Wall-e
This story was close to reality. I like it because it gives an information to the people of what will happen if there is becomes extravagant of their way of living and of degradation and thoughtless consumerism. On Technical side, technology can help also in one way or another. In this movie, it shows how a robot piles up the garbage of the people. It segregated the garbage and arranged it.
I got this from an article, it says, "Wall-E scooped up another pile of trash and began to crunch it up into smaller
pieces. The heat of the ancient sun beat hard upon his squat, grubby metal frame as the little robot worked.
Another day, another big set of garbage cubes. Not very likely to change in any way, but at least he was doing
something to occupy his lonely time on Earth.
He paused to let his robotic clamps rest, and stared
dismally at the various segments of trash scattered in front of him. 700 years of having to pick up this junk and
cement it all into cubes... his eyes clouded over as he remembered the days when robots like him were brand-new,
and were wanted to get the job done by all the humans on the planet. Some thought it was a crazy idea, getting
hundreds and thousands of robots to pick up all their own filth for them; others encouraged the plan deeply and
were glad that something was finally being done about it. But, thought poor Wall-E as he absent-mindedly twisted
piece of a cardboard box, shouldn't those humans have not left their trash behind in the first place? He did not
want to sound hateful, but it was their own fault that Earth had become the dead planet it was now.
A dust
cloud slowly rumbled overhead, drifting over the sun and flickering lifelessly in the polluted sky. Wall-E gazed
up at this cloud for a fairly long time before thinking that, if clouds had feelings, this particular cloud would
feel exactly the same way he did. Once a common yet popular icon of Earth... and now nothing. Lonesome...
lifeless... forgotten. "
(http://pixarplanet.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1860)
Surrogates
humans live in isolation and only interact through robotic bodies that serve as surrogates.
In a near future, with the development of the robotic, mankind stays at home operating surrogates with their signature to live their lives in the outside world and resolving issues like racism, complex and safety and reducing crime rates. Only a few people live in reservations the traditional way of life without the use of substitutes.
The intention of the technology was good. In fact, it was created to lessen crime and to promote public safety that's why they need to use surrogates as virtual substitute of the real person. However, an incident happened when one surrogate was killed by another surrogate and later found out that the user was the son of the inventor. Worst thing is, when a surrogate dies, it kills the user too.
Therefore, even though how 'perfect' a technology is being considered on it's creation, there's always a bug behind.
iRobot
This story is quite similar to surrogates. The story begins at year 2035 where vast production of robots has been done by the U.S Robotics. It was created for the purpose of helping people and not to harm them in any way. There were three laws programmed on the robots that should not be in conflict with each other. However, the conspiracy began when the a doctor died and later investigated that he was killed by a robot lest they would conquer the world. So, an agent, tried to investigate before it's too late.
this happens when we are too dependent with the technology. There's nothing wrong with the technologies we have but if we cannot control on them, we might be controlled by them.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Friday, December 10, 2010
Technology
We need to study technology because it makes the people's everyday living "easier". Before, whey back in 40-50 years ago, studying technology is not an edge for most of the individuals because their lifestyles and way of living are different. But today, in this generation, technology is so significant because every individual is becoming more dependent to it. Technologies have impacted the world that it changed the routine of the students, families, companies and etc. Now, most of the people are so reliant to technology because it lessens the workloads yet quantifies the produce. We really need to study technology so we could even more adapt to the environment and the daily life of this generation.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
What's Your take on the Enrollment Process?
Actually, the University Enrollment process or system have improved and do have catered a lot of students as early as the 3rd week of May. Every steps in the process has been given attention on how to manage the students. Though there are still lapses in some other areas but at least they have lessen all the jam between the steps during the process.
If given a chance to alter or change the process (physical side of the process which is the steps during enrollment), I would gather all the local councils together with the headlight and ocsc on one place.. Maybe they could take the basketball court wherein students can pay their transactions in their miscellaneous.. which is the first step of the enrollment process. This would help the students to focus on one place in taking their first step during enrollment. It would also lessen the traffic of the students in their respective departments.
On the other hand, technical side, there should be changes in the system for the enrollment because the current system is giving a confusion to the encoder due to rearrangement of data from scratch to its interface. The arrangement of information from scratch should be the same with the interface to avoid mistakes during encoding. This has been a problem to one of my classmates who enrolled 1 day earlier from me. He then observed that something has changed in his Certificate of Registration. Well, he needed to change his COR because the information has interchanged. He again needs to fall in line for the enrollment - cause of delay in the enrollment. However, everything in the enrollment now is getting better compared to the early years of stay in this University. Sometimes we need to consider things, everything will not be change immediately in a glance. Yet, in a step-by-step process, each of the problem is being dealt.
If given a chance to alter or change the process (physical side of the process which is the steps during enrollment), I would gather all the local councils together with the headlight and ocsc on one place.. Maybe they could take the basketball court wherein students can pay their transactions in their miscellaneous.. which is the first step of the enrollment process. This would help the students to focus on one place in taking their first step during enrollment. It would also lessen the traffic of the students in their respective departments.
On the other hand, technical side, there should be changes in the system for the enrollment because the current system is giving a confusion to the encoder due to rearrangement of data from scratch to its interface. The arrangement of information from scratch should be the same with the interface to avoid mistakes during encoding. This has been a problem to one of my classmates who enrolled 1 day earlier from me. He then observed that something has changed in his Certificate of Registration. Well, he needed to change his COR because the information has interchanged. He again needs to fall in line for the enrollment - cause of delay in the enrollment. However, everything in the enrollment now is getting better compared to the early years of stay in this University. Sometimes we need to consider things, everything will not be change immediately in a glance. Yet, in a step-by-step process, each of the problem is being dealt.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Evaluation of University Enrolment Process
Assuming that I am tapped by the University to evaluate or assess the new enrolment system implemented this semester.
I was involved in an organization that supports the enrolment process or system every year through helping the first years on how, where, when to be enrolled in a certain course. Help them identify the buildings that they need to go into to start the step-by-step process of the enrolment. However, this school year, we haven’t had the chance to support the incoming first years due to some changes and improvements of the flow, process or system of the enrolment.
Honestly, the process of the enrolment has improved in some ways. First improvement of the system or of the whole process is the extension of time or period in the enrolment for all incoming first years and also the old students. Before, there was a very short enrolment time for all the students. First years were just given three days to finish everything, second year and third years were given two days to process everything so as the fourth year and the graduates. Throughout the process, problems occur such as overlapping of schedules for the students, time consuming process, unorganized and etc. But this time, enrolment started and was opened as early as May 17, 2010 for first years to enrol themselves then followed by the higher years until the first week of June. So, this is a better improvement of one of the part of the whole process of the enrolment. This has to be emphasized because this is the area that is not given much attention, sometimes neglected which happens to affect the entire process of the enrolment. Exact amount of time is very important for the students to help themselves enrol in the university, which is being addressed this school year for the first time in my five years of residence. Second is the integration or collaboration (Correct me if I’m using the wrong term) of the University Collegiate Headlight and the Local Councils of the different departments of the University in one area. Years ago, this collaboration was not implemented during enrolment which give the students a cause of delay going from one place to another just to pay their transactions considering it still as a part of the first step of the whole process. This school year, I took the advantage of suggesting it to the collegiate headlight to collaborate with the local council and identify an area in the different departments where students can pay their transactions on the first step of the process which is the students’ accounts. Now, it helps the students not to be delayed in paying all the accounts. Lastly, guards where deployed in several sectors such as finance and registrar to guide the students on the lanes, entrances and exits and the proper falling in the lines to prevent “tikas” and unorganized students.
However, this is not the thing that will make us stop improving. Though there where flaws that where given attention this year, still we need to change and improve the process for the betterment of everybody. In fact, as what I have said, if given a chance to improve the process/system and the system flow, I would suggest that the basketball court will be the area for all transactions of the students on the first step which is the collegiate headlight, OCSC and all local councils of the different departments so that the students will be managed to go to one place in doing the first step.
Going to the technical aspect, there should be a reconsideration of the software program used in the enrolment system specifically on the encoding part. We need to go back to the scratch to assess the similarities of the PRF and the software program(system). I had observed the arrangements of the PRF and the program is very different to each other which lead to wrong inputs of the encoder. In fact, during the enrolment time, because I’m used to comparing my COR, I had observed one of my classmates Certificate of Registration total account is not exact amount for him and wasn’t catered by his scholarship. So, it was later found out that it was really an error because there’s a change of arrangements from PRF to COR, and it really matters.
As a whole, I believe that the University is taking a step in improving the process for the betterment and for the purpose of fulfilling and catering the need of all the people involved in the University specifically on the enrolment process. In fact, some of the improvements are already visible, which is a good start, for all of us to compete and become the edge in the City and later on to the world. The University processes are very vital for the students to help them improve and make follow orders carefully. It will affect them on how they manage to obey rules when they go out of the University.
I was involved in an organization that supports the enrolment process or system every year through helping the first years on how, where, when to be enrolled in a certain course. Help them identify the buildings that they need to go into to start the step-by-step process of the enrolment. However, this school year, we haven’t had the chance to support the incoming first years due to some changes and improvements of the flow, process or system of the enrolment.
Honestly, the process of the enrolment has improved in some ways. First improvement of the system or of the whole process is the extension of time or period in the enrolment for all incoming first years and also the old students. Before, there was a very short enrolment time for all the students. First years were just given three days to finish everything, second year and third years were given two days to process everything so as the fourth year and the graduates. Throughout the process, problems occur such as overlapping of schedules for the students, time consuming process, unorganized and etc. But this time, enrolment started and was opened as early as May 17, 2010 for first years to enrol themselves then followed by the higher years until the first week of June. So, this is a better improvement of one of the part of the whole process of the enrolment. This has to be emphasized because this is the area that is not given much attention, sometimes neglected which happens to affect the entire process of the enrolment. Exact amount of time is very important for the students to help themselves enrol in the university, which is being addressed this school year for the first time in my five years of residence. Second is the integration or collaboration (Correct me if I’m using the wrong term) of the University Collegiate Headlight and the Local Councils of the different departments of the University in one area. Years ago, this collaboration was not implemented during enrolment which give the students a cause of delay going from one place to another just to pay their transactions considering it still as a part of the first step of the whole process. This school year, I took the advantage of suggesting it to the collegiate headlight to collaborate with the local council and identify an area in the different departments where students can pay their transactions on the first step of the process which is the students’ accounts. Now, it helps the students not to be delayed in paying all the accounts. Lastly, guards where deployed in several sectors such as finance and registrar to guide the students on the lanes, entrances and exits and the proper falling in the lines to prevent “tikas” and unorganized students.
However, this is not the thing that will make us stop improving. Though there where flaws that where given attention this year, still we need to change and improve the process for the betterment of everybody. In fact, as what I have said, if given a chance to improve the process/system and the system flow, I would suggest that the basketball court will be the area for all transactions of the students on the first step which is the collegiate headlight, OCSC and all local councils of the different departments so that the students will be managed to go to one place in doing the first step.
Going to the technical aspect, there should be a reconsideration of the software program used in the enrolment system specifically on the encoding part. We need to go back to the scratch to assess the similarities of the PRF and the software program(system). I had observed the arrangements of the PRF and the program is very different to each other which lead to wrong inputs of the encoder. In fact, during the enrolment time, because I’m used to comparing my COR, I had observed one of my classmates Certificate of Registration total account is not exact amount for him and wasn’t catered by his scholarship. So, it was later found out that it was really an error because there’s a change of arrangements from PRF to COR, and it really matters.
As a whole, I believe that the University is taking a step in improving the process for the betterment and for the purpose of fulfilling and catering the need of all the people involved in the University specifically on the enrolment process. In fact, some of the improvements are already visible, which is a good start, for all of us to compete and become the edge in the City and later on to the world. The University processes are very vital for the students to help them improve and make follow orders carefully. It will affect them on how they manage to obey rules when they go out of the University.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Relationship between business plan and information system plan
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.
The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan.
Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks.
Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans.
Operational plans describe the goals of an internal organization, working group or department. Project plans, sometimes known as project frameworks, describe the goals of a particular project. They may also address the project's place within the organization's larger strategic goals.
Business plans are decision-making tools. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience. A business plan should contain whatever information is needed to decide whether or not to pursue a goal.
For example, a business plan for a non-profit might discuss the fit between the business plan and the organization’s mission. Banks are quite concerned about defaults, so a business plan for a bank loan will build a convincing case for the organization’s ability to repay the loan. Venture capitalists are primarily concerned about initial investment, feasibility, and exit valuation. A business plan for a project requiring equity financing will need to explain why current resources, upcoming growth opportunities, and sustainable competitive advantage will lead to a high exit valuation.
Preparing a business plan draws on a wide range of knowledge from many different business disciplines: finance, human resource management, intellectual property management, supply chain management, operations management, and marketing, among others. It can be helpful to view the business plan as a collection of sub-plans, one for each of the main business disciplines.
"... a good business plan can help to make a good business credible, understandable, and attractive to someone who is unfamiliar with the business. Writing a good business plan can’t guarantee success, but it can go a long way toward reducing the odds of failure."
Presentation formats
The format of a business plan depends on its presentation context. It is not uncommon for businesses, especially start-ups to have three or four formats for the same business plan:
• an "elevator pitch" - a three minute summary of the business plan's executive summary. This is often used as a teaser to awaken the interest of potential funders, customers, or strategic partners.
• an oral presentation - a hopefully entertaining slide show and oral narrative that is meant to trigger discussion and interest potential investors in reading the written presentation. The content of the presentation is usually limited to the executive summary and a few key graphs showing financial trends and key decision making benchmarks. If a new product is being proposed and time permits, a demonstration of the product may also be included.
• a written presentation for external stakeholders - a detailed, well written, and pleasingly formatted plan targeted at external stakeholders.
• an internal operational plan - a detailed plan describing planning details that are needed by management but may not be of interest to external stakeholders. Such plans have a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality than the version targeted at external stakeholders.
Typical structure for a business plan for a start up venture
• cover page and table of contents
• executive summary
• business description
• business environment analysis
• industry background
• competitive analysis
• market analysis
• marketing plan
• operations plan
• management summary
• financial plan
• attachments and milestones
Revisiting the business plan
Cost overruns and revenue shortfalls
Cost and revenue estimates are central to any business plan for deciding the viability of the planned venture. But costs are often underestimated and revenues overestimated resulting in later cost overruns, revenue shortfalls, and possibly non-viability. During the dot-com bubble 1997-2001 this was a problem for many technology start-ups. However, the problem is not limited to technology or the private sector; public works projects also routinely suffer from cost overruns and/or revenue shortfalls. The main causes of cost overruns and revenue shortfalls are optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation.[9][10] Reference class forecasting has been developed to reduce the risks of cost overruns and revenue shortfalls.
Legal and liability issues
Disclosure requirements
An externally targeted business plan should list all legal concerns and financial liabilities that might negatively affect investors. Depending on the amount of funds being raised and the audience to whom the plan is presented, failure to do this may have severe legal consequences.
Limitations on content and audience
Non disclosure agreements (NDAs) with third parties, non-compete agreements, conflicts of interest, privacy concerns, and the protection of one's trade secrets may severely limit the audience to which one might show the business plan. Alternatively, they may require each party receiving the business plan to sign a contract accepting special clauses and conditions.
This situation is complicated by the fact that many venture capitalists will refuse to sign an NDA before looking at a business plan, lest it put them in the untenable position of looking at two independently developed look-alike business plans, both claiming originality. In such situations one may need to develop two versions of the business plan: a stripped down plan that can be used to develop a relationship and a detail plan that is only shown when investors have sufficient interest and trust to sign an NDA.
Open business plans
Traditionally business plans have been highly confidential and quite limited in audience. The business plan itself is generally regarded as secret. However the emergence of free software and open source has opened the model and made the notion of an open business plan possible.
An Open Business Plan is a business plan with unlimited audience. The business plan is typically web published and made available to all.
In the free software and open source business model, trade secrets, copyright and patents can no longer be used as effective locking mechanisms to provide sustainable advantages to a particular business and therefore a secret business plan is less relevant in those models.
While the origin of the Open Business Plan model is in the free software and Libre services arena, the concept is likely applicable to other domains.
Uses
Venture capital
• Business plan contests - provides a way for venture capitals to find promising projects
• Venture capital assessment of business plans - focus on qualitative factors such as team.
Public offerings
• In a public offering, potential investors can evaluate perspectives of issuing company
Within corporations
Fundraising
Fundraising is the primary purpose for many business plans, since they are related to the inherent probable success/failure of the company risk.
Total quality management
For more details on this topic, see Total quality management.
Total quality management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, call centers, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.
Management by objective
For more details on this topic, see Management by objectives.
Management by objectives (MBO) is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they are in the organization.
Strategic planning
For more details on this topic, see strategic planning.
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis involving Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors and EPISTELS (Environment, Political, Informative, Social, Technological, Economic, Legal and Spiritual)
Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.
Timely
The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable
The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable
The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality
While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible
The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan.
Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks.
Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans.
Operational plans describe the goals of an internal organization, working group or department. Project plans, sometimes known as project frameworks, describe the goals of a particular project. They may also address the project's place within the organization's larger strategic goals.
Business plans are decision-making tools. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience. A business plan should contain whatever information is needed to decide whether or not to pursue a goal.
For example, a business plan for a non-profit might discuss the fit between the business plan and the organization’s mission. Banks are quite concerned about defaults, so a business plan for a bank loan will build a convincing case for the organization’s ability to repay the loan. Venture capitalists are primarily concerned about initial investment, feasibility, and exit valuation. A business plan for a project requiring equity financing will need to explain why current resources, upcoming growth opportunities, and sustainable competitive advantage will lead to a high exit valuation.
Preparing a business plan draws on a wide range of knowledge from many different business disciplines: finance, human resource management, intellectual property management, supply chain management, operations management, and marketing, among others. It can be helpful to view the business plan as a collection of sub-plans, one for each of the main business disciplines.
"... a good business plan can help to make a good business credible, understandable, and attractive to someone who is unfamiliar with the business. Writing a good business plan can’t guarantee success, but it can go a long way toward reducing the odds of failure."
Presentation formats
The format of a business plan depends on its presentation context. It is not uncommon for businesses, especially start-ups to have three or four formats for the same business plan:
• an "elevator pitch" - a three minute summary of the business plan's executive summary. This is often used as a teaser to awaken the interest of potential funders, customers, or strategic partners.
• an oral presentation - a hopefully entertaining slide show and oral narrative that is meant to trigger discussion and interest potential investors in reading the written presentation. The content of the presentation is usually limited to the executive summary and a few key graphs showing financial trends and key decision making benchmarks. If a new product is being proposed and time permits, a demonstration of the product may also be included.
• a written presentation for external stakeholders - a detailed, well written, and pleasingly formatted plan targeted at external stakeholders.
• an internal operational plan - a detailed plan describing planning details that are needed by management but may not be of interest to external stakeholders. Such plans have a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality than the version targeted at external stakeholders.
Typical structure for a business plan for a start up venture
• cover page and table of contents
• executive summary
• business description
• business environment analysis
• industry background
• competitive analysis
• market analysis
• marketing plan
• operations plan
• management summary
• financial plan
• attachments and milestones
Revisiting the business plan
Cost overruns and revenue shortfalls
Cost and revenue estimates are central to any business plan for deciding the viability of the planned venture. But costs are often underestimated and revenues overestimated resulting in later cost overruns, revenue shortfalls, and possibly non-viability. During the dot-com bubble 1997-2001 this was a problem for many technology start-ups. However, the problem is not limited to technology or the private sector; public works projects also routinely suffer from cost overruns and/or revenue shortfalls. The main causes of cost overruns and revenue shortfalls are optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation.[9][10] Reference class forecasting has been developed to reduce the risks of cost overruns and revenue shortfalls.
Legal and liability issues
Disclosure requirements
An externally targeted business plan should list all legal concerns and financial liabilities that might negatively affect investors. Depending on the amount of funds being raised and the audience to whom the plan is presented, failure to do this may have severe legal consequences.
Limitations on content and audience
Non disclosure agreements (NDAs) with third parties, non-compete agreements, conflicts of interest, privacy concerns, and the protection of one's trade secrets may severely limit the audience to which one might show the business plan. Alternatively, they may require each party receiving the business plan to sign a contract accepting special clauses and conditions.
This situation is complicated by the fact that many venture capitalists will refuse to sign an NDA before looking at a business plan, lest it put them in the untenable position of looking at two independently developed look-alike business plans, both claiming originality. In such situations one may need to develop two versions of the business plan: a stripped down plan that can be used to develop a relationship and a detail plan that is only shown when investors have sufficient interest and trust to sign an NDA.
Open business plans
Traditionally business plans have been highly confidential and quite limited in audience. The business plan itself is generally regarded as secret. However the emergence of free software and open source has opened the model and made the notion of an open business plan possible.
An Open Business Plan is a business plan with unlimited audience. The business plan is typically web published and made available to all.
In the free software and open source business model, trade secrets, copyright and patents can no longer be used as effective locking mechanisms to provide sustainable advantages to a particular business and therefore a secret business plan is less relevant in those models.
While the origin of the Open Business Plan model is in the free software and Libre services arena, the concept is likely applicable to other domains.
Uses
Venture capital
• Business plan contests - provides a way for venture capitals to find promising projects
• Venture capital assessment of business plans - focus on qualitative factors such as team.
Public offerings
• In a public offering, potential investors can evaluate perspectives of issuing company
Within corporations
Fundraising
Fundraising is the primary purpose for many business plans, since they are related to the inherent probable success/failure of the company risk.
Total quality management
For more details on this topic, see Total quality management.
Total quality management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, call centers, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.
Management by objective
For more details on this topic, see Management by objectives.
Management by objectives (MBO) is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they are in the organization.
Strategic planning
For more details on this topic, see strategic planning.
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis involving Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors and EPISTELS (Environment, Political, Informative, Social, Technological, Economic, Legal and Spiritual)
Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.
Timely
The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable
The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable
The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality
While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible
The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
System Analyst as a project manager
Systems Analyst
A Day in the life of a Systems Analyst
Someone on your left speaks French and someone on your right speaks English; both individuals need to speak to each other. The systems analyst is the middleman, assessing the needs of the end-user and translating them into programming or turning over the programming responsibility to the development department. What are the business requirements? Who will comprise the user community? How large is the application going to be? Will it be internal or external? These are all questions facing the systems analyst, who spends much of the day in front of the computer poring over these issues. With a new product, other elements come into play, such as network location, user community, type of machine, and portability. If the analyst is reviewing an established product, the user community will dictate its changes and enhancements. “One of the biggest surprises in my 25 years of technology work is that people who have a creative background as opposed to a degree in computer science tend to make better systems analysts,” says one seasoned professional. “The best analysts I’ve come across came from backgrounds in theater, art, and filmmaking. But they were all able to see and grasp big-picture concepts very quickly, and break them down into subcomponents. People who have a computer science or math background tend to be very technical, and sometimes that can be a hindrance.” Systems analysts need to be independent thinkers-people who can “think out of the box” by grasping concepts quickly and seeing the big picture as opposed to the small details. “I also look for someone who is self-motivated. Here . . . take the ball and run with it and come back if you have any issues,” says one employer who heads up a technology group.
Paying Your Dues
Few companies are willing to spend money on someone who doesn’t have some kind of programming background. There is not much difference between an analyst and a programmer, though the programmer needs to be versed in a programming language. As far as dealing with the functional requirements, these are the same position. There are junior-level analyst positions, which is almost like being a junior programmer. Any of the Java applets and the basic visual C++ programs are very applicable to today’s market, while Cobol and the older programs such as Assembler are considered dinosaurs. Without experience, a support role at the help desk with internal training is a good way to start out.
Associated Careers
Financial companies and most of the Fortune 100 companies have systems analysts who may also have programming responsibilities. But today, many young analysts are flocking to Web companies where there’s money to be made. A small starting salary combined with options could make you a multimillionaire within a short period of time, or your company could go bust within the year. Internet ventures attract risk-takers, so it all depends on how much of a gambler you are. Many systems analysts come from creative backgrounds; some return to those fields, while others combine their artistic passions with Internet opportunities. “If I left my position and was able to do anything, I would go back to photography or painting or apply those talents to Web design,” says one systems analyst.
Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. It is often closely related to and sometimes conflated with program management.
A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.
The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.
A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project, typically relating to construction industry, architecture, computer networking, telecommunications or software development.
A project manager is the person accountable for accomplishing the stated project objectives. Key project management responsibilities include creating clear and attainable project objectives, building the project requirements, and managing the triple constraint for projects, which are; cost, time, and quality (also known as scope).
A project manager is often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm they are representing. The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the contracting party, and to form close links with the nominated representatives, is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost, time, quality and above all, client satisfaction, can be realized.
According to our interview, the system analyst as a project manager manages the process of the company. The systems analyst is considered the middleman, assessing the needs of the end-user and translating them into programming or turning over the programming responsibility to the development department. They bridge the gap between the user and the programmer. The system analyst are the very important person in the company because they are the people who are concern of the flow of the business. As project managers, they do innovations and improve technologies in a certain organization to be able to meet the need of the customers. According to our interviewee, system analyst analyzes the processes or the cycle of how an organization is being run. An organization has its edge whenever they have a system analyst.
References:
http://www.princetonreview.com/Careers.aspx?cid=210
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_manager
System analyst
Analytical Skills
the ability to visualize, articulate, and solve complex problems and concepts, and make decisions that make sense based on available information. Such skills include demonstration of the ability to apply logical thinking to gathering and analyzing information, designing and testing solutions to problems, and formulating plans.
To test for analytical skills one might be asked to look for inconsistencies in an advertisement, put a series of events in the proper order, or critically read an essay. Usually standardized tests and interviews include an analytical section that requires the examine to use their logic to pick apart a problem and come up with a solution.
Although there is no question that analytical skills are essential, other skills are equally required as well. For instance in systems analysis the systems analyst should focus on four sets of analytical skills: systems thinking, organizational knowledge, problem identification, and problem analyzing and solving.
It also includes the way we describe a problem and subsequently finding out the solutions.
ability to see things as systems, identify, analyze, and solve problems in an optimal way for a specific organization.
Technical Skills ability to understand how computers, data networks, databases, operating systems, etc. work together, as well as their potentials and limitations.
Knowledge and proficiencies required in the accomplishment of engineering, scientific, or any specific task.
Are Technical Skills Still Important?
By Cindy Blanthorne, Sak Bhamornsiri, and Robert E. Guinn
MARCH 2005 - For decades, various groups and institutions within the accounting profession have been advocating a change in accounting education to address the skills necessary for success in the workplace. The 1989 Big Eight white paper “Perspectives on Education: Capabilities for Success in the Accounting Profession” first emphasized the need for general skills, including communication, intellectual, and interpersonal skills. The Accounting Education Change Commission was subsequently established to help educators achieve the white paper’s objectives. Since then, many have suggested incorporating into accounting curricula classroom activities that enhance nontechnical, or “soft,” skills in accounting education.
Many accounting programs responded by incorporating into their curriculum group work, essay exams, and oral presentations. In addition, some textbooks have deleted technical information or have placed it in the appendices, which is significant, because courses are often textbook-driven. Many accounting professors that changed emphasis to the soft skills are now reemphasizing technical skills, because their experience has convinced them that class time is better used for developing students’ technical accounting skills.
Much research has been conducted in search of definitive accounting skills. The perceptions of CPAs, accounting educators, students, and Fortune 500 executives have been studied. The majority have ranked communication as the most important skill in accounting. A survey by Usoff and Feldermann (Journal of Education for Business, March/April 1998) found that students thought that accounting knowledge was the most important skill. Based on this finding, Usoff and Feldermann concluded that students were out of touch and suggested that undergraduate students needed to be more aware of the importance of nontechnical skills.
A more recent article by Moncada and Sanders (CPA Journal, January 1999) investigated skills related to recruiting. Students and faculty ranked characteristics important to prescreening and office visits; the rankings were compared to those rankings by CPA firm recruiters. Interestingly, accounting GPA was ranked most important for prescreening by all three groups. This suggests that technical skills are important when screening students for a campus interview.
The study discussed in this article identifies skills necessary for promotion and success in the public accounting environment. Recently promoted Big Five partners were asked to rate six skills—interpersonal, communication, administrative, technical, leadership, and practice development—in terms of their importance for promotion at three levels: from staff to senior, senior to manager, and manager to partner.
Skills
Staff to senior. In Exhibit 1, the same three skills were rated as most important for promotion from staff to senior in tax and audit, but not in the same order. In tax, the average ratings among technical, communication, and interpersonal skills differed substantially in importance.
Senior to manager. In Exhibit 2, the six skills are rated in the same order for promotion to manager in both tax and audit. When comparing the promotion from senior to manager with the promotion from staff to senior, there is an increase in the average ratings for all of the six skills, which suggests that perceptions of technical skills become even more important at higher levels in public accounting firms.
Manager to partner. The most dramatic change in the rankings occurs at the promotion from manager to partner, seen in Exhibit 3. In both tax and audit, technical competence drops to only the fifth most important skill. Administrative skills also dropped in importance, but all other nontechnical skills rose in importance. The reason for the change in rankings may be related to the added nontechnical responsibilities expected of partners.
The 150-Hour Requirement and Technical Skills
While “soft” skills become increasingly important at higher levels, accountants also must possess a high level of technical competence throughout the promotional process in order to reach the point of consideration for partnership.
Are technical skills still important? The findings of the current study would indicate that they are. The fundamental goal of accounting education remains the same: providing students with sound technical competency.
Management Skills include organization’s recourse management, project management (people and money), risk management, and change management.
Management in all business and human organisation activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.
Theoretical scope
Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth century, defined management as "the art of getting things done through people". She also described management as philosophy.[2] One can also think of management functionally, as the action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol[3] considers management to consist of seven functions:
1. planning
2. organizing
3. leading
4. co-ordinating
5. controlling
6. staffing
7. motivating
Some people, however, find this definition, while useful, far too narrow. The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of definitions, and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.
One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to "business administration" and thus excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. More realistically, however, every organization must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. in order to maximize its effectiveness. Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments which teach management as "business schools." Some institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name while others (such as the Yale School of Management) employ the more inclusive term "management."
English speakers may also use the term "management" or "the management" as a collective word describing the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation. Historically this use of the term was often contrasted with the term "Labor" referring to those being managed.
Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management.
Communication Skills include effective interpersonal communication (written, verbal, visual, electronic, face-to-face conversations, presentations in front of groups), listening, group facilitation skills.
Communication is something all living creatures have innately in them to interact with one another so they can understand one another. Human beings communicate through conveying thoughts and ideas.
Some people have better communication skills than others. Communication skills involve the use of auditory, which is spoken, or sung words and sounds; non-verbal, which involves the use of body or sign language and paralanguage, which involves touch or eye contact.
Communication is a process by which information is exchanged. It can be between two or more people. What makes the interaction understood is that the people all recognize the same symbols, signs and behavior so they know what is going on. Based on ones communication abilities determine how effective they are as a communicator. This is where communication skills come into play.
In order to have good communication skills one has to understand what the process of communication is and how to effectively use it. Thus in executing good communication skills one must view communication as a process of transmitting information based on three ideas: Syntactic, Pragmatic and Semantic. Syntactic are the properties given to various signs and symbols, Pragmatic are the relationship between expression/sign and the user of them and Semantic, which is the representation between the signs and symbols and what they mean.
One who uses their communication skills well makes their message understood by all who are present. They understand the feedback of the message they gave out and have some mastery of the flow of communication. Good communication skills involve being able to listen as well as just speak. When you listen and understand what is being said you can respond appropriately, which is another communication skill.
When we utilize good communication skills people will want to hear what we have to say. It helps mobilize people into action with us. When we have poor communication skills it alienates people from us. They don’t want to hear what we have to say must less act on it.
Effective communication skills means to keep it simple and to the point. People who ramble, with tedious large words and jargon tend to bore people and they turn off to what the speaker is speaking about. Short to the point and concise is the first rule of making one’s communication skills effectively heard
Another good communication skill to use is simplifying complex information with simpler ideas first. You can be as creative as you want so the idea is conveyed but be accurate so there is no misunderstanding of the information. Repeat the idea if you have to so it could be understood.
Our body language as part of communication skills is also very important. Facial expressions, gestures, posture and how close or far away from whom we are communicating with all play a part in our communication skills. Not to mention our tone of voice, inflection and volume of our voice all affect the people we are communicating with. The more all these aspects of communication are mastered and are used at the appropriate times the more successful our communication skills will become.
Interpersonal skills
refers to mental and communicative algorithms applied during social communications and interaction to reach certain effects or results. The term "interpersonal skills" is used often in business contexts to refer to the measure of a person's ability to operate within business organizations through social communication and interactions. Interpersonal skills are how people relate to one another.
As an illustration, it is generally understood that communicating respect for other people or professionals within will enable one to reduce conflict and increase participation or assistance in obtaining information or completing tasks. For instance, to interrupt someone who is currently preoccupied with the task of obtaining information needed immediately, it is recommended that a professional use a deferential approach with language such as, "Excuse me, are you busy? I have an urgent matter to discuss with you if you have the time at the moment." This allows the receiving professional to make their own judgement regarding the importance of their current task versus entering into a discussion with their colleague. While it is generally understood that interrupting someone with an "urgent" request will often take priority, allowing the receiver of the message to judge independently the request and agree to further interaction will likely result in a higher quality interaction. Following these kinds of heuristics to achieve better professional results generally results in a professional being ranked as one with 'good interpersonal skills.' Often these evaluations occur in formal and informal settings.
Having positive interpersonal skills increases the productivity in the organization since the number of conflicts is reduced. In informal situations, it allows communication to be easy and comfortable. People with good interpersonal skills can generally control the feelings that emerge in difficult situations and respond appropriately, instead of being overwhelmed by emotion.
According to my research, the skills that were mentioned above are the major skills that a system analyst should have. These skills are very significant for a system analyst in order for him to relate or do his job in an organization.
During Interview..
When we had our interview in our adopted company, we have asked how important a system analyst in an organization and what are the characteristics he/she should have in order to perform his task in an organization well.
Our interviewee told us that a system analyst in today’s trend in an organization is considered one of the most important persons because they bridge the gap between the two people with different languages, it’s the management and the programmers. Without a system analyst the management would have a hard time understanding the language of the programmers so as the programmers to the management.
Our interviewee gave us some qualities that a system analyst should possess. One of the characteristics is that, a system analyst should have determination. It is something that motivates you in doing your work. Even though you tend to stop, determination keeps you going on. He said, without determination the work or the job will not be done on its due time.
Another characteristic of a system analyst is that he is willing to accept correction. Whenever there are feedbacks from the user, it should be taken as a challenge for the improvement of the flow, system or process of the organization. It is the stepping stone of the company in order to go to another level of catering and satisfying the need of the people.
References:
http://www.interlabs.bradley.edu/NSF_CCLI/Demo/class6/module6/Skills_Pretest_Posttest_Answers.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_skills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_skills
http://www.yourcommunicationskills.com/
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/technical-skills.html
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/305/essentials/p64.htm
the ability to visualize, articulate, and solve complex problems and concepts, and make decisions that make sense based on available information. Such skills include demonstration of the ability to apply logical thinking to gathering and analyzing information, designing and testing solutions to problems, and formulating plans.
To test for analytical skills one might be asked to look for inconsistencies in an advertisement, put a series of events in the proper order, or critically read an essay. Usually standardized tests and interviews include an analytical section that requires the examine to use their logic to pick apart a problem and come up with a solution.
Although there is no question that analytical skills are essential, other skills are equally required as well. For instance in systems analysis the systems analyst should focus on four sets of analytical skills: systems thinking, organizational knowledge, problem identification, and problem analyzing and solving.
It also includes the way we describe a problem and subsequently finding out the solutions.
ability to see things as systems, identify, analyze, and solve problems in an optimal way for a specific organization.
Technical Skills ability to understand how computers, data networks, databases, operating systems, etc. work together, as well as their potentials and limitations.
Knowledge and proficiencies required in the accomplishment of engineering, scientific, or any specific task.
Are Technical Skills Still Important?
By Cindy Blanthorne, Sak Bhamornsiri, and Robert E. Guinn
MARCH 2005 - For decades, various groups and institutions within the accounting profession have been advocating a change in accounting education to address the skills necessary for success in the workplace. The 1989 Big Eight white paper “Perspectives on Education: Capabilities for Success in the Accounting Profession” first emphasized the need for general skills, including communication, intellectual, and interpersonal skills. The Accounting Education Change Commission was subsequently established to help educators achieve the white paper’s objectives. Since then, many have suggested incorporating into accounting curricula classroom activities that enhance nontechnical, or “soft,” skills in accounting education.
Many accounting programs responded by incorporating into their curriculum group work, essay exams, and oral presentations. In addition, some textbooks have deleted technical information or have placed it in the appendices, which is significant, because courses are often textbook-driven. Many accounting professors that changed emphasis to the soft skills are now reemphasizing technical skills, because their experience has convinced them that class time is better used for developing students’ technical accounting skills.
Much research has been conducted in search of definitive accounting skills. The perceptions of CPAs, accounting educators, students, and Fortune 500 executives have been studied. The majority have ranked communication as the most important skill in accounting. A survey by Usoff and Feldermann (Journal of Education for Business, March/April 1998) found that students thought that accounting knowledge was the most important skill. Based on this finding, Usoff and Feldermann concluded that students were out of touch and suggested that undergraduate students needed to be more aware of the importance of nontechnical skills.
A more recent article by Moncada and Sanders (CPA Journal, January 1999) investigated skills related to recruiting. Students and faculty ranked characteristics important to prescreening and office visits; the rankings were compared to those rankings by CPA firm recruiters. Interestingly, accounting GPA was ranked most important for prescreening by all three groups. This suggests that technical skills are important when screening students for a campus interview.
The study discussed in this article identifies skills necessary for promotion and success in the public accounting environment. Recently promoted Big Five partners were asked to rate six skills—interpersonal, communication, administrative, technical, leadership, and practice development—in terms of their importance for promotion at three levels: from staff to senior, senior to manager, and manager to partner.
Skills
Staff to senior. In Exhibit 1, the same three skills were rated as most important for promotion from staff to senior in tax and audit, but not in the same order. In tax, the average ratings among technical, communication, and interpersonal skills differed substantially in importance.
Senior to manager. In Exhibit 2, the six skills are rated in the same order for promotion to manager in both tax and audit. When comparing the promotion from senior to manager with the promotion from staff to senior, there is an increase in the average ratings for all of the six skills, which suggests that perceptions of technical skills become even more important at higher levels in public accounting firms.
Manager to partner. The most dramatic change in the rankings occurs at the promotion from manager to partner, seen in Exhibit 3. In both tax and audit, technical competence drops to only the fifth most important skill. Administrative skills also dropped in importance, but all other nontechnical skills rose in importance. The reason for the change in rankings may be related to the added nontechnical responsibilities expected of partners.
The 150-Hour Requirement and Technical Skills
While “soft” skills become increasingly important at higher levels, accountants also must possess a high level of technical competence throughout the promotional process in order to reach the point of consideration for partnership.
Are technical skills still important? The findings of the current study would indicate that they are. The fundamental goal of accounting education remains the same: providing students with sound technical competency.
Management Skills include organization’s recourse management, project management (people and money), risk management, and change management.
Management in all business and human organisation activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.
Theoretical scope
Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth century, defined management as "the art of getting things done through people". She also described management as philosophy.[2] One can also think of management functionally, as the action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol[3] considers management to consist of seven functions:
1. planning
2. organizing
3. leading
4. co-ordinating
5. controlling
6. staffing
7. motivating
Some people, however, find this definition, while useful, far too narrow. The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of definitions, and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.
One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to "business administration" and thus excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. More realistically, however, every organization must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. in order to maximize its effectiveness. Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments which teach management as "business schools." Some institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name while others (such as the Yale School of Management) employ the more inclusive term "management."
English speakers may also use the term "management" or "the management" as a collective word describing the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation. Historically this use of the term was often contrasted with the term "Labor" referring to those being managed.
Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management.
Communication Skills include effective interpersonal communication (written, verbal, visual, electronic, face-to-face conversations, presentations in front of groups), listening, group facilitation skills.
Communication is something all living creatures have innately in them to interact with one another so they can understand one another. Human beings communicate through conveying thoughts and ideas.
Some people have better communication skills than others. Communication skills involve the use of auditory, which is spoken, or sung words and sounds; non-verbal, which involves the use of body or sign language and paralanguage, which involves touch or eye contact.
Communication is a process by which information is exchanged. It can be between two or more people. What makes the interaction understood is that the people all recognize the same symbols, signs and behavior so they know what is going on. Based on ones communication abilities determine how effective they are as a communicator. This is where communication skills come into play.
In order to have good communication skills one has to understand what the process of communication is and how to effectively use it. Thus in executing good communication skills one must view communication as a process of transmitting information based on three ideas: Syntactic, Pragmatic and Semantic. Syntactic are the properties given to various signs and symbols, Pragmatic are the relationship between expression/sign and the user of them and Semantic, which is the representation between the signs and symbols and what they mean.
One who uses their communication skills well makes their message understood by all who are present. They understand the feedback of the message they gave out and have some mastery of the flow of communication. Good communication skills involve being able to listen as well as just speak. When you listen and understand what is being said you can respond appropriately, which is another communication skill.
When we utilize good communication skills people will want to hear what we have to say. It helps mobilize people into action with us. When we have poor communication skills it alienates people from us. They don’t want to hear what we have to say must less act on it.
Effective communication skills means to keep it simple and to the point. People who ramble, with tedious large words and jargon tend to bore people and they turn off to what the speaker is speaking about. Short to the point and concise is the first rule of making one’s communication skills effectively heard
Another good communication skill to use is simplifying complex information with simpler ideas first. You can be as creative as you want so the idea is conveyed but be accurate so there is no misunderstanding of the information. Repeat the idea if you have to so it could be understood.
Our body language as part of communication skills is also very important. Facial expressions, gestures, posture and how close or far away from whom we are communicating with all play a part in our communication skills. Not to mention our tone of voice, inflection and volume of our voice all affect the people we are communicating with. The more all these aspects of communication are mastered and are used at the appropriate times the more successful our communication skills will become.
Interpersonal skills
refers to mental and communicative algorithms applied during social communications and interaction to reach certain effects or results. The term "interpersonal skills" is used often in business contexts to refer to the measure of a person's ability to operate within business organizations through social communication and interactions. Interpersonal skills are how people relate to one another.
As an illustration, it is generally understood that communicating respect for other people or professionals within will enable one to reduce conflict and increase participation or assistance in obtaining information or completing tasks. For instance, to interrupt someone who is currently preoccupied with the task of obtaining information needed immediately, it is recommended that a professional use a deferential approach with language such as, "Excuse me, are you busy? I have an urgent matter to discuss with you if you have the time at the moment." This allows the receiving professional to make their own judgement regarding the importance of their current task versus entering into a discussion with their colleague. While it is generally understood that interrupting someone with an "urgent" request will often take priority, allowing the receiver of the message to judge independently the request and agree to further interaction will likely result in a higher quality interaction. Following these kinds of heuristics to achieve better professional results generally results in a professional being ranked as one with 'good interpersonal skills.' Often these evaluations occur in formal and informal settings.
Having positive interpersonal skills increases the productivity in the organization since the number of conflicts is reduced. In informal situations, it allows communication to be easy and comfortable. People with good interpersonal skills can generally control the feelings that emerge in difficult situations and respond appropriately, instead of being overwhelmed by emotion.
According to my research, the skills that were mentioned above are the major skills that a system analyst should have. These skills are very significant for a system analyst in order for him to relate or do his job in an organization.
During Interview..
When we had our interview in our adopted company, we have asked how important a system analyst in an organization and what are the characteristics he/she should have in order to perform his task in an organization well.
Our interviewee told us that a system analyst in today’s trend in an organization is considered one of the most important persons because they bridge the gap between the two people with different languages, it’s the management and the programmers. Without a system analyst the management would have a hard time understanding the language of the programmers so as the programmers to the management.
Our interviewee gave us some qualities that a system analyst should possess. One of the characteristics is that, a system analyst should have determination. It is something that motivates you in doing your work. Even though you tend to stop, determination keeps you going on. He said, without determination the work or the job will not be done on its due time.
Another characteristic of a system analyst is that he is willing to accept correction. Whenever there are feedbacks from the user, it should be taken as a challenge for the improvement of the flow, system or process of the organization. It is the stepping stone of the company in order to go to another level of catering and satisfying the need of the people.
References:
http://www.interlabs.bradley.edu/NSF_CCLI/Demo/class6/module6/Skills_Pretest_Posttest_Answers.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_skills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_skills
http://www.yourcommunicationskills.com/
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/technical-skills.html
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/305/essentials/p64.htm
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