Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Above: A traditional hierarchy, senior managers make up the board of directors and are
responsible for establishing strategy and overall business direction, whilst middle managers have
responsibility for a specific function such as finance or marketing.
A traditional hierarchical structure clearly defines each employee’s role within the organisation
and defines the nature of their relationship with other employees. Hierarchical organisations are
often tall with narrow spans of control, which gets wider as we move down the structure. They
are often centralised with the most important decisions being taken by senior management.
In the twentieth century as organisations grow bigger, hierarchical organisations were popular
because they could ensure command and control of the organisation. However with the advent of
globalisation and widespread use of technology, in the 1990’s tall hierarchical organisations
began to downsize and reduce their workforce. Technology was able to carry out many of the
functions previously carried out by humans.
Q.2 Explain staffing management plan. Also describe Responsibility Assignment Matrix
Ans: A. Staffing Management Plan: After employing individuals to work for your company, you
must create a proper Project Management procedure that allows feedback and maximum
productivity to occur. A staffing management plan or process is ultimately a document that
explains the various human resources requirements that will be met for both staff management
and employees alike. The plan is essentially a portion of the project management plan in which
allows projects to be successful by properly managing various teams to complete tasks
effectively and efficiently. A project management plan is created to showcase specific target
goals as well as project deadlines for various tasks that your company may need to complete. A
staffing management plan can be created in two ways – whether informal and broad, or formal
and a detail, each staffing management plan is tailored to the various needs of each specific
project. The information provided within said staffing management plan is determined by the
application being completed as well as the size of the project. Thus, creating a staffing
management plan that is tailored to your business is imperative to its overall success in your
daily operations.
B. Responsibility Assignment Matrix: The act of putting together the detailed project plan that will
eventually drive the overall management of the engagement can be an arduous process. Unless
your projects are always straightforward and always the same, you can’t really just apply a
cookie cutter template to it. You have to re-invent the wheel for each project most of the time.
Time is always a critical factor because up front
planning on the project is something that the sales guy
who priced the project for the customer rarely takes
into consideration. So, as the project manager, you’re
often already behind the eight ball just as you get the
project handed to you. You have some time / effort
built into the original estimate for planning, but not as
much as you probably need. But as we all know, good
up front planning can go a long way in determining the
success of your project.
If you have the time, putting together a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) can be very
beneficial in ensuring that all aspects of the project and associated tasks and responsibilities are
well covered before you actually start work on the engagement. The RAM is a tool that identifies
how project participants interact with the activities of the project. The most common type of
interaction is responsibility for completing an activity. But consider other situations, such as
these: a technical expert who must be consulted on several activities, management approvals
that are required before initiating an activity, or a client representative who must be notified
when certain activities have been completed. The RAM provides an opportunity for documenting
these types of people-project interactions. The figure above illustrates an example of a
Responsibility Assignment Matrix.
As a result, for adequate workplace motivation, it is important that leadership understands which
needs are active for individual employee motivation. In this regard, Abraham Maslow's model
indicates that basic, low-level needs such as physiological requirements and safety must be
satisfied before higher-level needs such as self-fulfilment are pursued. As depicted in this
hierarchical diagram, sometimes called 'Maslow's Needs Pyramid' or 'Maslow's Needs Triangle',
when a need is satisfied it no longer motivates and the next higher need takes its place.
McGregor’s theory of X and Y represents two extremes, which probably aren’t applied in full by
today’s organisations. However the theory has provided the foundations for today’s management
strategy and elements of it can be seen in other management evaluations
Q.4 List and explain in brief the six phases of the business knowledge areas to be processes by a
project manager.
Ans: The business analysis body of knowledge defines 6 knowledge areas, which group together
related sets of tasks and techniques. Each of these tasks and techniques describes the typical
knowledge, skills, processes, and deliverables that the business analyst requires to be able to
perform those tasks competently.
1. Business analysis planning and monitoring: how business analysts plan the tasks and
activities for business analysis. It covers stakeholder analysis, selecting an approach to
managing issues, risks and requirements; deciding how to monitor and report on
requirements activities; and negotiating how to manage change on a project.
2. Elicitation: how business analysts work with stakeholders to help them understand their
requirements within the scope of a project. It covers eliciting requirements; brainstorming;
analysing documents; running focus groups; analysing system interfaces; interviewing;
observing; prototyping; facilitating requirements workshops; reverse engineering existing
systems; and collecting input via surveys and questionnaires.
3. Requirements management and communication: how business analysts ensure that the
project team and stakeholders stay in agreement on project scope. It covers
communicating requirements; resolving conflicts; gaining formal approval; base lining and
tracking requirements through to implementation.
4. Enterprise analysis: how business analysts take a business need: define that need; identify
gaps in current capabilities that stop that need being met; then if change is required, to
propose an approach and scope for finding a solution and building the case to justify the
work. It explores assessing business architecture; undertaking capability gap analysis;
feasibility studies; defining the solution scope; and developing a business case.
5. Requirements analysis: how business analysts work with the whole project team towards
defining a solution that should meet the agreed requirements. It covers documenting and
analysing business, stakeholder, functional, and non-functional (quality of service)
requirements; modelling the business domain using process diagrams, flowcharts, data
models; exploring behaviour models using use case, user experience design, storyboards,
wireframes, user profiles and user stories; and finally verifying and validating
requirements.
6. Solution assessment and validation: how business analysts assess proposed solutions to
help the stakeholders select the solution which best fits their requirements, and once
selected how the business should prove that the solution meets those requirements and
ultimately whether the project has met its objectives. It covers evaluating alternate
solutions, quality assurance processes, support through implementation, and post-
implementation reviews.
Q.5. Write short notes on the following knowledge areas:
a. Time management
Ans: Time management is the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of
time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity. Time
management may be aided by 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, techniques, and
methods. Usually time management is a necessity in any project development as it determines
the project completion time and scope.
Minimizing negative impact on an organization and need for sound basis in decision making are
the fundamental reasons organizations implement a risk management process for their IT
systems. Effective risk management must be totally integrated into the SDLC.
Step 1: Risk assessment: Risk assessment is the first process in the risk management
methodology. Organizations use risk assessment to determine the extent of the potential threat
and the risk associated with an IT system throughout its SDLC. The output of this process helps
to identify appropriate controls for reducing or eliminating risk during the risk mitigation process.
Step 2: Threat Identification: A threat is the potential for a particular threat-source to successfully
exercise a particular vulnerability. Vulnerability is a weakness that can be accidentally triggered
or intentionally exploited. A threat-source does not present a risk when there is no vulnerability
that can be exercised. In determining the likelihood of a threat, one must consider threat-
sources, potential vulnerabilities, and existing controls.
Step 3:
It’s an established fact that there are many differences between the work environment, attitude,
perspective etc of a public sector and private sector employees and both can’t be handled with
the same stick and hence it’s necessary first of all to take into account the differences and then
only we can discuss about the measures to be taken for motivating the employees.
The study by Eleni T. Stavrou, Christakis Charalambous and Stelios Spiliotis utilizes an innovative
research methodology (Kohonen’s Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs), Neural Network Analysis) to
explore the connection between human resource management as a source of competitive
advantage and perceived organizational performance in the European Union’s private and public
sectors. While practices in these two sectors did not differ significantly, three diverse but
overlapping HRM models did emerge, each of which involved a different set of EU member
states. Training & Development practices were strongly related to performance in all three
models and Communication practices in two. These results show the usefulness of an innovative
technique when applied to research so far conducted through traditional methodologies, and
brings to the surface questions about the universal applicability of the widely accepted
relationship between superior HRM and superior business performance.
According to the empirical research finding, high-intensity internal marketing generates positive
impact upon employee involvement and low-intensity internal marketing results in negative
impact upon employee involvement; the effect of sentiment relationship upon employee
involvement is prominent and positive; employees with personality traits of internal control
reveal higher level of involvement than those with external control.
A. Learning and forgetting phenomena: A learning curve could be defined as a graph that
reflects the fact that as workers repeat their jobs, they improve performance. The idea of
the learning curve is that improvement occurs because workers learn how to do a job
better as they produce more and more units. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that
other related factors such as job redesign, work and time analysis, and worker motivation
also improve performance overtime.
B. Skill improvement and deterioration curves: Generalizing the concept of learning and
forgetting phenomena, the following relationship can be established between the amount
of time a worker performs a particular operation and his (her) skill improvement. Once a
worker is assigned to a workstation, his (her) skill improves as he (she) performs the same
operation for an extended period of time.
C. Motivation (boredom recovery) and boredom curves: The importance of emotions in the
workplace is being growingly recognized (Ashkanasy et al., 2002). However, the study of
boredom at work is still a neglected issue as pointed out by Fisher (1993) more than a
decade ago (Game, 2007). Boredom at work is a common complaint among employees. It
is defined as an undesirable transient state in which individuals feel an extreme lack of
interest in their current activity (Fisher, 1993). Boredom has been criticized for employee’s
absenteeism, accidents, performance variation, and lack of job satisfaction.
Q.6 List & explain the 3 major issues related to delegation which need close scrutiny.
Ans: To reduce the risk a manager should select the tasks to be delegated carefully and select
the right people to do them. You should be very careful when delegating tasks that have already
been delegated - to you. The person delegating the task has already reduced their direct control
and may be very reluctant to reduce it further. When delegating, tasks that should be considered
first include: routine tasks where progress is measurable, tasks that can be planned clearly well
in advance and tasks that one of your team has expressed a genuine interest in taking on. Don't
delegate only unpleasant tasks. In order to bring out the best in your subordinates you should
offer them a mix of tasks. Conversely, don't keep all the unpleasant tasks for yourself. It is
important not to hold back all the jobs that you personally dislike, considering it unfair to give
these to others. Make sure that you set aside sufficient time to actually specify delegated tasks
and go through them with the relevant members of staff. Ensure that tasks are not delegated at
the last minute, each member of staff have their own responsibilities into which they must find
the time for the delegated work. Work delegated at the last minute may not be done properly, if
at all. Tasks can be viewed as easy to delegate, difficult to delegate, high risk to delegate or low
risk to delegate.
Difficult Easy
Low • Do not rush, set aside the time • Can enrich people’s roles
Risk needed • Balance ‘boring’ & ‘interesting’
• Make sure it is a good investment • Encourage them to ‘pull’ advice from
of time (i.e pay back in the long you rather than ‘pushing’ advice onto
term) them
• Encourage questions to promote • Recognise efforts
understanding
High • Don’t delegate • Choose ‘delegatee’ carefully
Risk • Build rapport and trust
• Build in check-points
• Offer experience and guidance
• Advise what Critical Success
Factors and warning flags to look
for
• Operate an ‘open door’ policy
Delegation Matrix
As a general guide you could choose to delegate those items that are easy to delegate and are of
low risk, and to keep those items that are difficult to delegate and are of high risk.