “the father of scientific management.” He was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and part of his approach laid a further foundation for quality management, including aspects like standardization and adopting improved practices. Henry Ford also was important in bringing process and quality management practices into operation in his assembly lines. In Germany, Karl Friedrich Benz, often called the inventor of the motor car, was pursuing similar assembly and production practices, although real mass production was properly initiated in Volkswagen after World War II. From this period onwards, North American companies focused predominantly upon production against lower cost with increased efficiency.

Walter A. Shewhart made a major step in the evolution towards quality management by creating a method for quality control for production, using statistical methods, first proposed in 1924. This became the foundation for his ongoing work on statistical quality control. W. Edwards Deming later applied statistical process control methods in the United States during World War II, thereby successfully improving quality in the manufacture of munitions and other strategically important products.

Quality leadership from a national perspective has changed over the past five to six decades. After the second world war, Japan decided to make quality improvement a national imperative as part of rebuilding their economy, and sought the help of Shewhart, Deming and Juran, amongst others. W. Edwards Deming championed Shewhart’s ideas in Japan from 1950 onwards. He is probably best known for his management philosophy establishing quality, productivity, and competitive position. He has formulated 14 points of attention for managers, which are a high level abstraction of many of his deep insights. They should be interpreted by learning and understanding the deeper insights and include:

• Break down barriers between departments
• Management should learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership
• Improve constantly
• Institute a programme of education and self-improvement

In the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese goods were synonymous with cheapness and low quality, but over time their quality initiatives began to be successful, with Japan achieving very high levels of quality in products from the 1970s onward. For example, Japanese cars regularly top the J.D. Power customer satisfaction ratings. In the 1980s Deming was asked by Ford Motor Company to start a quality initiative after they realized that they were falling behind Japanese manufacturers. A number of highly successful quality initiatives have been invented by the Japanese (see for example on this page: Taguchi, QFD, Toyota Production System. Many of the methods not only provide techniques but also have associated quality culture (i.e. people factors). These methods are now adopted by the same western countries that decades earlier derided Japanese methods.

Customers recognize that quality is an important attribute in products and services. Suppliers recognize that quality can be an important differentiator between their own offerings and those of competitors (quality differentiation is also called the quality gap). In the past two decades this quality gap has been greatly reduced between competitive products and services. This is partly due to the contracting (also called outsourcing) of manufacture to countries like India and China, as well internationalization of trade and competition. These countries amongst many others have raised their own standards of quality in order to meet International standards and customer demands. The ISO 9000 series of standards are probably the best known International standards for quality management.

There are a huge number of books available on quality. In recent times some themes have become more significant including quality culture, the importance of knowledge management, and the role of leadership in promoting and achieving high quality. Disciplines like systems thinking are bringing more holistic approaches to quality so that people, process and products are considered together rather than independent factors in quality management.

The influence of quality thinking has spread to non-traditional applications outside of walls of manufacturing, extending into service sectors and into areas such as sales, marketing and customer service.

Management operates through various functions, often classified as planning, organizing, leading/directing, and controlling/monitoring.
• Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year, over the next 5 years, etc.) and generating plans for action.
• Organizing: (Implementation) making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful carrying out of plans.
• Staffing: Job Analyzing, recruitment, and hiring individuals for appropriate jobs.
• Leading/Directing: Determining what needs to be done in a situation and getting people to do it.
• Controlling/Monitoring: Checking progress against plans.
• Motivation : Motivation is also a kind of basic function of management, because without motivation employee cannot work effectively. If motivation doesn’t takes place in an organization then employees may not contribute to the other functions (which are usually set by top level management).

Formation of the business policy
• The mission of the business is the most obvious purpose—which may be, for example, to make soap.
• The vision of the business reflects its aspirations and specifies its intended direction or future destination.
• The objectives of the business refers to the ends or activity at which a certain task is aimed.
• The business’s policy is a guide that stipulates rules, regulations and objectives, and may be used in the managers’ decision-making. It must be flexible and easily interpreted and understood by all employees.
• The business’s strategy refers to the coordinated plan of action that it is going to take, as well as the resources that it will use, to realize its vision and long-term objectives. It is a guideline to managers, stipulating how they ought to allocate and utilize the factors of production to the business’s advantage. Initially, it could help the managers decide on what type of business they want to form.

How to implement policies and strategies
• All policies and strategies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff.
• Managers must understand where and how they can implement their policies and strategies.
• A plan of action must be devised for each department.
• Policies and strategies must be reviewed regularly.
• Contingency plans must be devised in case the environment changes.
• Assessments of progress ought to be carried out regularly by top-level managers.
• A good environment and team spirit is required within the business.
• The missions, objectives, strengths and weaknesses of each department must be analysed to determine their roles in achieving the business’s mission.
• The forecasting method develops a reliable picture of the business’s future environment.
• A planning unit must be created to ensure that all plans are consistent and that policies and strategies are aimed at achieving the same mission and objectives.
All policies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff that is required in the execution of any departmental policy.
• Organizational change is strategically achieved through the implementation of the eight-step plan of action established by John P. Kotter: Increase urgency, get the vision right, communicate the buy-in, empower action, create short-term wins, don’t let up, and make change stick.

Where policies and strategies fit into the planning process
• They give mid- and lower-level managers a good idea of the future plans for each department in an organization.
• A framework is created whereby plans and decisions are made.
• Mid- and lower-level management may add their own plans to the business’s strategic ones.

Multi-divisional management hierarchy
The management of a large organization may have about five levels:
1. Senior management (or “top management” or “upper management”)
2. Middle management
3. Low-level management, such as supervisors or team-leaders
4. Foreman
5. Rank and File

Top-level management
• Require an extensive knowledge of management roles and skills.
• They have to be very aware of external factors such as markets.
• Their decisions are generally of a long-term nature
• Their decisions are made using analytic, directive, conceptual and/or behavioral/participative processes
• They are responsible for strategic decisions.
• They have to chalk out the plan and see that plan may be effective in the future.
• They are executive in nature.

Middle management
• Mid-level managers have a specialized understanding of certain managerial tasks.
• They are responsible for carrying out the decisions made by top-level management.
• Finance, marketing etc are comes under middle level management

Lower management
• This level of management ensures that the decisions and plans taken by the other two are carried out.
• Lower-level managers’ decisions are generally short-term ones.

Foreman / lead hand
• They are people who have direct supervision over the working force in office factory, sales field or other workgroup or areas of activity.

Rank and File
• The responsibilities of the persons belonging to this group are even more restricted and more specific than those of the foreman.

Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. In project management, change management refers to a project management process where changes to a project are formally introduced and approved.
The field of change management grew from the recognition that organizations are composed of people. And the behaviors of people make up the outputs of an organization.

Examples of Organizational Change
1. Strategic changes
2. Technological changes
3. Structural changes
4. Changing the attitudes and behaviors of personnel
As a multidisciplinary practice, Organizational Change Management requires for example: creative marketing to enable communication between change audiences, but also deep social understanding about leadership’s styles and group dynamics. As a visible track on transformation projects, Organizational Change Management aligns groups’ expectations, communicates, integrates teams and manages people training. It makes use of metrics, such as leader’s commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change to design accurate strategies, in order to avoid change failures or solve troubled change projects. An effective change management plan needs to address all above mentioned dimensions of change. This can be achieved in following ways:
1. Putting in place an effective Communication strategy which would bridge any gap in the understanding of change benefits and its implementation strategy.
2. Devise an effective skill upgrading scheme for the organization. Overall these measures can counter resistance from the employees of companies and align them to overall strategic direction of the organization.
3. Personal counseling of staff members (if required) to alleviate any change related fears.