Project management tools and techniques

Project management tools and techniques Project management tools and techniques are available to assist project managers and their teams in successfully delivering the project. Some popular tools in the time management knowledge area include Gantt charts, network diagrams, critical path analysis Critical Incidence 2- Perceived Failure Of The Project A critical incidence during the project was the perceived failure of the project by the University administration due to the amount of time it was taking to register all the students. This was 10 weeks in to the project and the university claimed that with their manual process they completed registration in 3 weeks. As the on-site member of the project team, I was responsible for utilizing all available resources to successfully complete the project within a reasonable time. The time frame was not stated and my aim daily was to register as many students as possible. Gantt charts Gantt Chart is one of the popular information presentation tools in a project plan for graphically scheduling and budgeting. This tool makes it possible to have a quick look at all the tasks names and timings, and shows the current schedule status and progress. (Schwalbe 2006). It is also a good technique to identify parallel and sequential tasks, estimated time required for each task and an overall project timeline representation (McFarland  Ã‚   ) Schwalbe K. 2006, â€Å"Introduction to project management† Publisher: Cengage Learning Avoiding Project Management Pitfalls Allison J. McFarland With the availability of various Project-Management applications, like MS Project, smartdraw-Easy Project Chart, etc., Gantt Chart can be easily made. According to Pankaja Pradeep Kumar one of the biggest problems, the project managers have to face, is project-scheduling. With Ms. Projects Gantt Chart, an effective scheduling plan can be put in place for providing the necessary information, required by the project team members, for measuring the actual performance with the planned performance. This will enable the projects to be delivered within the time constraint with pre-defined quality standard. There are many literature and reading material available expressing the usefulness of the Gantt Chat (see appendix 1). Unfortunately Gantt charts, despite having various advantages faces various criticism. Asaravala (2006) highlights that some critics argue that Gantt Chart distracts the project managers attention from the project and towards perfecting pretty graphs, while others argue that charts are created only to satisfy the higher-ups and act as a distraction for the project team. Asaravala, A. 2006, â€Å"Defending the Gantt Chart†,   Resource: Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) , Citation: Software DevelopmentJan2006, Vol. 14 Issue 1, p14-15 Luz (2009) Also criticises that, besides the benefits, Gantt charts have many weakness which includes lack of details and inefficient utilization of screen space when displaying large number of parallel tasks, each of which requires its own representation space. Maylor (2001) extends the criticism and considers Gantt Chart as a â€Å"blunt instrument†, that encourages a one-step approach to planning. As a result of the presentation capabilities of modern planning packages, the visual quality of colour charts means that they gain an implicit credibility. This can result in staff being unwilling to challenge the charts, and so they gain a momentum all of their own. Furthermore Maylor (2001) states that charts obliges the project manager to over-control the project instead of delegating the project responsibilities to the team members. Increasing use of the project-management applications, project managers become not only the ‘keeper of the charts but also a computer operat or. This might lead the virtual project plan not being updated, as frequent change occurs. Asaravala (2006) defends the charts approach by reasoning that Gantt chart is a communication tool in helping stakeholders in understanding the tasks and the tasks relations with each other Pritchard (2004) affirms that Gantt charts helps the stakeholder to have a good view of the project and also act as a communication tool to the project clients and the stakeholders involved. Furthermore it helps project leaders focus their attention on critical tasks and resources as the project moves forward and allow them to keep track of how the project is progressing and using its available resources. Pritchard C. 2004, â€Å"The project management communications toolkit†, Publisher: Artech House Asaravala (2006) concludes that one the major reasons for criticism against Gantt charts might be that project managers, most often, find it difficult to get Project Management Applications, like Microsoft Project, to do what they want it to do. This might lead to confusion in the project tasks and delays in delivering the project Since Gantt Chart is not the only tool for time management in a project management. Literature mentions that there is an alternative approach to Time management. Therefore, Kendrick (2004) and Ribeiro (2009) suggest that an alternative to the Gantt chart would be to use a Critical Path Analysis CPA (Network Analysis) whereas Field et al. (1998), Johnson et al. (2007) and Davis T. and Pharro R. 2003 suggest Gantt Chart should be used along with Critical Path Analysis. Critical path networks provide a powerful notation needed to show all the local interdependencies between different tasks. Furthermore, it also ensures completion of the project in a timely manner by quantifying the priorities, based on an analysis of all the task duration estimates, with efficient utilization of resources but all this depends on the accuracy of the information used. (Lock 2007) Lock D. 2007, The Essentials of Project Management, Edition: 3, Publisher: Gower Publishing   Ltd. Field M. and Keller L. 1998, â€Å"Project management†, Publisher: Cengage Learning EMEA Ribeiro J. M. 2009, â€Å"Procurement of Goods, Works and Services in Development Projects: With an Overview of Project Management†, Publisher: Presses inter Polytechnique Johnson L. K., Luecke R. and Austin R. D. 2007, â€Å"The essentials of project management†, Publisher: Harvard Business Press Kendrick T. 2004, â€Å"The project management tool kit: 100 tips and techniques for getting the job done right†, Publisher: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn for project of a long duration, or where the details associated with future stages of he project are unclear, the completion of detailed network or Gantt chart can be meaningless. An alternative approach for projects of this nature is to agree and set metilestones or target dates fro akey events some way into the future. Detailed plans are then produced on a rolling programme as work is completed. Milestone charts are a very useful way to represent the project schedule. The activities leading up to the next milestone are developed in detail (using the processes outlined above), but the future stages of the project are shown simply by apporiate milestones. The detailed activities associated with the work leading up to those future milestones are developed as the project draws near. This approach provides a realistic representation of the project as events some way into the future are inevitably less well known and clearly defined. Planning the schedule in detail as the work is approac hed provides more accurate detailed plans. Davis T. and Pharro R. 2003, â€Å"The relationship manager: the next generation of project management†, Publisher Gower Publishing, Ltd Personal Reflection In the trans Himalayan mountain bike race project, the use of Gantt Charts for delivering the project has been empirical. For me Gantt chart acted as a key planning and controlling tool for addressing the project management in terms of time, scheduling and cost. It is easy to understand, embodies the WBS and enables monitoring the progress against projected estimation. I do not agree with Maylor (2001) criticism for considering Gantt Chart as a â€Å"blunt instrument† because it is either the projects milestones that are not executed in the way it is scheduled for or the Gantt Chart is not consistently aligned with the reality of the project. Blaming the Gantt Chart for being useless is just absurd. I have observed that Gantt Charts are not as good as a Critical Path Analysis Flow Diagram for identifying and showing interdependent factors. Although some of the literature, as mentioned above, mentions using the Critical Path Analysis as an alternative to Gantt Chart but after experiencing and using both tools in the Himalayan mountain bike race project, made me realized their importance and compels me to agree with Field et al. (1998) and Johnson et al. (2007) CPA flow diagram should be used with the Gantt Chart as a secondary tool. and Davis T. and Pharro R. 2003 Highlights the critical path and shows project logic (flow). Introduction To Project Management By Kathy Schwalbe For this reason many good organizations stopped using chart approach to plan projects like the top level management of Hewlett Packards UK plants uses whiteboards and Post-It notes with individual sub-project managers using the project management application at the task level Kuta points out that the key success factor for project rely on the project decisions which are based upon cost, risk, procurement and contracting, and other issues but are not addressed in the traditional Gantt Chart can oftenbe the timing and tn Although Gantt chart act as a key planning and controlling tool for addressing the project manamgent in terms of time, schecdule and cost but in support of this argument by In this argument

Coca-Cola Company Struggles with Ethical Issues Essay

Many of the ethical issues surfaced when Warren Buffet resigned in 2006 and Doug Ivester took over. Ivester lacked leadership and as a result, the company faced many ethical issues. Ivester tenure was symbolic in that it was short-lived. This was a serious public relations glitch for a company who for so long, performed flawlessly. Ivester was replaced by Doug Daft, the former president and chief operating officer. Unfortunately, Daft had no success in derailing the controversies. In early 2000, Coca-cola was embroiled in ethical scandals such as racial discrimination, misrepresenting market test and manipulating earnings. Text Questions 1. Why do you think Coca-Cola has had one ethical issue to resolve after another over the last decade or so? In 2000, Coca-Cola failed to make the top ten of Fortune’s annual â€Å"America’s Most Admired Companies† list for the first time in a decade. Many believe this was a direct result of the contamination scare in June of 1999. 30 Belgian kids became ill after consuming Coca-Cola. Rather than come out right away and defends its product, Coca-Cola took several days to respond. I believe that as a result of this global crisis, Coca-Cola panicked and spiraled out of control. This company was operating on a high level for a decade and to be hit with such a scandal rocked the foundation the core. 2. A news analyst said that coca-cola could become the next Enron. Do you think this is possible? I do not believe that this case is similar to Enron. Enron’s culture was one of greed and win-at-all-cost mentality. Enron leadership created an atmosphere of invincibility. This was evident by the â€Å"rank-and-yank† system implemented to rid of those who were rated at the bottom 20 percent. This forced employees to engage in questionable practices in order to maintain their standing within the company.

Supply and Demand Easyjet

Assignment 2. 5 Supply, Demand and Easyjet The Marketing Mix is the name given to the elements which are the key components which a marketing plan should be based upon. Typically in Marketing literature there are four elements: price, place, promotion and product, however this is now sometimes expanded to incorporate another 3 elements: people, physical evidence and process. Pricing policy is clearly very important to the marketing mix and is affected by variables such as firm’s objectives, the nature of competition, demand and firm costs.Firms operate pricing in different ways according to their marketing strategy and the industry in which they participate; an example of pricing methods will be shown and evaluated further in the essay in reference to EasyJet and British Airways flight pricing. As mentioned in the introduction, the role of pricing within the marketing mix is a varied one depending on what the firm is trying to achieve and the conditions within which it is oper ating. This contradicts what economic theory tells us: that pricing should be based upon setting prices at the point where Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost in order to maximise firm profits.However, in real life â€Å"few firms explicitly follow the economic model in developing pricing policy† (Doyle 1997), because firms may be trying to achieve other things than maximising profits such as gaining market share, in which case they could be using the loss-leader tactic (where prices are set at a point which actually makes a loss for the firm which they are able to recoup through customer retention once prices increase or through the sale of full price complementary products).Doyle suggests that there are several common type of pricing policies such as: market-penetration pricing, market-skimming pricing, cost-orientated pricing, perceived-value pricing and price discrimination. Market penetration pricing refers to the concept discussed above such as loss-leading where short-ter m profits are sacrificed in order to increase/gain a market share(Baker, 1997). Market-skimming is the practice of setting high prices with subsequent high profits and expect to only sell a small volume of products; this can only work if there is no risk of nother company being able to completely take-over your potential sales with a cheaper price. Cost-orientated pricing is where prices are set as a basic mark-up on top of product costs, which can be known in business as ‘cost-plus’ pricing or target pricing when it refers to a certain level of return on investment. Perceived value pricing is based on the perception that buyers have of your firm’s product relative to other products in the market. Finally, the concept of price discrimination is one of particular importance to this essay given its data content of airline pricing.Perfect price discrimination is an economic concept where a firm seeks to charge every buyer exactly the price that they are prepared to pay. In reality, this is very difficult to achieve as how can a firm possibly be expected to know the exact value which each individual buyer places on their product? The only way that perfect price discrimination can be achieved is through an auction format, but this is debatable. General Price discrimination is a common strategy, however, and this involves firms charging different groups of customer’s different prices for the same product.In order for it to work, Doyle states that â€Å"customers in the highest-price segment must not be allowed to buy from the lower-price segment† e. g. there must be boundaries in place to ensure that a high-price customer cannot sneakily purchase at the low price. Within the airline industry this is achieved by differentiating between time of bookings – long-term advance bookings are the lower price customers and bookings made close to the time of departure are high price customers. The prices for Easyjet flights from London Luton to Madrid are as follows below: †¢ Tomorrow = 124. 98 †¢ One week = 183. 98 One month= 82. 98 †¢ 3 months = 70. 98 The key difference between these prices is that the more in advance you book, typically the cheaper it is. This indicates that Easyjet flight pricing is based upon demand (and supply but supply is fixed) for the flights, as the further in advance you book, the cheaper it is and on the flipside if you discover you have to go to Madrid tomorrow the price is much higher as your need/demand is more urgent and thus you will pay a higher price. However the obvious exception here is that it is nearly ? 60 cheaper to fly out tomorrow than it is to fly out in a week’s time.I would suggest that this appears to be an anomaly, as the obvious pattern of decreasing prices with advance bookings coupled with the knowledge that Easyjet formulates it’s prices based on supply and demand for each particular day and thus rewarding advance bookings (lower d emand for far away dates) with cheaper prices suggests that this is an unusual occurrence. One reason for the flights in a week being higher than a flight tomorrow to Madrid may be because the flight in a week is the weekend before Valentine’s Day so may be booked up more than we would typically expect from a normal day a week in advance.This peak and higher price for a potentially popular weekend represents that Easyjet is employing an almost near perfect pricing scheme in an economic sense e. g. each consumer is being charged a slightly different price relative to the level of demand for the flights (there is a fixed supply due to the fixed number of seats available). [pic] The graph above represents graphically the information from the Easyjet website which is displayed in bullet points above.As is clear to see – apart from the peak at 1 week – there is a downwards trend over time which I would expect to be even more obvious if we were to add in more data for weeks between 1 week and 1 month and between the periods of 1 month and 3 months. The decrease in price does appear to be flattening between month and 3 months which I would advocate is because once we’re getting to booking a few months in advance the prices are getting near to Easy jet’s lowest price point so there isn’t much room to decrease- thus I would anticipate the bottom price for the journey being around the ? 0 mark (as at 3 months in advance it is ? 70. 98). Turning now to the British Airways data, below are the prices for a BA flight from London Heathrow to Madrid at the same time of day and date as the Easyjet prices above: †¢ Tomorrow = 316 †¢ One week = 217 †¢ One month= 130 †¢ 3 months =126 Again, we can see both in the data and in the graph below that the same price discrimination strategy is being pursued by British Airways as by Easyjet: the advance flights represent the cheap-price customer segment and the close flights ( next day to next few weeks) represent the high-price segment.In both companies the price discrimination policy works as they are able to enforce the different price/customer brackets because of time of purchase of travel tickets being the discriminating factor. Therefore similarities between the two airlines are in the nature of their pricing strategies – price differentiation – and therefore the decreasing trend in air fares if booked in advance. The differences between the two companies from the data collected appear to be two different things: firstly that British Airways has a higher base price than Easyjet (circa ? 20 to circa ? 70) and that British Airways has not taken into account high-demand special occasions such as Valentine’s Day weekend in its pricing in comparison to EasyJet, as shown by the lack of spike in price at the one week point on the British Airways graph. The higher base price of almost ? 50 more commanded by British Airways (BA) is proba bly due to both higher costs than EasyJet (who follow a low-cost strategy and thus deliver less service than BA on its flights e. g. ess cabin crew, no complimentary food/beverages, no free baggage check-in) and also the Brand-name of British Airways commanding a higher price. To conclude, pricing is a vital part of the marketing mix and overall strategy of all firms. Within the airline industry, the tendency is for price discrimination as due to the nature of travel and the booking of flights it is possible to discriminate between different bands of customers booking the same service based on their needs (economy, business class, first class) and their time of booking (advance, the day before etc. . From evaluation of comparable data taken from both EasyJet and British Airways it is clear to see that both are operating a policy of price-discrimination based on advance booking of fares. Bibliography Baker, J (1997) The Marketing Book, The Bath Press, Bath, UK. BritishAirways. com [o n-line] http://www. britishairways. com/travel/home/public/en_gb Doyle, P (1997) Managing the Marketing Mix, reproduced in The Marketing Book, The Bath Press, Bath, UK Easyjet corporate website [on-line] http://www. easyjet. com/EN

Macbeth Is Not a Villain... - 2571 Words

MACBETH ESSAY The proposition that #8220;Macbeth is a villain in whom there is little to admire#8221; is an inadequate judgement of Macbeth#8217;s character. Macbeth is not consciously and naturally malevolent, and there are many aspects of his character and his downfall which serve to support this. Macbeth was not only a victim of his own actions, but also of the human condition and the extremely powerful forces of both his wife and fate. Throughout the play the audience undoubtedly experiences feelings of horror at Macbeth, but we are also driven, through an understanding of his character, to admiration and sympathy. This would not be the case if Macbeth was a totally vile and reprehensible villain, and thus the tragedy of†¦show more content†¦He tells Lady Macbeth; #8220;We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honoured me of late#8230;#8221; Despite this apparent resolve, just 49 lines later Macbeth has changed his mind and is set on murdering the King. Lady Macbeth was extremely influential in turning him around. He would not have committed the murder if it weren#8217;t for her. Lady Macbeth is an element of extreme power. Macbeth#8217;s ambition and conflicting morals make him hopelessly vulnerable to Lady Macbeth#8217;s terrible resolution and unnatural, daunting, power. She begins by frankly questioning his ambition; preying upon his weakness as a man of pride and challenging his determination, valour, courage, and preparedness to fight for what he desires: #8220;Art thou afeared To be the same in thine act and valor as thou art in desire?#8221; She even questions his manhood, so that he feels the need to tell her; #8220;I do all that may become a man, Who dares do more is none#8221;. He is still morally cognitive and has deep reservations; committing the murder would be inhumane. His conscience has not yet been put aside. But now Lady Macbeth, sensing that all the fruits of her ambition are at stake, shows a degree of determinatio n and commitment to the cause that Macbeth must match if he is to maintain his own sense of purpose. She tells him that she would have dashed the brains out of her own infant #8220;had (she) so sworn as (Macbeth)Show MoreRelatedMacbeth: Hero or Villain2592 Words   |  11 PagesMacbeth: Hero or Villain In this essay, I will be divulging into Macbeth written by William Shakespeare in 1603, to try and answer the question Was Macbeth a true hero or villain in the play?. Macbeth is a play of villainy, murder, deceit and oftenly described as a play fit for a king. In my personal opinion, the evidence from Shakespeares original text and Roland Polanskis video version strongly suggests that Macbeth was a true villain rather than a hero. 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