Secret Life of Bees Research Paper

Jackie Yets 3/21/11 Per. 6, English H2/SP Secret Life of Bees Research Paper While one reads the Sue Monk Kidd novel, The Secret Life of Bees, an enigma acquainted with the book is why the Black Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia is used as opposed to a white Virgin Mary. With the story taking place in the racist south of 1964 it would be reasonable to assume that a black Mary wouldn’t be common, or readily accepted; however she still occupies a large area of the women’s lives. For the Boatwright’s, the Daughters of Mary, and quickly for Lily and Rosaleen, the black Virgin Mary is placed in the book as a source of strength, and maternal comfort. The most obvious symbolism of the Black Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia is that it is featured in the novel to give the characters a religious strength. In the story of ‘Our Lady of Chains’ August tells how the statue was such an inspiration to the slaves, and how â€Å"Our Lady filled their hearts with fearlessness†¦ And if it ever grew weak, they would only have to touch her heart again,† (109-110). ‘Our Lady of Chains’, another Divine black figure in the book besides the Madonna of Breznichar, does that same thing for all of the women. Along with ‘Our Lady’ the Bohemian Black Madonna has the same effect on the Daughters of Mary, because it showed them that â€Å"what’s divine can come in dark skin. You see, everybody needs a God who looks like them,† (141). In the real world however, there is no such thing as the Black Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia. The historical region of Bohemia was located in the same area as modern Poland, and Poland is home to a well known Black Madonna, Our Lady of Czestochowa, who shares many similarities with the Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia. These similarities, including features and elements of the pictures, strongly suggest that the Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia is based on Our Lady of Czestochowa. Our Lady of Czestochowa is well known for her ‘miracle working’, mostly involving scaring away foreign invaders and assisting small groups of defenders in defeating powerful armies (Similar to Lily, Rosaleen, the Boatwrights, and the Daughters of Mary gaining the strength to convince an angry T-Ray to leave Lily with them? ). The Black Madonna is also historically known to have been at the foundation of rebellions and revolutions, and leading to freedom; which can again be connected to Lily leaving and becoming free of her father. However the Black Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia also has another role. Another component of the Bohemian Madonna’s role is her place as a ‘mother of thousands’. In a reflection on The Secret Life of Bees by the author, Sue Monk Kidd said that the Black Virgin Mary existed in the novel to be a symbol of comfort. She also planned for Lily to have a coming home to herself, and a discovery of a mother within to take place with the help of a divine female presence, the Black Mary. Along with the strong connections between the Mary and a mother-like role to the characters, in a religious perspective she is of course a symbol of motherhood, and giving life. In general, the Virgin Mary is known for giving birth to Christ. There is also another connection concerning the Black Mary, which is that she is the ancient earth-goddess that was altered for use in Christianity. Many other goddesses were pictured as black, most importantly Ceres the Roman goddess of agricultural fertility. Keeping in mind the theory that the Black Madonna is an ancient earth-goddess, agriculturally the best fertile soil is characterized by a black color. The blacker the soil, the more becoming it is for farming. Good farming leads to more food, which keeps humans alive. Summing it up, the black earth gives life. This is another strong connection to a life giving maternal role. There’s also another spiritual connection to the comfort brought by the presence of Our Lady of Czestochowa. This connection regards the hidden meaning of the colors present in the images of the Mother; first is the blue-green background, which symbolizes hope. Foremost, the brown skin color is more important, subtly indicating the human element as well as the long history seen by the Madonna. With all of these characteristics related to the Black Virgin Mary, it is clear why Kidd would create this divine figure to inspire her cast of characters. The insurgence nurtured in the history of Black Madonna created the perfect symbol to guide Lily in her search for a home and a connection to both her literal mother, as well as the mother within herself. Works Cited Duricy, Michael P. â€Å"Black Madonnas: Our Lady of Czestochowa. † Black Madonnas. The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute. , 26 March 2008. Web. 13 March 2011. Jozwik, Ziemowit. A Treasury of Europe. Europe and Me Magazine. N. p. 4 January 2010. Web. 13 March 2011. < http://www. europeandme. eu/8heart/455-the-black-madonna> Kidd, Sue Monk. Secret Life of Bees- The Black Madonna in the Novel. Sue Monk Kidd. LUX Interactive, LLC. , n. d. Web. 13 March 2011. Duricy, Michael P. Black Madonnas. The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, 6 October 2009. Web. 13 March 2011. Cahoy, Nate. Comparing Madonnas. The Black Madonnas. PB Works. n. d. Web. 13 March 2011. Our Lady of CzestochowaBlack Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia

Disgrace Is an Applicable Title for Jm Coetzee’s Novel Essay

In order to argue whether â€Å"Disgrace† is an applicable title for JM Coetzee’s novel, the keyword â€Å"Disgrace† has to be defined. According to the Apple electronic dictionary disgrace is defined as a â€Å"Loss of reputation as the result of a dishonorable action†. In jm coetzees’s novel there are many characters and factors in their own right that are affected by some kind of misfortune or ignominy. However there are four characters / factors that play an important role in expressing ignominy from their actions and decisions. These characters and their actions decides if the title is appropriate for coetzee’s novel. The characters and factors are : David Lurie, The new born democratic south africa, lucy lurie and her dogs. The protagonist of this novel is a professor who was constructively dismissed by a committee of lecturers from the university of cape town. David lurie was involved in many sexual relationships with many different women. However the affair that stood out the most was with one of his students named Melanie and this lead to him losing his job at the university and also shaming melanie. This should have been an embarrassing moment at this point in his degrading life but still as edacious as he was he never got to learn his lesson, as its been said in the novel by david ,†No, I have not sought counseling nor do I intend to seek it. I am a grown man. I am not receptive to being counseled. I am beyond the reach of counseling. † When life got too embarrassing for him in cape town because of his loss of reputation he moved to the eastern cape to live with his daughter. It is there in george that he found the true meaning of what his life is worth. The situation with his daughter’s rape, the daily dealings with animals and dogs, his small sexual encounter with bev shaw, the visit to melanie’s parents, conversations with the shady petrus and the life of living in a new south Africa exhibited to him that his actions were disgraceful, his choices not thought out carefully and that whoever he came in contact with were either ashamed or disgraced. Lucy Lurie, the daughter of David lurie lived on a farm in the eastern cape. She is the total opposite of David instead of being cunning and stylish, she is rather an earthly woman who works the soil for a living and who doesn’t care about her beauty and self image. The way in which she confronts david isn’t in a fatherly and daughterly manner but rather as two adults speaking to each other. This shows that lucy is disgusted at the way david is living his life and that david isn’t a fatherly figure in lucy’s life. Lucy does not disgrace herself like david but instead she lives in disgrace after she was involved in a situation where she was a victim of rape. he doesn’t overcome the shame of being victimized, because in the novel its been said by david : â€Å"She would rather hide her face, and he knows why. Because of the disgrace. Because of the shame. That is what their visitors have achieved; that is what they have done to this confident, modern young woman. † (14. 22). Thus this quote shows she is living in ignomi ny. Lucy’s dogs also play an important role as it shows the physical suffering that plays out in the novel. The dogs change the way in which david approaches life when he has to put them down at the clinic. In the novel David is attached to the dog with the crippled leg. Its here that he sees disgrace in not his actions but rather in death and he experiences shamefulness in not lucy’s situation but rather in the way the dog is forced to live. at the end of the novel instead of letting the crippled canine suffer he saves it for living a more disgraceful life than death. â€Å"There is a heavy report; blood and brains splatter the cage. For a moment the barking ceases. The man fires twice more. One dog, shot through the chest, dies at once; another, with a gaping throat-wound, sits down heavily, flattens its ears, following with its gaze the movements of this being who does not even bother to administer a coup de grace. A hush falls. The remaining three dogs, with nowhere to hide, retreat to the back of the pen, milling about, whining softly. Taking his time between shots, the man picks them off. â€Å"(11. 91-92). The imagery of using dogs shows that everyone in the book is subjected to some kind of pain, suffering and a bit of disgrace whether its a human or an animal. In this quote it is here that the dogs are subjected to the harshness of the attackers and david has to bare with the pain of hearing the dogs die, david also feels a bit of ignominy as he can’t do anything to save the dogs. In the novel south africa had just come out apartheid and was now a democratic government, however during apartheid south africa was a disgrace to the international community and apartheid was considered a shameful act. There was still racial tension in the new south africa and this plays an important role in the novel. When david moved to he country side he was not aware of the tension, and he and many other whites couldn’t speak the native language which was a fact as it can be seen from this quote from the novel: â€Å"He is sitting in the front room, watching soccer on television. The score is nil-all; neither team seems interested in winning. The commentary alternates between Sotho and Xhosa, languages of which he understands not a word. (9. 1 -2)† His encounters with the blacks shows that the two races were not use to each other. Thus this shows that when theres segregation in a country it always leads to violence and disgraceful actions. All four of these factors reflect that disgrace is definitely an appropriate title for JM coetzee’s novel. From david’s actions to lucy’s rape and from the physical suffering of dogs to the affects of apartheid expresses the loss of reputation and the dishonorable actions which has contributed to the novel. Disgrace is the ideal word for the title because disgrace touches every character of the novel in some way, both through the ways they have affected others and also through the ways that others have affected them.

Nx448 Business Game Report

Contents Part 1 Introduction3 1. 1 Business Objective3 Part 2 Company Performance4 2. 1 Round 14 2. 1. 1 Discrepancy analysis4 2. 2 Round 26 2. 2. 1 Business Strategy6 2. 2. 2 Round 2 Forecast7 2. 2. 3 Discrepancy Analysis7 2. 3 Round 38 2. 3. 1 Business Strategy8 2. 3. 2 Round 3 Forecast9 2. 3. 3 Discrepancy Analysis9 2. 4 Round 49 2. 4. 1 Business Strategy9 2. 4. 2 Round 4 Forecast10 2. 4. 3 Discrepancy Analysis10 2. 5 Key Performance Indicators11 2. 6 Performance Evaluation Comments12 Part 3 Learning14 3. 1 Financial Management14 3. 2 Human Resource Management15 3. 3 Operation Management16 3. Marketing Management17 Part 4 Team Performance18 4. 1 Team18 4. 1. 1 Management Team18 4. 1. 2 Decision-making Process19 4. 1. 3 Leadership19 4. 1. 4 Team Role19 4. 2 Individual20 4. 2. 1 My Contribution20 4. 2. 2 My learning about effective teamwork and decision making20 4. 2. 3 Suggestions for Improving My Performance21 Part 5 Conclusion21 Part 6 Reference22 Part 7 Appendices23 7. 1 Design and Options23 7. 2 Warranty Cost24 7. 3 Other Key Performance Indicators25 Part 1 Introduction This report will give a clear analysis and explanation of the company performance during the business game.Learning about four main business functional areas (Finance, Marketing, Operation and Human Resource) will be discussed in part 3. Team performance and individual assessment will be critically evaluated in part 4. 1. 1 Business Objective Moon Star Motors aims to provide customers with the ability to own a car and lead the customers to experience comfort and quality at an affordable price. We intend to create a distinctive place in the market for our products and build up brand value of quality and reliability in the mind of customers.The initial business objectives set up by management team is: * Increase sales annually * Maximise our profit * Sell out 98% of our cars for every round * Obtain 16% return on investment by the end of round 4 | City Car – TIKI| Large Car – C RUISER| Total| Forecast Production (Units)| 85,000| 35,000| 120,000 | Sales Income (? m)| 850| 833| 1,683| Post Tax Profit (? m)| -| -| 20| Bank Balance before Loan (? m)| -| -| -74| Closing Bank Balance (? m)| -| -| 26| Table 1. 0 Forecast for year 1 Part 2 Company Performance 2. 1 Round 1 2. 1. 1 Discrepancy analysisUnsold stock In round 1, we forecast to sell out both TIKI and CRUISER. However, only 80% of TIKI is sold, with 17,393 units left. We concluded three main reasons as following: * Supply over demand. We are over confident to sell big volumes with low price, but the market actually reached saturation. * Unattractive and inflexible options. In order to maintain low material cost, we only offer two options for customers to select. It might affect the popularity of our TIKI and make it less competitive compared with other car manufacturers. * Not enough promotion.We invested 23 million on market promotion via television and internet, which is about ? 200for every single car . We didn’t invest too much for this round because we want to firstly evaluate the effect of advertisement. Net profit We forecast 20 million net profits and actual figure is minus 116 million. This is mainly due to the large amount of unsold stock and ineffective pricing strategy. The total contribution is unable to recover our fixed cost. In other words, the break-even point is set up too high and our sales volume did not reach BEP.Meanwhile, some overheads such as professional charges and warranty claims are not properly calculated. Gross margin The difference between forecast and result for gross margin of TIKI and CRUISER is 3. 21% and 7. 08% respectively. It is mainly caused by the unexpected extra direct cost. For example, the worker strike increase our labor cost of both models and the option take-up is more than our estimate. Market share Our target market share is 1. 5% for TIKI and 1. 2% for CRUISER. We sold out all our CRUIER and hit the large car sales target. Ho wever, market share for TIKI is around 0. % less than we expected due to our unsold stock. 2. 2 Round 2 2. 2. 1 Business Strategy New Pricing Strategy The management team decided to adapt average pricing strategy in round 2 for two main reasons: * We already access successfully to target market. * Low price high volumes strategy did not make profit. Sales income must be increased in order to recover all overheads in this round and most of the loss in previous round. Based on this, TIKI gross margin increased 2% to 14. 24%, while CRUISER gross margin increased 4. 3% to 25. 25%. ProductionProduction for TIKI in this round has to decrease due to 17,393 units in stock, and we try to sell them out in round 2. Meanwhile, results of round 1 indicated that CRUISER won thepopularity in the market so we intend to increasethe production by 10,000 units. Based on the production adjustment and market predictions, the market share of CRUISER will increase from 1. 2% to 1. 5%, while TIKI maintains 1. 2% market share. Under this situation, our forecast sales will reach ? 2058 million in round 2. Redundancy The harshest decision made by management team is to cut down 574 workers.Even though we understand this have negative effects on industrial relations, it is far beyond our business objective to over produce the cars and keep unsold stock by the end of the year. Therefore, we forecast a 2. 4 million of redundancy cost within total overheads. 2. 2. 2 Round 2 Forecast round 2 forecast| TIKI| CRUISER| Total| production/ units| 51,000 | 45,000 | 96,000 | selling price ? | 11,800 | 27,800 |   | gross margin %| 14. 24%| 25. 25%|   | sales income ? m| 807| 1,251 | 2,058 | total overhead ? m|   |   | 262| post tax profit ? |   |   | 82| closing bank balance ? m|   |   | 12| 2. 2. 3 Discrepancy Analysis There are three main differences between round 2 forecast and results: (1) production (2) Sales (3) pre-tax profits. Production Production (units)| TIKI| CRUISER| tota l| Target| 51,000| 45,000| 96,000| Actual| 49,668| 44,467| 94,135| Difference| | | 1,865| Our target production is 96,000 units but we actually produced 94,135 units, with 1,865 units missing. This is mainly because the redundancy decision initiated serious worker strike, which is recorded as 41 days in our company report. Thus, the actual production did not hit our target.Sales Sales (? m)| Total| forecast| 2,058 2,058 | actual| 2,017 | difference| 41 41 | The discrepancy between forecast sales and actual sales is 40 million. We have 387 units CRUISER in stock which could increase our sales by 11 million if we can sell them out. And we will get 29 million more if we are able to hit the target production of 96,000 unites and sell them up. Pre-tax profit The actual pre-tax profit is less than the forecast due to wrong calculation on current account interest and loans interest. We have closing bank balance of minus 270 million last round.According to overdraft facility, we forecast to pay 11% of 270 million as overdraft interest which is around 30 million, but it actually is 15% of that amount and cost us 40 million. Besides, an extra 8 million is deducted as the interest of 100 million bank loans of round 1 and is ignored when we did financial forecast. 2. 3 Round 3 2. 3. 1 Business Strategy Personnel Decisions Management team decided to maintain the size of workforce and to increase wages by 8% and training investment by 25% in order to improve worker satisfaction and commitment, especially after we suffer a great loss caused by 41 days strike.We hope to effectively control the strike in this round and expect the improvement of productivity. Automation Investment Management team made a decision of doubling the automation investment due to two main reasons. Firstly, it is recognized that automation can effectively increase the productivity and decrease the high wage bill. Secondly, the profit we made in previous round increases our confidence and financial capa city to introduce new equipment. 2. 3. 2 Round 3 Forecast round 3 forecast| TIKI| CRUISER| Total| production/ units| 65,500 | 40,500 | 106,000 | selling price ? 12,270 | 28,600 |   | gross margin %| 15. 25%| 28. 98%|   | sales income ? m| 804| 1,169 | 1,973 | total overhead ? m|   |   | 281| post tax profit ? m|   |   | 118| closing bank balance ? m|   |   | 158| 2. 3. 3 Discrepancy Analysis Gross profit Gross Profit| forecast| actual| difference| Sales (? m)| 1,973| 1,973|    0| cost of sales (? m)| 1,512| 1,577|    65| gross profit (? m)| 461| 396| 65| The actual gross profit is 65 million less than our forecast, even though our sales reach the target. This is mainly caused by exceeded materials costs.It is indicated on company report that design and options cost for CRUISER is ? 7572 per unit, but we only count it as ? 6186 when we forecast. In this situation, we are charged ? 1386 more for producing every CRUISER. It reflects that the options we offer to cust omers are of great popularity and we should enlarge option take-up percentage when doing the material cost forecast for next round. 2. 4 Round 4 2. 4. 1 Business Strategy Sales target Encouraging by the good financial performance of last round, management team decided to increase the sales by 32% in round 4 in order to further satisfy our shareholders.However, we do not plan to increase the gross margin for both models because we guarantee customers of good value for money. Thus, we expect the high volumes sales bring us profit. Design and options To make our cars competitive, we add more options to both models for customers to choose based on the popularity indicators (see appendix). Since the very beginning, both 3/5 door hatch with small engine (city car) and MPV with diesel engine (large car) are most popular designs for our target age group. So, the adjustment is focused on the alternative options. Promotion ExpenditurePromotion expenditure will increase by 34% to ? 40 million. This decision is made by management team with attempt to make our products sold better. Market predictions indicated that city car market and large car market will shrink by 12% and 9% respectively. That is to say, risk of keeping stock is high if we increase our production in round 4. Thus, we hope the promotion and advertisement could help reduce that risk. 2. 4. 2 Round 4 Forecast round 4 forecast| TIKI| CRUISER| Total| production/ units| 70,000 | 44,550 | 114,550 | selling price ? 13,900 | 26,800 |   | gross margin %| 15. 34%| 30. 73%|   | sales income ? m| 973| 1,639 | 2,612 | total overhead ? m|   |   | 308| post tax profit ? m|   |   | 235| closing bank balance ? m|   |   | 412| 2. 4. 3 Discrepancy Analysis Unsold Stock We expect to achieve zero closing stock but actually have 12,853 units unsold which worth ? 246 million. As a result, we are unable to reach target sales, post-tax profit and target market share. Market Share| TIKI| CRUISER| round 3 result| 1. 20%| 1. 51%| round 4 target| 1. 46%| 1. 80%|After evaluation, we conclude two possible reasons which contribute to this result: * We over estimate our capacity and are hurry to expand the market share. As shown on the table, we increase 0. 26% for TIKI and 0. 34% for CRUISER. It seems better if we execute market expansion step by step. * The competitors’ price might have negative impact on our sales. In final round, in order to offer more alternative choices and high quality experience to customers, we added more popular and high cost options for both TIKI and CRUISER, which increase our direct cost per car and make it hard to decrease the selling price. . 5 Key Performance Indicators Performance indicators| round 1| round 2| round 3| round 4| Sales | 1509 | 2017 | 1973 | 2274 | Sales growth (decline) %| -| 34%| -22%| 15%| Cost of sales| 1333 | 1599 | 1577 | 1700 | Cost of sales ratio %| 88%| 79%| 80%| 75%| Profitability| Gross profit margin %| 12%| 21%| 20%| 25%| Operating profit %| -7%| 6%| 6%| 12%| Net profit %| -8%| 3%| 5%| 9%| Return on assets %| -24%| 12%| 14%| 26%| Return on investment %| -23%| 21%| 18%| 36%| Liquidity| Current ratio| 0. 64| 1. 26| 3. 52| 3. 24| Quick ratio| 0. 13| 1. 1| 3. 52| 1. 45| 2. Performance Evaluation Comments In general, sales increased from ? 1509 million in round 1 to ? 2274 million in round 4 – an increase of 51%. Over this period, we did not launch any new model and enlarge the sales volumes too much. The main reason for sales increase is the growth of our selling price. Direct cost of sales decreased yearly from 88% in round 1 to 75% in round 4. Even though inflation raises material costs and we offer a pay rise to our workers, we are still able to handle the cost/sales ratio efficiently by adapting smart and efficient pricing strategy.Profitability: Gross Margin % The gross margin has doubled from 12% (round 1) to 25% (round 4). In real money terms, our gross profit increased from ? 176 million to ? 574 mi llion. This trend indicated that return on sales improved. Although direct cost of sales increased year by year, we adjust our pricing strategy in order to make our business more profitable. Operating Profit % Operating profit margin improved from minus 7% (round 1) to 12% (round 4) indicatingmore efficient operation management. To be specific, stock upkeep cost and redundancy cost are well managed.The R&D investment and warranty costs are effectively controlled. Even though the investment on promotion and training increase yearly, this cost is balanced by the decreasing depreciation cost due to the book value of our fixed assets reduced yearly. Net Profit % Net profit margin shows an increasing trend from minus 8% (round 1) to 9% (round 4). Our company remains profitable since round 2. This indicated that our business is successful in consistency of earning. Return on Assets % The return on assets grows dramatically from minus 24% (round 1) to 26% (round 4).This indicates that mana gement is more and more efficient in using business assets to generate profit. Return on Investment % The return on capital employed shows a similar trend, except a slight decline of 3% in round 3. The ROI is 36% by the end of round 4, which has actually achieved our business objective. Liquidity: From round 1 to round 3, the current ratio increase from 0. 64 to 3. 52 times, and the quick ratio increase from 0. 13 to 3. 52 times. The increasing ratio indicates that we have more cash flow to pay our creditors (quick settlement) and meet our short-term obligations.In round 4, the current ratio drop slights to 3. 24 times and the quick ratio drop greatly to 1. 45 times. This trend looks good because high ratio does not mean a healthy cash position of the business. It indicates that we do not use our capitals properly and efficiently. In conclusion, according to our current liquidity situation, our company is suggested to reduce the stock levels and to invest surplus cash in longer term investments. Market Share From round 1 to round 4, market share of TIKI increased from 1. 21% to 1. 35%, despite a slight decline in round 2.Market share of CRUISER increased sharply in round 2 compared with round 1, then showed a tiny increase trend year by year. It indicated that we are successful in persistently and steadily supplying products to the market. Overall, our company’s performance has been improved in several ways, (e. g. sales, profit, creditors, market share, etc. ) In addition, it would have been more helpful for the further financial performance evaluation if the industrial average figures and key competitors’ information had been made available (Behn 2003). Part 3 Learning 3. 1 Financial ManagementIn the field of financial management, cost-volume-profit analysis is a powerful tool that helps managers identifies the relationships among cost, volume and profit (Banfield, Newcastle Business et al. 2008). It focuses on how profits can be affected by th e following variables: selling price, sales volume, unit variable costs, total fixed costs, etc. (Banfield, Newcastle Business et al. 2008). Break even analysis and margin of safety is the important part of cost-volume-cost analysis. The formula is shown as following: Formula: BEP = Total Fixed Cost = (in Units) Contribution per unitMargin of Safety = Forecast Demand – BEP Forecast Demand In round 1, we forecast our total fixed cost and depreciation charge is 241 million, and the contribution per unit is 2316. By using formula, the forecast BEP is 104,000 units. So we decided to produce 120,000 units after evaluating market demand. Our forecast margin of safety is therefore around 13. 3%. However, we underestimated the total fixed cost and overestimated our sales volumes. Thus, we suffered a loss of 116 million in the first round. In round 2, we re-evaluate the cost, volume and profit, and then set up 32. % of margin of safety. Financial performance is improved in this round so we adapted the similar approach for round 3 and 4, in which our margin of safety is about 39. 1% and 52. 8% respectively. It has been proved that high margin of safety makes profit less vulnerable to demand drops (Jacobs 2002). Even though we have 12,853 units unsold stock, we still make a profit of 198 million in round 4. From the business game, we have practiced how to price products and how much volume of products we must sell in order to make a profit. 3. 2 Human Resource ManagementWhen we practice the Human Resource function in business game, we put emphasis on rewards, in particular worker wage. High wage will not always improve the work performance from long-term perspective, but annual pay increase works (Banfield and Kay 2008). Based on this learning, we decide to pay our worker ? 355 weekly in round 1 and to increase that wage annually. However, we suffered a loss due to bad company performance in round 1, so wage did not increase even though inflation rate is around 3% . In round 2, company performance is improved and we make profit. Thus, wage increase by 9% ahead of 4% inflation rate in round 3.In round 4, wage increase by 5% to ? 404. Overall, from round 1 to round 4, wage increase by 14%, but the strike days only reduced 1 day (8 days in round 1 and 7 days in round 4). It is indicated that a reward cannot help to improve work performance if the pay increase does not meet the employee expectation (Corby 2009). According to data on competition, EMPIRE, our key competitors, pays their worker ? 500 weekly in round 4 and the strike day is controlled as 2 days. From the business stimulation, we realized the importance of monetary rewards and the link between rewards and productivity.On the other hand, poor management of employee relations often end up with strikes (Blyton and Turnbull 1998). With this learning, we could have found another solution to allocate our workers instead of redundancy. There are some limitations of business game in terms of HR management. High wage and training investment seems to be the only way to motivate productivity. And some other important HR functions such as recruitment and selection, promotion and employee engagement are not covered in the game. Learning experience will improve if those issues are made available in the game. 3. 3 Operation ManagementQuality management refers to the management activities involved in determination of quality policy and its implementation through means such as quality planning and quality assurance (Gitlow 2005). High quality puts costs down and revenue up (Banfield, Newcastle Business et al. 2008). Based on this learning, in order to control product quality, we focus on the R&D (Research and Development) and skills training when we practice the operation function during business game. From round 1, we keep investing on projects of fuel efficient engine and low emissions in order to detect and control the quality of engines.Both of them are successful after 3 ye ars of research and development. This help to reduce our warranty cost efficiently (see appendix). Due to safety factor, we started to invest on the project of advanced safety systems. We expect the continuous R&D investment bring us long term financial benefit. Meanwhile, we continuously invest on skills training based on the knowledge that investment in skills training can significantly improve product quality (Gitlow 2005). From the business game, I got better understanding about quality management and how quality influences customers’ buying decision.We also learn how to define the quality characteristics, set quality standard and measure the quality of our products. One of the limitations in stimulation process is that it is unavailable to evaluate and select the suppliers by ourselves. If this is made available, I believe that the operation cost would be controlled autonomously and learning experience of students about supply chain would be improved. 3. 4 Marketing Mana gement Marketing management is the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value (Kotler and Keller 2011).In carrying out the marketing functions, the company needs to have a marketing program or strategy. This is known as the marketing mix (Marc 1997). The conventional view of the marketing mix consisted of four components: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. It is indicated that 4Ps constitute the cornerstone of any sound business (Marc 1997). Based on this learning, we tried to use the right marketing mix to reach our target market during the business game. Product: In round 1, 3/5 door hatch and small engine are chosen for city car (24-40 market), while MPV and diesel engine are chosen for large car (41-55 market).Options are selected due to the factors such as safety, comfort and style. From round 2, we detect the popularity index and aim to offer the most appropria te products to our customers (see appendix). Price: We use market penetration in round 1. In the next three round, we adapt average pricing strategy. The economic trend and income status of our target customers are also taken into account as well. Promotion: We keep increasing our promotion investment from 23 million to 40 million via various media. In round 1, we invest ? 200 for every car and it increase to ? 450 in round 4.Through business game, I got better understanding about marketing mix. However, innovation and new product strategy, as another important marketing strategy, is failed to be used in our game. We could have learned more about finding customer value opportunities and creating an innovation culture in our team if we had launched new model. Part 4 Team Performance 4. 1 Team 4. 1. 1 Management Team We distributed our team into four groups in order to cover the four main functional areas of business organization: Finance, Marketing, Operation and Human Resource. Base d on personal interests and experience, I take the charge of Finance.Dorothy and Kira take the responsibility of managing marketing. Operation is taken charged by Michael and Jayson. Adetoro is responsible for HR. It does not mean that we make decisions and take responsibility separately. Actually, those functional areas are linked with and supported by each other. And everybody of the team is required to know exactly the whole process of our business. In reality, the main purpose of functional areas is to ensure that all important business activities are carried out efficiently. This is essential for a company to achieve its business objectives (Marcouse 2010). . 1. 2 Decision-making Process The overall decision-making was a collective process. During the business game, we discussed and evaluated all feasible solutions and make sure every decision is made to help settle the current problems and lead to business objectives. The controversy, however, is sometimes unavoidable. For ins tance, Dorothy, marketing manager, proposed to launch new model in round 3 due to market attractiveness. I cannot agree with that because we are still experiencing financial difficulty. Our net cash position is minus ? 371 million with poor ability to pay our creditors.Adetoro is standing by my side, thinking from a long-term perspective. He suggested our team not to launch new model until we gain a reasonable market share. The further discussion and communication led to unanimous approval of the final decision. The similar situation happened when we discussed whether or not to adept price skimming strategy for our products. The dispute finally is settled properly. 4. 1. 3 Leadership I was nominated as the leader in business game due to my ability to manage market information and provide direction to my team members at the very beginning.Under my leadership, our company is driven to achieve business objectives (execution). I make clear that all my team members are enjoying the game and have learned how to run a business in a real world. 4. 1. 4 Team Role Through my observation, I have identified the strengths/weaknesses and work preference of my team members: * Jayson and Michael prefer to analyze the current situation and raise the issues that we have to face (analysis). Michael is a good team worker who communicates and cooperates effectively with others.Jayson, as a monitor evaluator, has a high critical thinking ability but lacking of expression. * Dorothy and Kira are intuitive about the market information, and they often give the creative ideas (plan). Both of them play as plant. Dorothy prefers change and innovation. She can work more effectively when cooperate with the people who are identified as implementer in Belbin team role framework. * Adetoro used to reflect all our decisions we have made for every round and make everything reasonable and explainable (reflection). He is enthusiastic and logic thinker. 4. 2 Individual . 2. 1 My Contribution I hav e little knowledge about car industry when I take this project, but I quickly realize that I have special interest on costing and budgeting due to my previous work experience. So, I went through the user menu and market research then finish the finance forecast sheet before attending the group meeting. In round 1, I am responsible for both Finance and Marketing. During the group meeting, I proposed my ideas about cost/price, most of which are accepted by my team members and I therefore am nominated as manager of Finance. We suffered a loss in round 1.After analysing the discrepancy between forecast and results, I suggest to adapt new pricing strategy and set a higher gross margin. The strategy is adapted by management team and makes profit for our company by the end of round 2. I am nominated as team leader due to my hard-working, efficiency and reliability. And I actively build up team relation and motivate our team members. I play the role of implementer successfully. I monitor ev ery process of the game and every detail of our decisions, and put emphasis on improving efficiency of every group meeting, and record the minutes. 4. 2. My learning about effective teamwork and decision making Through business game, along with the knowledge I learn from Developing Self module and the experience of residential weekend, I have better understanding about: * An effective teamwork involves in a group of people with common objectives and being able to build up trust and cooperate relationship with each other. * An effective teamwork involves in a group of people who have complementary strengths/weaknesses with each other. * An effective team should have a leader who is able to provide direction, open mind to different opinions, ake right decision and take risks. * An effective decision should create the competitive advantage for organization and bring short term profit along with long term development. * An effective decision builds up the core competency of organization and turn competitive advantage into sustainable competitive advantage. 4. 2. 3 Suggestions for Improving My Performance * If the game could be played again, I would like to think twice before adapting market penetration strategy in round 1 and try to avoid that loss as much as possible. I would like to pay more attention on developing my leadership capability and making better use of the abilities of my team members in order to build up a powerful and effective team. Part 5 Conclusion Overall, our company is successful in the achievement of business objectives. By the end of round 4, our sales have increased by 50%, and our profit is showing a trend of growth. Even though the unsold stock percentage is larger than what we expect, we are still able to control the inventory and keep profitable. Return on investment in round 4 is 36% which is much more than our target.Part 6 Reference Banfield, P. and R. Kay (2008). Introduction to human resource management. New York, Oxford Universit y Press. Banfield, P. , S. Newcastle Business, et al. (2008). Managing for competitive advantage, McGraw-Hill custom publishing. Behn, R. D. (2003). â€Å"Why Measure Performance? Different Purposes Require Different Measures. † Public Administration Review 63(5): 586-606. Blyton, P. and P. Turnbull (1998). The dynamics of employee relations. Basingstoke, Macmillan. Corby, S. (2009). Rethinking reward. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan. Gitlow, H. S. (2005). Quality management. New YorkLondon, McGraw-Hill. Jacobs, T. (2002). â€Å"The margin of safety. † NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY 20(12): 1191-1191. Kotler, P. and K. L. Keller (2011). Marketing management. Harlow, Pearson Education. Marc, L. (1997). â€Å"Marketing mix customization and customizability. † Business Horizons 40(6): 39. Marcouse, I. (2010). â€Å"BTEC First Business. † 1. 4 The main functional areas within business organisations Ed. Retrieved 06/01, 2012, from http://www. teachmebusiness. co. uk/pag e29/page16/page18/assets/Functionalareas. pdf. Part 7 Appendices 7. 1 Design and Options TIKI (City Car)  | | round 1| round 2| round 3| round 4| /5 Door Hatch| Y| Y| Y| Y| Small Engine (4 Cylinder)| Y| Y| Y| Y| Multi Location Airbags|   |   |   | Y| Alloy Wheels|   | Y| Y| Y| Parking Sensors| Y| Y|   | Y| Air Conditioning| Y| Y| Y| Y| Superior Sound System/iPod|   | Y| Y| Y| Security Package|   |   |   | Y| Safety Package|   | Y| Y| Y| CRUISER (Large Car)  | | round 1| round 2| round 3| round 4| SUV| Y| Y| Y| Y| Diesel Engine| Y| Y| Y| Y| Multi Location Airbags|   |   | Y| Y| Alloy Wheels|   |   | Y| Y| Security Tracker|   |   |   | Y| Cruise Control| Y| Y|   |   | Automatic Transmission| Y| Y|   |   | Parking Sensors| Y| Y| Y| Y| Electronic Stability Control| Y| Y|   |   |Panoramic Sunroof| Y| Y|   |   | Heated Elec Wing Mirrors|   |   |   | Y| Electric Adjustable Seats|   |   |   | Y| Air Conditioning| Y| Y| Y| Y| Superior Sound System/iPod| Y| Y| Y| Y| Bluetooth Phone Preparation|   |   |   | Y| TV/DVD Player| Y| Y|   |   | Metallic Paint|   |   | Y| Y| Security Package|   |   | Y| Y| Safety Package| Y| Y| Y| Y| Luxury Package|   |   |   | Y| 7. 2 Warranty Cost Warranty Cost| round 1| round 2| round 3| round 4| TIKI per car ? | 173| 170| 140| 155| CRUISER per car ? | 400| 353| 295| 348| Total Warranty Claims ? m| 26| 27| 21| 23| 7. 3 Other Key Performance Indicators

Malinche Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Malinche - Research Paper Example According to Hampton,1 Malinche was born to chief Oluta, who was a member of the royal house of the Aztecs in 1502. 2 Her father died when she was still very young. According to the culture of her people, she was the sole heir of her father’s wealth and position as the chief. This, however, never happened. Malinche’s mother remarried and had a son with her stepfather. Her mother and stepfather then formulated a plan and sold her to slave traders, for her son to remain the sole heir of the throne. In her plan, Malinche’s mother took advantage of the death of one of her slave’s daughters. She blackmailed this slave and ended up burying the slave’s daughter as Malinche. 3 The slave was told to remain silent, or be sent away with the merchants who were buying slaves. 4 Not all sources concur on Malinche’s origin. However, it has been established by Joan Hershafield that she was a Nahuatl with the original name of Malimalli. Her province of birth was Coazacualco. According to the author, stories of Malinche’s slave life that led her to Cortes are contradictory. On the one hand, Lee Stacy presents Malinche as a member of the royal house of the Aztecs and the legal heir of her father’s throne as do sources in the previous paragraph. However, on the other hand, Hamptons contradicts that information, blackmails the family relations of Malinche, and argues that she was the daughter of a slave. The translation process was long-drawn-out, involving the Spanish, Mayan, and Nahuatl languages. When Cortes wanted to communicate with Nahuatl speakers, among whom were the influential Mexica or Aztec people, he would first tell Jeronimo de Aguilar, who would then translate into Mayan for La Malinche, who then further translated Cortes’ statement to the Nahuatl speakers, those reply was communicated by the reverse process. Due to this three-way interaction, the Nahuatl-speakers called her Malintzin. The Spanish upon he aring the natives calling her Malintzin, tried calling her the same, but their mispronounced version was Malinche. 5 Hampton tells us that La Malinche’s father placed a golden necklace around the little girl’s neck and said, â€Å"That this necklace will be the sign forever that shows you are a member of the Royal Aztec house, and your name is Malintzin.† 6 The Mexican citizens considered Malinche a traitor because she was Cortes’ mistress and was his translator. When she was baptized, she adopted a new name because she had no choice. Having been sold by her own mother into slavery, she had no choice but to obey the ways of slavery. Slavery led her into Cortes hands. Castillo, Bernal, Janet Burke and Humphrey tell us that Malinche that she was under captivity in Maya before being offered to Cortes as a war trophy by the Maya people. 7 Cortes wanted to conquer Mexico no matter what. It was one of his targets. Malinche,  therefore should, not be blamed fo r some other person’s political and personal interests. Appreciation should be given to Malinche for making negotiations possible. 8 Levesque suggests that Malinche willingly offered herself to Cortes, making her a betrayer to Mexico. 9 She is considered a representation of Mexico’s Eve, man’s first other and Christian history’

Superfoods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Superfoods - Essay Example One of the world healthiest food? Yes we are talking about almonds. Almonds definitely are listed as superfood too. These are full of vitamin E, copper, fiber, magnesium and phosphorus. Almonds act as a catalyst to boost up the functioning of brain. It provides double protection against diabetes and their healthy fats are very useful to lose weight also ensuring the lower risk of weight gain. Pistachio nuts are regarded as superfoods as they help you in losing the weigh due to their low cholesterol level and effective fibers. Talking about figures thirty pistachio nuts cause you only 100 calories. Most importantly they are tasty and addictive. Once you start eating pistachio nuts you can barely keep your hands off unless and until all you got on plate is their shells.Talking about superfoods how we can forget carrots? Carrots are the ultimate source of Vitamin A. This beautiful, crunch red vegetable comes with numerous advantages. â€Å"Carrots are good for eyes†, we’ve been listening this statement from our childhood and it is true. Carrots are perfect for good vision as Vitamin A is transported to retina thus providing instant pigmentation for good vision. Also carrots prevent from cancer and reduce the risk of other fatal disease by increasing the immune system. Even some components of carrots are being used to produce anticancer medicines. Carrots are also useful for anti-aging purposes. So all the above mentioned foods are superfoods which intake can ensure you a sound body with sound mind.

Critical evaluation of a published paper Assignment

Critical evaluation of a published paper - Assignment Example Generally the primary aim of the research was to compare the potential impact of bundles of both collaborative and calculative human resource management. The analysis of the impact of the intermediary practices was more of a secondary interest (Gooderham, Parry and Ringdal, 2008, p. 2042). This paper critically evaluates the research design, strategies and methods used in the research article as well as their potential drawbacks to the research. Research design and approach Generally the authors have used a quantitative research method for their empirical study regarding the relationship between human resource management practices and firm performance. The research design used is primarily based on cross sectional data derived from a recent Cranet survey of human resource management in 16 European countries. The authors collected their data through survey questionnaire which were appropriately translated and mailed to the respective human resource managers of the selected sample nati onal firms in all the countries The resulted suggested that 5/6 of the calculative practices as well as two thirds of the intermediary practices had a significant impact on the performance. On the other hand, the analysis of the data further revealed that none of the collaborative practices had any impact on human resource management performance. ... On the hand, the independent variables used in the research were the various HRM practices that were obtained from a comprehensive literature review by the researchers. These variables were analyzed using SPSS and the results obtained were then used to support the hypothesis of the researchers. Benefits of the research design and approach There are a number of benefits of the research design that the authors used. For example, while the method use in data collection was too simple it provided the needed information to the researchers. One of the strengths of the research design used is that the literature review has offered a proper basis for the research as it clearly brings out principles and schools of thought that concern the research. For instance the review addresses some of the issues attributed to management system that aims to give the human resource new knowledge, information, motivation that results to a better workforce and commitment (Wright and Snell, 1998, p.764). To v alidate their findings, the authors have also used a comprehensive literature review in their study. A well outlined and detailed literature review with a detailed introduction to the research was a very good approach towards undertake of this research. The difference between calculative and intermediary HRM bundles and also collaborative HRM bundles has been well outlined. On the other hand, the method of analysis employed by the researchers included the use control variables that effectively provided a broad macrocontext of operation for the sample firms. Consequently this enabled the researchers to control the differences such as institutional settings and the variation in the economic conditions

The Most Effective Government Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Most Effective Government - Essay Example The most effective government fulfills its purpose. As it has been stated, â€Å"government exists to control: to govern means ‘to control’† (Janda et al, n.d; p.9). At first glance all governments seem to fit this definition. However, additional considerations must be given to determine if a government is truly effective. If the government only exists to enforce control over society, then people have little reason to submit themselves to being ruled. Government must offer benefits to society in order for it to truly fulfill its purpose. It has been reported that, â€Å"throughout history, government has served two major purposes: maintaining order (preserving life and protecting property) and providing public goods. More recently, some governments have pursued a third purpose, promoting equality, which is more controversial† (Janda et al. n.d; p.9). The purpose of government as so described can be used to determine if a government is effective. Therefore, effective government will be successful in fulfilling all of its purpose as has been described. Democracy can be considered the most effective government because it is most successful in maintaining order, providing public goods, and promoting equality. The Ability to Maintaining Order Communism is marked by a â€Å"disappearance of civil, political, and economic rights† (Sanchez 2010:p.1). People that live in such countries are not free. Having no rights, they become ordinary gears in the clockwork of society. By this it would seem that communism is a form of government that is the most effective in maintaining order. Yet, where there is order there should also be peace. Where people are oppressed, there are limits to their peace. Due to the oppression that is characteristic of communist governments a government which offers more liberty better fulfils this requirement. As it has been stated, â€Å"A free society requires a citizenry that is capable of taking personal responsibility for bettering their lot, and voluntarily promoting and protecting public goods such as education, health, public order, peace, and justice† (Thunder, 2009). According to this statement democracy, with its promotion of free society is better equipped to fulfill the require ment of maintaining order by design. The maintenance of this government requires the existence of public order and peace. Such is not the case with communism. Providing Public Goods Communist countries demand work from their citizens. Many have laws that call for the imprisonment of any citizen who fails to maintain a job. The people’s work may aid in the continuation of existence and maintenance of their countries, but there is much lacking in the governmental provision of public goods. It has been reported of communist North Korea that â€Å"due to the nature of it being a tightly controlled police State, very little information leaves the country about the daily life of those who live there† (International Christian Concern 2010). Communist governments maintain a tight grip on the lives of their people. To the communist government, whatever provisions they allot the people are sufficient. However, it is clear that this government fails to supply adequate public good s to its people. In fact, communist governments have been identified as purposefully oppressing their people in order to further their own interests. It has been told that, â€Å"†¦North Korea seems confident its long-suffering people –battered by famine, floods, and economic mismanagement – will continue to suffer in silence† (Magnier 2006). Having failed to provide for the people adequately, democracy has won over communism in fulfilling the purpose of government. While poverty may be found in democratic countries such as America,

5th and 6th Amendment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

5th and 6th Amendment - Essay Example This is why a police officer does not need a warrant when, in the course of a traffic stop, s/he frisks a subject prior to engaging in a discussion with them. The balance of the officer’s personal safety versus the infringement on the privacy of the individual tips in favor of the officer because a reasonable person would perceive the need for safety. Searching the subject or his car for drugs, however, requires a higher standard. Probable cause goes beyond the suspicion that criminal activity has or will take place and moves more into the investigative realm. The probable cause standard is basically the amount of information the police are required to have prior to a search or seizure of property. An office who stops a vehicle for speeding has reasonable suspicion to do so, but does not have authority to search the car. If, however, during the course of the traffic stop the officer sees drug paraphernalia on the back seat, s/he has probable cause to search the cabin of the ve hicle—but not the trunk; that requires consent from the individual or a warrant. If a K-9 unit is brought in based on the paraphernalia and the dog â€Å"hits† on the trunk, a warrant is easily obtained because the police have probable cause to demonstrate a crime is being committed. The Fifth Amendment, in relevant part, states that no person shall â€Å"be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Cornell, 2008, n.p.). The purpose of the clause is to prevent unreasonable searches and seizures similar to that experienced under the British Colonial rule of the American Colonies. The basic premise is that government actors (police officers, prosecutors, other officials) cannot deprive a defendant of life, liberty, or property at a whim or based on nameless suspicion; there is a responsibility held by the officers to ensure that all of a citizen’s rights are protected. The action is

Can Character and Communities Survive in the Age of Globalization Essay

Can Character and Communities Survive in the Age of Globalization - Essay Example This has made a world a â€Å"global village† where we interact with peoples of different cultures, use their products and services, and also sell them ours. All these have a significant influence on our lives as is discussed in the later part of the essay. Online Oxford Dictionary defines character as â€Å"the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. Whereas community means â€Å"a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common†. While nations on the whole seem to be benefited from the advantages of globalization which includes economic development, cheap availability of goods and their consumption, high mobility of goods, capital and plentiful labor; the communities within the economy are in fact negatively influenced by the increased globalization. The aforesaid advantages are often associated with globalization but its potential weaknesses are never discussed in great detail, and that is a growing concern t hese days. To show the connection or the relationship between globalization and character/communities let us consider the example of Pak Mun Dam in Thailand. It was constructed with the support of World Bank in 1994 on two rivers flowing in Thailand. Initially the dam was built to meet the power requirements of the country and for the welfare of the people, but it resulted in severe damages to the groups and communities living there. As soon as the dam was built, around 117 square kilometers of land was flooded which caused around 3000 families to move from their living place, fisheries of the Mun River were also adversely affected. Around 25,000 villagers claimed to have been affected by the construction of dam and many protests were also staged, but inadequate compensation was paid to them in return of all they lost. The dam also failed to produce the projected power output and therefore the entire project was unsuccessful. So this was just one of the many examples where economic prosperity and development was exchanged for dislocated people and destroyed communities. Communities play a vital role in any society. Through small groups and communities people find ways to interact with each other, to learn about themselves. Besides, every group or community has its boundaries and its very own identity and culture which gives the people living within it a good sense of belonging and fulfills their social needs as well. At the core of these communities lie the families. The people belonging to different families and the relationships existing among them give any community its true meaning and reason for its existence. Through families people participate in different social activities organized through the community. Hence the family-community exchange is very crucial for the survival of both communities and the character. Communities provide the families with culture, facilities, values and protect it from the measures that could otherwise jeopardize the satisfac tion of wants. And families, then again, protect these cultural values and norms through its social activities and passing these values from one generation to the other (Robertson). With the advent of globalization, the world today exhibits the nature of a global village with everything global, new, different, faster and turbulent. Globalization results in economic development and

Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Research Paper Example It is also my job to become familiar with its structure and the steps necessary in forming a for-profit facility within a community of approximately 75,000 residents. My primary purpose is to define, develop, and to show how this facility can be set up to meet government regulations and requirements and to maximize profitability. One first needs to understand what exactly a primary care facility is and what are their functions. Primary care is a term used for health care services that play a major role in the local community. The term refers to work of health care professions who act as the first and primary point of consultation for its patients. The primary physician who comes in direct contact with the patients is usually a general practitioner or family physician. This is determined by location. In some instances the patient may opt to seek other means to self-determine the seriousness of their situation. Other health care professionals would be a pharmacist or maybe a nurse; thi s is more prevalent in the UK. The advantages to seeing these health care professionals are evident; they provide an immediate access and do not require an appointment. However, in some areas you would need to make an appointment to see a Nurse Practitioner. They would then make an assessment of the ailment or injury and refer the patient to a primary care physician or other care. Primary care in the existing facility involves a large range of health care. This includes all ages of patients, patients from all economic backgrounds as well as geographic origins. This could also include patients who want to maintain their own optimal health, mental health, social health, chronic physical ailments, acute chronic diseases, and including multiple chronic illnesses. Therefore, it is essential that a primary care physician possess a wide range of knowledge in many areas. The physician will also maintain continuity. This is the key to the success of a primary care facility and its staff. Man y of its patients prefer to consult the same primary care doctor for routine check-ups, and many like to see the same doctor for new complaints as well. Many physicians also prefer to collaborate with other primary care providers. Therefore, continuity and collaboration are two of the primary care facilities’ characteristics. The existing primary care/urgency care facility sees all types of patients from children to old adults. It’s located in a small town of 75,000 people and the residents consist of many backgrounds. The facility is located in a median income area; therefore, the patients vary from high income, mid income and low income patients. The current primary care facility see patients with common chronic illnesses; these include hypertension, heart failure and angina, diabetes, asthma and COPD, depression and anxiety, back pain, arthritis, and thyroid dysfunction. The prime care patients also include injuries of all types, broken bones, sprains, burns, cuts, abrasions, and other injuries that need an immediate assessment. This urgent care facility as well as others owned by Norvant specializes in treating serious conditions that may or may not be life threatening. According to the National Association for Ambulatory Care, â€Å"urgent care facilities are ideal for minor injuries like broken bones, small burns, muscle sprains and ear infections.† But like any organization, they also suggest that you go to a Hospital

Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Essay Example for Free

Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Essay Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, many different prejudices are revealed. The most prominent being the racial prejudice between the white people and black people in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s. However, there are many more subtle and discreet prejudices against other people in Maycomb, also. One of the first prejudices to become known is against the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams are a very poor farming family who were hit hard by the Great Depression. The Cunninghams never took anything they cant pay back no church baskets and no scrimp stamps. They never took anything off anybody, they get along on what they have. They dont have much, but they get along on it. Scout explains to Miss Caroline, their first grade teacher, on page 20. The Cunninghams were hit hardest by the Depression and because of their level of poverty the Cunninghams are discriminated against. The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but hell never be like Jem. Aunt Alexandra explains to Scout on page 224. Aunt Alexandra does not want Scout associating with Walter Cunningham simply because of his class. Aunt Alexandra is discriminating against the Cunninghams because they are below the Finches on the social strata. Probably the most prominent prejudice in the novel is the racial prejudice. Tom Robinson was a black man who was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white girl. When Tom was put in jail awaiting trial, Atticus, his lawyer, went down one night and sat outside the jailhouse. A mob showed up that night with the intent to beat Tom Robinson but with Atticus there, the mob was stalled and eventually left. This mob was consumed with racial prejudice against the black people. Even Calpurnia, the black housekeeper for the Finches, is discriminated against. Although Calpurnia is treated fairly, it is obvious Calpurnia is considered to be on a lower social level than the Finches. Calpurnia calls Scout maam and Jem sir, although these are titles usually reserved for elders. An example of this is on page 207. Calpurnia addresses Jem after they have been missing at the trial all day with Hush your mouth, sir! When you oughta be hangin your head in shame you go along laughin. If Mr. Finch dont wear you out, I will get in that house, sir! Though it seems that the blacks are the ones who are prejudiced against, when Jem and Scout are taken to Calpurnias church, (their black house-keeper) the black people show hostility towards Jem and Scout. Lula, a black woman at the church confronts Calpurnia on page 119. You aint got no business bringin white chillun herethey got their church, we got ourn. Because the whites shun the blacks the blacks are prejudiced in return. Another prejudice that comes to light is the prejudice against Dolphus Raymond. Dolphus is a wealthy white man but is a victim of isolation because of his relationship with a woman who is black. When Scout meets Mr. Dolphus Raymond during the trial Scout becomes aware that Dolphus is a victim of prejudice and has become an outcast. Dolphus pretended to be a drunk so he didnt have to explain the fact that he was simply in love with a black woman. The alcohol, Dolphus said, gave the people an excuse to say that Dolphus didnt know what he was doing. On page 200, Dolphus says to Dill and Scout When I come to this town, which is seldom, if I weave a little and drink out of this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymonds in the clutches of whiskythats why he wont change his ways. He cant help himself, thats why he lives like he does. The people of Maycomb are intolerant of the way Dolphus chooses to live. Dolphus is discriminated against because he lives his life with a black woman. This is thought to be wrong in society in Maycomb. Yet another prejudice in Maycomb was that against Arthur Radley. Arthur Radley could see the segregation of the people of Maycomb and the prejudice. Therefore Arthur isolated himself; Arthur didnt want to be a part of Maycombs intolerance. By doing this Arthur became one of the outsiders and was still a victim of the prejudice, as Arthur was different. There were wild rumors circulating the town and the children made up stories and games about Arthur. Because he was virtually unknown, Arthur Radley was discriminated against. The theme of prejudice is explored many ways throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The different kinds of prejudice explore how deep peoples  hatred of each other can go. It gives the reader good insight as to what makes people intolerant and why people shouldnt be prejudiced just because others are different. From discriminating against the poor to racial prejudice to silly rumors fueling intolerance, very few realize that everyone is different but also equal.

Analysis of the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Essay Example for Free

Analysis of the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Essay The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost shows the narrator coming to a fork in the wood, which offers two paths to take. By use of symbolism and various verb tenses in different stanzas the author was able to convey the overall meaning of the poem. The narrator scrutinized the road but does not find a noticeable difference in the two paths and thus was stuck deciding whether which road is the better decision. However, in the fourth stanza, by the allegory â€Å"I took the one less traveled by† shows that the narrator wishes to take the path which leads to individualism. The narrator portrayed that in life there are decisions we must make that must be based on our own agenda. Symbols also play in defining the meaning of the poem. The symbol of the color yellow is use to show more than just the narrator’s cowardice, but also yellow represents autumn meaning the author is at the end of his life which indicates that he has wasted his whole life in indecision. Other symbols such as â€Å"two roads† and â€Å"one traveler† in the first stanza show the idea of free choice and individualism of the narrator. We can also tie in to the fact that because the roads lies in the woods, and that roads represents free choice, the overall idea would be comparable to free choice and fate. You are free to choose what choice to make but in the end the choices you make are still a part of your fate. In the first three stanzas the poem is written in past tense, but in the fourth stanza the poem is written in future tense. By repeating â€Å"two roads diverged in a wood† in the fourth stanza the narrator is implying that he is reflecting upon if the choice he had made was the better of the two choices. The first three stanzas of the poem being in past tense hints that he is looking back at his past, but the fourth stanza shows us the narrator is hoping â€Å"somewhere ages and ages hence† the decision he made will benefit him. In addition, because the narrator is still uncertain if the choice he made was the better of the two, we can concludes that he is still reflective on whether which road he should have took, hence the title â€Å"The Road Not Taken. † Partially, the poem tells us about the narrator’s fear of regrets which eventually leads to his indecisiveness in choice of what road to travel. The fear of making mistakes from either choice had excluded the narrator from taking any action. . Frost’s point is to acknowledge the fact that in life there are choices where uncertainty makes choosing difficult, and often we are paralyzed by the fact of making the â€Å"wrong choice. † Words such as â€Å"sorry,† â€Å"sigh,† and â€Å"doubted† shows the authors regrets and concern for making the wrong choice. The last stanza offered the author’s apprehension furthermore of whether which road he should take with the stuttered â€Å"I. † Although in the last two lines the narrator says he takes â€Å"the [road] less traveled by, and that has made all the difference,† the use of the word difference is ironic to what the poem has states in retrospective about the similarity of the roads. In the poem The Road Not Taken the narrator’s idea of non-conformity coupled with the fear of regrets from making the wrong choice apprehended him from making any decisions. The Road Not Taken shows us that the choices we make in life should be based on our individual values.

Avoiding Project Failure Dissertation

Avoiding Project Failure Dissertation ABSTRACT Project management have become increasingly important in the development of any nation. Various organisations have used project management techniques as a means of bridging the gap between failure and success in implementation of projects. Despite this increasing awareness of project management by organisations, projects still fail. The purpose of this dissertation is to systematically investigate the causes of project failure and how these can be prevented, managed, or controlled. Research studies investigating the reasons why projects fail, has been ongoing for years, with various researchers, organisations and project management institutions, providing lists of reasons, which they believe, are the cause of project failure. However, despite these lists projects continue to fail, Atkinson (1999). This research is done with the anticipation of not only adding information to the body of knowledge already in existence, but also examining the major issues currently causing project failure; this will help organisations effectively manage projects. To determine how to avoid project failure the criteria for measuring project success has to be properly determined and agreed upon; the major criteria commonly used are; cost, time and quality. Then the causes of project failure need to be determined. This study also examined generalisations made from existing literature about causes of project failure and methods of avoiding project failure using three construction case studies in United Kingdom. This is a secondary or desk research, which involves the collecting and analysis of secondary data, or data that already exists, from which inferences have been made, and conclusions drawn. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1Research background Projects make a vital contribution to industrialisation and hence the growth of a nations economy. The importance of projects in the development of any nation cannot be overemphasized. This is demonstrated in various literatures explaining the success and failure of projects. Although projects are said to be important, its implementation can be an uphill task. Various researchers have discussed project management as a technique to help prevent against failure in projects. Others have established checklists to help prevent failure. Despite the increased project management awareness and these checklists, some projects still fail, Atkinson (1999). All projects are constrained by inherent risks; knowledge of these risks will play an important role in achieving success and avoiding failure. Usually projects consist of three stages consisting of the approval, execution and evaluation stages. If any of these stages is not managed properly it may result to the failure of the entire project. Failure or Success in projects is a multi-dimensional issue and may be influenced by so many factors. Some projects may have failed in project management practices including cost overrun, scope creep, delay in schedule etc, and other projects may fail in procurement practices. Despite these failures in the following areas the project may still be perceived as successful by the end users. An example is Wembley Stadium; despite all the issues associated with the project in terms of project management and procurement practices, it is still perceived to be successful and a state of the art stadium by the end users. This may result from the fact that it has hosted world class sporting events. Usually, projects are designed to meet stakeholders objective. These objectives define the criteria for success of that project, and projects not satisfying these objectives are deem to fail. Effective communication and clarity in the stakeholders objective is vital to the project manager. This thesis examines the causes of project failure and how these can be prevented, managed or controlled. It discusses project failure and success with the help of case studies in order to identify the critical success factors and reduce failure in the implementation of projects. This research is done with the anticipation of not only adding information to the body of knowledge already in existence, but also in defining the criteria for project success and identifying the variables involved. This will help organisations effectively manage projects. 1.2 Aim The aim of this research is to carry out appraisal on the causes of project failure and the appropriate methods of avoiding project failure. This aim is intended to be achieved with the following objectives. 1.3 Objectives To provide a review of project management To analyze success criteria for projects To explore factors that causes project failure or success To examine methods of avoiding project failure 1.4 Scope This research is based on construction projects executed in the United Kingdom over the last two decades. 1.5 Research Structure Chapter One, Introduction this introduces the research; topic highlighting the aim, objectives and scope of the research. Chapter Two, Literature review critically reviews the existing Literature regarding the subject. It establishes the definition of project success and the success and failure criteria / factors. Chapter Three, Methodology describes the methodology used to undertake this research. It demonstrates the fact that secondary data was mostly used in undertaking this research. Chapter Four, Case Studies Case studies on projects from the UK construction Industry were discussed in this Chapter. These case studies were analysed and linked to the literature review chapter. Chapter Five consists of the analysis of the discussion and findings. This is derived from critically analysing the Wembley, Heathrow terminal five (T5) and Holyrood case studies. Chapter Six, Conclusion and Recommendation: This chapter concludes the research and suggests directions for further research. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction The importance of avoiding project failure in a rapidly evolving project-driven 21st century cannot be over-emphasized. Attempts to understand the causes of project failure and/ or success have proven problematic, despite attempt by many practitioners and academics over the years. Project demands have constantly increased over the last decade and have driven our society into a constantly changing environment. Despite attempts to make project appraisal and delivery more rigorous, a considerable proportion of delivery effort results in project that does not meet user expectations and are consequently rejected. In our view this can be attributed to the fact that few organisations have the facilities, training and management discipline to bring project to successful completion. Project success does not come easily; much has been contributed over the last decade to our understanding of the nature of and reason for successful and unsuccessful project completion. In addition many projects fail to complete at all. Sometime failure to satisfy all the original goals of a project can still be regarded favourably if the main sponsor is not satisfied with the outcome and the key stakeholders have gained in some way. Generally, the key development considerations are to have the goal clearly defined, to plan how to realize the goal and implement the plan. Developing an alternative methodology for project management founded on stakeholders, senior management support and proper planning should lead to a better understanding of the management issues that may contribute to the successful delivery of projects. This literature review is aimed at carrying out appraisal on the causes of project failure and the appropriate methods of avoiding it. It begins with key definitions, then analysis of causes of project failure and project success. Then it looks at success factors and criteria; also examine ways of avoiding project failure. The chapter ends with summary of the discussion. 2.2 What is a Project? Gary and Larson (2008:5) defined project as â€Å"a complex, non routine, one-time effort limited by time, budget and resource, and performance specifications designed to meet customer needs. This is in contrast to how an organisation generally works on a permanent basis to produce their goods and services. For example the work of an organisation may be to manufacture a vehicle on a continual basis, therefore the work is considered functional as the organisation creates the same products or services over-and -over again and people hold their roles on a semi permanent basis. A project can be defined as having constraints (usually centred around time and resources, but also including all aspect of the process and the outcome); projects are processes that in many circumstances are core business for organisation. The diagram below show different levels in project management. 2.3 What is Project Management? According to Gray and Larson (2006) Project management is a task derived from an organisation that enables professional project managers to use their skills, tools and knowledge to plan, execute and control a unique project within a limited lifespan by meeting the specification requirements of the organisation. Since the outcomes of the capital projects have strategic implications on the success and profitability of the business, the ability to deliver based on pre-determined objectives should be critical to the companys success. And yet one-third of all the oil and gas projects exceed budget and time projections by more than 10 percent. Failure to deliver big projects on budget and on schedule is highly publicized and damage the companies profile with capital markets that predictability and strong returns. Continual use of traditional project management techniques will not alter this trend. Companies that want to change and improve on their performance with critical capital projects will need to adopt new techniques. Munns and Bjeirmi (1996) also defined project management as a process used as a control to achieve the project objectives by utilizing the organisational structure and resources to manage a project with the application of tools and techniques, without disrupting the routine operation of the company. ‘Project management is the discipline of managing all the different resources and aspects of the project in such a way that the resources will deliver all the output that is required to complete the project within the defined scope, time, and cost constraints. These are agreed upon the project initiation stage and by the time the project begins all stakeholders and team members will have a clear understanding and acceptance of the process, methodology and expected outcome.(http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/introduction-project-management.html accessed on 30/06/09) Project management has been defined as â€Å"the process by which projects (unique, complex, non- routine, one-time effort limited by time, budget, and resources) are defined, planned, monitored, controlled and delivered such that the agreed benefits are realised† (APM, 2006:3) Other definitions have been offered, Reiss suggests that a project is a human activity that achieves a clear objective against a time scale, and to achieve this while pointing out that a simple description is not possible, he suggested that project management is a combination of management and planning and management of change. Despite all the suggestions about what is project management, the criteria for success, namely, cost, time, and quality remain and are included in the actual description. Meaning that Oisens definition of project management was either correct, or as a discipline, project management has not really changed or developed the success criteria over 50 years. Therefore project management is a learning profession. The significant point from all the definitions and suggestions of project management is that while the factors have developed and adopted, changes to the success criteria have been suggested but remain unchanged. In 2008, a survey undertaken by Booz Allen Hamilton (project management consultant) which comprises of 20 companies in engineering, procurement and construction; shows that 40 percent of all projects executed where faced with cost overruns and behind schedule. These overrun in cost and schedule has led to clients dissatisfaction on project performance; this view also agree with the research of M J Lang (1990). Therefore effective project management is very vital in such a volatile business environment. 2.4 Project Management Methodology Generally, projects are split into three phases Initiation, implementation and closure. Every stage of a project has multiple checkpoints which must be met before the starting of the next stage. The degree to which a project will be managed depends on the size of the project. For a complex project in a large organisation that involves a number of people, resources, time and money, a more structural approach is needed, and there will be more steps built into each stage of the project to ensure that the project delivers the anticipated end result. For a simple project in a small organisation, agreed milestones, a few checklists and someone to co-ordinate the project may be all that is required. 2.5 Defining Project Failure From Penguin English Dictionary (1992), failure is define as unsuccessful project that fails to perform a duty or an expected action, non-occurrence or non-performance. Whereas success can be defined as the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted (Cambridge Dictionary, 2007). It is also said that success is an event that accomplishes its intended purpose (dictionary.com, 2007). Anything short of that is failure. Project failure is an unpleasant event that cost large amount of money to the organisation. 2.6 Causes of Project Failure Pinto and Mantel (1990) carried out a research on the causes of project failure and revealed a good explanation that encompasses both internal efficiency and external effectiveness. They state that project failure is a vague concept, which has evoked much as to its definition, as the case with the definition of project success. A project is considered a failure â€Å"whenever a project does not meet the expectations of the stakeholders†. This has lots of impact to both the organisation and all stakeholders to the project. They include: cost and time overruns, quality degradation, frustration and stress, sometimes resulting to people quitting, low corporate market value, low public opinion and negative media campaigns. The total effect can be very costly to the organisation; at times even force the company into closure. Bienkoski (1989) identified ten factors that can lead to project failure and they are: * Lack of change management- happens when there is no method to handle or recognise changes. * Communication- causes delay or even failure since team members do not have the information they needed, issues or changes do not get escalated, project reporting is sluggish * Inadequate resources- Task take longer than expected to complete, deadlines and milestones get missed, and project completion date comes into jeopardy, one end of working more than necessary (double shift) to get the work done * No one is in control, not even the project manager, who is assigned to the project but not given the free hand to manage the project. This is most problem encounters in matrix organisation * Project lacks structure caused by things such as critical tasks being under rated * Inaccurate estimates. A top- down plan causes constraints on the prediction of the cost of the project * Poor risk management. The project initiation stage is not properly planned * Insufficient non-resources are not allocated to the project; for instance, it is not possible for a project to succeed if the right resources are made available for that project * Incompetent project management skill * Project changes from its original objective and goals. This can occur due to additional requirement from the client Pinto and mantel (1990) argue that the major causes of project failure are changes in the project environment, as it goes out of hands of the management. 2.7 Defining Project Success Lewis (2005) states that project success can be defined as meeting the required expectation of the stakeholders and achieving its intended purpose. This can be attained by understanding what the end result would be, and then stating the deliverables of the project. Shenhar et al. (2001) state the opposite: that project success is commonly judged by time and budget goals criteria, whereas in some cases this does not apply to some projects. Thiry (2006) argues that project success can only be defined if executives are able to consider the contribution of benefits and if the project is able to achieve these measures in relation to resources, competencies and complexity within the project parameters. 2.8 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as a Measurement for Project Success The purpose of the KPIs is to enable measurement of project and organisational performance throughout the construction industry (The KPI Working Group 2000). Collins (2000) advocates that the process of developing KPIs involves the consideration of the following factors: * KPIs are general indicators of performance that focus on critical aspects of output or outcomes * Only a limited, management number of KPIs is maintainable for regular use. Having too many (complex) KPIs can be time-and resource-consuming * The systematic use of KPIs is essential as the value of KPIs is almost completely derived from their consistent use over a number of projects * Data collection must be made as simple as possible. * A large sample size is required to reduce the impact of project specific variables. Therefore, KPis should be designed to use on every building project. * For performance measurement to be effective, the measures must be acceptable, understood and owned across the organisation * KPIs will need to evolve and it is likely that a set of KPIs will be subject to change and refinement * Graphic delays of KPIs need to be simple in design, easy to update and accessible. Key Performance indicators for measuring project success can be illustrated with the help of the diagram below (Albert Ada, 2004). They identified the following as the measurement of project success: Cost, time, quality, commercial profitable/value, environmental performance, user expectation/ satisfaction, health and safety and participants satisfaction. This will help in explaining what the project success might mean to different stakeholders. Key Performance Indicators Dvir et al. (2003) state that the ranking of success is a one-sided judgement, as the definition of success is difficult to define, because it has different meanings for different people; thus, the criteria of success should reflect the diverse interest and view that lead to a multi-dimensional and multi-criteria approach. Baccarini (1999) states: that success entails â€Å"hard† criteria which often linked with cost, time and quality. He also states that hard criteria which can be easily measured can lead to some form of substantial agreement. In contrast, soft criteria are known to be one sided, restrained and not easily assessed. This implies that project success is a fantasy of the mind and only an individual can turn such vision into reality. A contrasting view from Westerveld (2000) defined project success as â€Å"the satisfaction of all the stakeholders, meaning that as long as the stakeholders are pleased with the outcome and gain profits or revenue from the project, then it is classed as a success. One of the Squares root corners, organisational benefits, drew much attention because of its significance and it was further analysed. Kerzner (2001, p6) suggests three criteria from the organization perspective in order for a project to be successful. The first is that it must be completed with minimum or mutually agreed upon scope changes, even though stakeholders constantly have different views about projects results (Maylor, 2005, p288). Secondly â€Å"without disturbing the main work flow of the organization because a project has to assist organisations everyday operations and try to make them more efficient and effective. Finally, it should be completed without changing the corporate culture even though projects are almost exclusively concerned with change with knocking down the old and building up the new (Baguley, 1995, p8). A project managers main responsibility is to make sure that he delivers change only where is necessary, otherwise he is doomed to find strong resistance from almost all organisational departments (Kerzner, 2001, p158) which ultimately could lead to project failure. A more structured approach to project success is grouping the criteria into categories. Wideman (1996, p3-4) describes four groups, all of them time dependent: internal project objectives (efficiency during the project), benefit to customer (effectiveness in the short term), direct contribution (in the medium term) and future opportunity (in the long term). The characterization of ‘time dependent is based on the fact that success varies with time. Looking at the future benefits of the organisation can be really difficult, because in some cases they dont even know what they want, yet it is vital to know what the project is trying to achieve after completion time so that success criteria are clearly defined in the early stages. This is quite a different approach, because the focus moves from the present success criteria to the future, in a way that a project can be unsuccessful during execution if it is judged by criteria like cost and quality, but in the long term it can turn to be a thriving story. A good example of this hypothesis is hosting the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, which received mass criticism both during the planning period, due to delays in construction time, and when it was finished, due to huge cost. But the benefits that Greece will gain from the Olympic Games can be fully understood after 5 or maybe 10 years from the hosting year (Athens2004.com). All the above success criteria should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion. Also Shenhar et ‘al (1997) are of view that project success can be seen from the four area: Project efficiency, impact of the project to the customer, business success and finally what the project holds for the future. This was further explain in the diagram in 3. 2.9 Defining Project Success Factors and Project Success Criteria Muller and Turner (2007) defined the two components of project success in relation to the use of project management as follows: Project success factors are the elements of a project that can be influenced to increase the like hood of success; these are independent variable that makes success more likely. Project success criteria are the measures by which judge the successful outcome of a project; these are dependent variable which measure project success. We often hear or read about various success stories. But what is success and what criteria should organizations use to identify success? What factors lead to a successful project? The purpose of this study is to define project success criteria, clarify their difference with success factors and analyse their importance in project management methodology. One of the vaguest concepts of project management is project success. Since each individual or group of people who are involved in a project have different needs and expectations, it is very unsurprising that they interpret project success in their own way of understanding (Cleland Ireland, 2004, p2). For those involved with a project, project success is normally thought of as the achievement of some pre-determined project goals (Lim Mohamed, 1999, p244) while the general public has different views, commonly based on user satisfaction. A classic example of different perspective of successful project is the Sydney Opera House project (Thomsett, 2002), which went 16 times over budget and took 4 times more to finish than originally planned. But the final impact that the Opera House created was so big that no one remembers the original missed goals. The project was a big success for the people and at the same time a big failure from the project management perspective. On the other hand, the Millennium Dome in London was a project on time and on budget but in the eyes of the British people was considered a failure because it didnt deliver the awe and glamour that it was supposed to generate (Cammack, 2005). In the same way that quality requires both conformance to the specifications and fitness for use, project success requires a combination of product success (service, result, or outcome) and project management success (Duncan, 2004). The difference between criteria and factors is fuzzy for many people. The Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary describes a criterion as a standard by which you judge, decide about or deal with something while a factor is explained as a fact or situation which influences the result of something. Lim Mohamed applied those definitions to project success and illustrated the difference. It is clear now that critical factors can lead to a series of events which ultimately meet the overall success criteria of the project, so they should not be used as synonymous terms. Project success can be seen from two different perceptive, the micro and macro viewpoint (Lim Mohamed, 1999). This can help in better understanding of what project success means to different people. 2.9.1 Success Criteria Many lists of success criteria have been introduced in the previous decades by various researchers. Primal success criteria have been an integrated part of project management theory given that early definitions of project management included the so called ‘Iron Triangle success criteria cost, time and quality. (Atkinson, 1999, p338) Atkinson continues that as a discipline, project management has not really changed or developed the success measurement criteria in almost 50 years. To meet the urgent need of modernizing the out of date success criteria, he suggest the ‘Square Route ( 3) success criteria instead of the ‘Iron Triangle, where he groups the criteria that other academics have proposed. The main change is the addition of qualitative objectives rather than quantitative, namely the benefits that different group of people can receive from the project. These benefits are seen from two perspectives, one from the organisational view and one from the stakeholders view. It is obvious that each part will have benefit differently from projects. For example one organisation can gain profit through achieving strategic goals when a project is completed and at the same time these goals have a serious environmental impact in the stakeholders community. This means that a successful project must bargain between the benefits of the organisation and the satisfaction of end users. The fourth corner of the ‘Square Root is the Information System which includes the subjects of maintainability, reliability and validity of project outcomes. Belassi and Tukel (2001) are of the opinion that criteria for measuring project success/failure can grouped into two groups: the factor and system response groups. The identified factor groups are: factor related to project manager, factor related to project team members, factor related to the project itself, the organisation handling the project and the factor related to the external environment in which the project takes place. The diagram below shows this in more detail. 2.9.2 Success Factors As mentioned earlier; success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data (Rad Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to. 2.9.2.1 The Organization Top management support is the principal success factor for many independent research groups (Tukel Rom, 1998, p48) (CHAOS Report, 2001, p4) (Cleland Ireland, 2002, p210) (Tinnirello, 2002, p14), which means that no project can finish successfully unless the project manager secures true support from the senior or operational management. It is extremely difficult to work in a hostile environment where nobody understands the benefits that the project will deliver to the organisation. Stakeholder management and contract strategies (number of and size of the contracts, interface between the different contracts and the management of contracts) are separate success factors which are also considered part of organization issues (Torp, Austeng Mengesha, 2004, p4). 2.9.2.2 The Project Manager Having a project manager is not going to guarantee the success of a project. He must have a number of skills to use during the project to guide the rest of the team to successfully complete all the objectives. In the 2001 CHAOS report (The Standish Group International, 2001, p6), business, communication, responsiveness, process, results, operational, realism and technological skills are mentioned as some of the most important skills a project manager should have to deliver success. However, more resent research by Turner and Muller (2005, p59) has concluded that the leadership style and competence of the project manager have no impact on project success. It is very interesting to investigate why a highly respectable professional body for project managers published such a contradictive position. A possible answer could be found in the fact that project managers results are difficult to prove and even more difficult to measure. If the project is successful, senior management will probably claim that all external factors were favourable. On the contrary, if it turns to be a failure, project manager easily becomes the scapegoat. 2.9.2.3 The Project Team Project managers are very lucky if they have the option to choose their project team. More often, their team is inherited to the project from various sectors of the organisation. It is vital to have a good project team to work with, with core skills that can be evolved to core competences and capabilities for the whole organisation. All m Avoiding Project Failure Dissertation Avoiding Project Failure Dissertation ABSTRACT Project management have become increasingly important in the development of any nation. Various organisations have used project management techniques as a means of bridging the gap between failure and success in implementation of projects. Despite this increasing awareness of project management by organisations, projects still fail. The purpose of this dissertation is to systematically investigate the causes of project failure and how these can be prevented, managed, or controlled. Research studies investigating the reasons why projects fail, has been ongoing for years, with various researchers, organisations and project management institutions, providing lists of reasons, which they believe, are the cause of project failure. However, despite these lists projects continue to fail, Atkinson (1999). This research is done with the anticipation of not only adding information to the body of knowledge already in existence, but also examining the major issues currently causing project failure; this will help organisations effectively manage projects. To determine how to avoid project failure the criteria for measuring project success has to be properly determined and agreed upon; the major criteria commonly used are; cost, time and quality. Then the causes of project failure need to be determined. This study also examined generalisations made from existing literature about causes of project failure and methods of avoiding project failure using three construction case studies in United Kingdom. This is a secondary or desk research, which involves the collecting and analysis of secondary data, or data that already exists, from which inferences have been made, and conclusions drawn. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1Research background Projects make a vital contribution to industrialisation and hence the growth of a nations economy. The importance of projects in the development of any nation cannot be overemphasized. This is demonstrated in various literatures explaining the success and failure of projects. Although projects are said to be important, its implementation can be an uphill task. Various researchers have discussed project management as a technique to help prevent against failure in projects. Others have established checklists to help prevent failure. Despite the increased project management awareness and these checklists, some projects still fail, Atkinson (1999). All projects are constrained by inherent risks; knowledge of these risks will play an important role in achieving success and avoiding failure. Usually projects consist of three stages consisting of the approval, execution and evaluation stages. If any of these stages is not managed properly it may result to the failure of the entire project. Failure or Success in projects is a multi-dimensional issue and may be influenced by so many factors. Some projects may have failed in project management practices including cost overrun, scope creep, delay in schedule etc, and other projects may fail in procurement practices. Despite these failures in the following areas the project may still be perceived as successful by the end users. An example is Wembley Stadium; despite all the issues associated with the project in terms of project management and procurement practices, it is still perceived to be successful and a state of the art stadium by the end users. This may result from the fact that it has hosted world class sporting events. Usually, projects are designed to meet stakeholders objective. These objectives define the criteria for success of that project, and projects not satisfying these objectives are deem to fail. Effective communication and clarity in the stakeholders objective is vital to the project manager. This thesis examines the causes of project failure and how these can be prevented, managed or controlled. It discusses project failure and success with the help of case studies in order to identify the critical success factors and reduce failure in the implementation of projects. This research is done with the anticipation of not only adding information to the body of knowledge already in existence, but also in defining the criteria for project success and identifying the variables involved. This will help organisations effectively manage projects. 1.2 Aim The aim of this research is to carry out appraisal on the causes of project failure and the appropriate methods of avoiding project failure. This aim is intended to be achieved with the following objectives. 1.3 Objectives To provide a review of project management To analyze success criteria for projects To explore factors that causes project failure or success To examine methods of avoiding project failure 1.4 Scope This research is based on construction projects executed in the United Kingdom over the last two decades. 1.5 Research Structure Chapter One, Introduction this introduces the research; topic highlighting the aim, objectives and scope of the research. Chapter Two, Literature review critically reviews the existing Literature regarding the subject. It establishes the definition of project success and the success and failure criteria / factors. Chapter Three, Methodology describes the methodology used to undertake this research. It demonstrates the fact that secondary data was mostly used in undertaking this research. Chapter Four, Case Studies Case studies on projects from the UK construction Industry were discussed in this Chapter. These case studies were analysed and linked to the literature review chapter. Chapter Five consists of the analysis of the discussion and findings. This is derived from critically analysing the Wembley, Heathrow terminal five (T5) and Holyrood case studies. Chapter Six, Conclusion and Recommendation: This chapter concludes the research and suggests directions for further research. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction The importance of avoiding project failure in a rapidly evolving project-driven 21st century cannot be over-emphasized. Attempts to understand the causes of project failure and/ or success have proven problematic, despite attempt by many practitioners and academics over the years. Project demands have constantly increased over the last decade and have driven our society into a constantly changing environment. Despite attempts to make project appraisal and delivery more rigorous, a considerable proportion of delivery effort results in project that does not meet user expectations and are consequently rejected. In our view this can be attributed to the fact that few organisations have the facilities, training and management discipline to bring project to successful completion. Project success does not come easily; much has been contributed over the last decade to our understanding of the nature of and reason for successful and unsuccessful project completion. In addition many projects fail to complete at all. Sometime failure to satisfy all the original goals of a project can still be regarded favourably if the main sponsor is not satisfied with the outcome and the key stakeholders have gained in some way. Generally, the key development considerations are to have the goal clearly defined, to plan how to realize the goal and implement the plan. Developing an alternative methodology for project management founded on stakeholders, senior management support and proper planning should lead to a better understanding of the management issues that may contribute to the successful delivery of projects. This literature review is aimed at carrying out appraisal on the causes of project failure and the appropriate methods of avoiding it. It begins with key definitions, then analysis of causes of project failure and project success. Then it looks at success factors and criteria; also examine ways of avoiding project failure. The chapter ends with summary of the discussion. 2.2 What is a Project? Gary and Larson (2008:5) defined project as â€Å"a complex, non routine, one-time effort limited by time, budget and resource, and performance specifications designed to meet customer needs. This is in contrast to how an organisation generally works on a permanent basis to produce their goods and services. For example the work of an organisation may be to manufacture a vehicle on a continual basis, therefore the work is considered functional as the organisation creates the same products or services over-and -over again and people hold their roles on a semi permanent basis. A project can be defined as having constraints (usually centred around time and resources, but also including all aspect of the process and the outcome); projects are processes that in many circumstances are core business for organisation. The diagram below show different levels in project management. 2.3 What is Project Management? According to Gray and Larson (2006) Project management is a task derived from an organisation that enables professional project managers to use their skills, tools and knowledge to plan, execute and control a unique project within a limited lifespan by meeting the specification requirements of the organisation. Since the outcomes of the capital projects have strategic implications on the success and profitability of the business, the ability to deliver based on pre-determined objectives should be critical to the companys success. And yet one-third of all the oil and gas projects exceed budget and time projections by more than 10 percent. Failure to deliver big projects on budget and on schedule is highly publicized and damage the companies profile with capital markets that predictability and strong returns. Continual use of traditional project management techniques will not alter this trend. Companies that want to change and improve on their performance with critical capital projects will need to adopt new techniques. Munns and Bjeirmi (1996) also defined project management as a process used as a control to achieve the project objectives by utilizing the organisational structure and resources to manage a project with the application of tools and techniques, without disrupting the routine operation of the company. ‘Project management is the discipline of managing all the different resources and aspects of the project in such a way that the resources will deliver all the output that is required to complete the project within the defined scope, time, and cost constraints. These are agreed upon the project initiation stage and by the time the project begins all stakeholders and team members will have a clear understanding and acceptance of the process, methodology and expected outcome.(http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/introduction-project-management.html accessed on 30/06/09) Project management has been defined as â€Å"the process by which projects (unique, complex, non- routine, one-time effort limited by time, budget, and resources) are defined, planned, monitored, controlled and delivered such that the agreed benefits are realised† (APM, 2006:3) Other definitions have been offered, Reiss suggests that a project is a human activity that achieves a clear objective against a time scale, and to achieve this while pointing out that a simple description is not possible, he suggested that project management is a combination of management and planning and management of change. Despite all the suggestions about what is project management, the criteria for success, namely, cost, time, and quality remain and are included in the actual description. Meaning that Oisens definition of project management was either correct, or as a discipline, project management has not really changed or developed the success criteria over 50 years. Therefore project management is a learning profession. The significant point from all the definitions and suggestions of project management is that while the factors have developed and adopted, changes to the success criteria have been suggested but remain unchanged. In 2008, a survey undertaken by Booz Allen Hamilton (project management consultant) which comprises of 20 companies in engineering, procurement and construction; shows that 40 percent of all projects executed where faced with cost overruns and behind schedule. These overrun in cost and schedule has led to clients dissatisfaction on project performance; this view also agree with the research of M J Lang (1990). Therefore effective project management is very vital in such a volatile business environment. 2.4 Project Management Methodology Generally, projects are split into three phases Initiation, implementation and closure. Every stage of a project has multiple checkpoints which must be met before the starting of the next stage. The degree to which a project will be managed depends on the size of the project. For a complex project in a large organisation that involves a number of people, resources, time and money, a more structural approach is needed, and there will be more steps built into each stage of the project to ensure that the project delivers the anticipated end result. For a simple project in a small organisation, agreed milestones, a few checklists and someone to co-ordinate the project may be all that is required. 2.5 Defining Project Failure From Penguin English Dictionary (1992), failure is define as unsuccessful project that fails to perform a duty or an expected action, non-occurrence or non-performance. Whereas success can be defined as the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted (Cambridge Dictionary, 2007). It is also said that success is an event that accomplishes its intended purpose (dictionary.com, 2007). Anything short of that is failure. Project failure is an unpleasant event that cost large amount of money to the organisation. 2.6 Causes of Project Failure Pinto and Mantel (1990) carried out a research on the causes of project failure and revealed a good explanation that encompasses both internal efficiency and external effectiveness. They state that project failure is a vague concept, which has evoked much as to its definition, as the case with the definition of project success. A project is considered a failure â€Å"whenever a project does not meet the expectations of the stakeholders†. This has lots of impact to both the organisation and all stakeholders to the project. They include: cost and time overruns, quality degradation, frustration and stress, sometimes resulting to people quitting, low corporate market value, low public opinion and negative media campaigns. The total effect can be very costly to the organisation; at times even force the company into closure. Bienkoski (1989) identified ten factors that can lead to project failure and they are: * Lack of change management- happens when there is no method to handle or recognise changes. * Communication- causes delay or even failure since team members do not have the information they needed, issues or changes do not get escalated, project reporting is sluggish * Inadequate resources- Task take longer than expected to complete, deadlines and milestones get missed, and project completion date comes into jeopardy, one end of working more than necessary (double shift) to get the work done * No one is in control, not even the project manager, who is assigned to the project but not given the free hand to manage the project. This is most problem encounters in matrix organisation * Project lacks structure caused by things such as critical tasks being under rated * Inaccurate estimates. A top- down plan causes constraints on the prediction of the cost of the project * Poor risk management. The project initiation stage is not properly planned * Insufficient non-resources are not allocated to the project; for instance, it is not possible for a project to succeed if the right resources are made available for that project * Incompetent project management skill * Project changes from its original objective and goals. This can occur due to additional requirement from the client Pinto and mantel (1990) argue that the major causes of project failure are changes in the project environment, as it goes out of hands of the management. 2.7 Defining Project Success Lewis (2005) states that project success can be defined as meeting the required expectation of the stakeholders and achieving its intended purpose. This can be attained by understanding what the end result would be, and then stating the deliverables of the project. Shenhar et al. (2001) state the opposite: that project success is commonly judged by time and budget goals criteria, whereas in some cases this does not apply to some projects. Thiry (2006) argues that project success can only be defined if executives are able to consider the contribution of benefits and if the project is able to achieve these measures in relation to resources, competencies and complexity within the project parameters. 2.8 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as a Measurement for Project Success The purpose of the KPIs is to enable measurement of project and organisational performance throughout the construction industry (The KPI Working Group 2000). Collins (2000) advocates that the process of developing KPIs involves the consideration of the following factors: * KPIs are general indicators of performance that focus on critical aspects of output or outcomes * Only a limited, management number of KPIs is maintainable for regular use. Having too many (complex) KPIs can be time-and resource-consuming * The systematic use of KPIs is essential as the value of KPIs is almost completely derived from their consistent use over a number of projects * Data collection must be made as simple as possible. * A large sample size is required to reduce the impact of project specific variables. Therefore, KPis should be designed to use on every building project. * For performance measurement to be effective, the measures must be acceptable, understood and owned across the organisation * KPIs will need to evolve and it is likely that a set of KPIs will be subject to change and refinement * Graphic delays of KPIs need to be simple in design, easy to update and accessible. Key Performance indicators for measuring project success can be illustrated with the help of the diagram below (Albert Ada, 2004). They identified the following as the measurement of project success: Cost, time, quality, commercial profitable/value, environmental performance, user expectation/ satisfaction, health and safety and participants satisfaction. This will help in explaining what the project success might mean to different stakeholders. Key Performance Indicators Dvir et al. (2003) state that the ranking of success is a one-sided judgement, as the definition of success is difficult to define, because it has different meanings for different people; thus, the criteria of success should reflect the diverse interest and view that lead to a multi-dimensional and multi-criteria approach. Baccarini (1999) states: that success entails â€Å"hard† criteria which often linked with cost, time and quality. He also states that hard criteria which can be easily measured can lead to some form of substantial agreement. In contrast, soft criteria are known to be one sided, restrained and not easily assessed. This implies that project success is a fantasy of the mind and only an individual can turn such vision into reality. A contrasting view from Westerveld (2000) defined project success as â€Å"the satisfaction of all the stakeholders, meaning that as long as the stakeholders are pleased with the outcome and gain profits or revenue from the project, then it is classed as a success. One of the Squares root corners, organisational benefits, drew much attention because of its significance and it was further analysed. Kerzner (2001, p6) suggests three criteria from the organization perspective in order for a project to be successful. The first is that it must be completed with minimum or mutually agreed upon scope changes, even though stakeholders constantly have different views about projects results (Maylor, 2005, p288). Secondly â€Å"without disturbing the main work flow of the organization because a project has to assist organisations everyday operations and try to make them more efficient and effective. Finally, it should be completed without changing the corporate culture even though projects are almost exclusively concerned with change with knocking down the old and building up the new (Baguley, 1995, p8). A project managers main responsibility is to make sure that he delivers change only where is necessary, otherwise he is doomed to find strong resistance from almost all organisational departments (Kerzner, 2001, p158) which ultimately could lead to project failure. A more structured approach to project success is grouping the criteria into categories. Wideman (1996, p3-4) describes four groups, all of them time dependent: internal project objectives (efficiency during the project), benefit to customer (effectiveness in the short term), direct contribution (in the medium term) and future opportunity (in the long term). The characterization of ‘time dependent is based on the fact that success varies with time. Looking at the future benefits of the organisation can be really difficult, because in some cases they dont even know what they want, yet it is vital to know what the project is trying to achieve after completion time so that success criteria are clearly defined in the early stages. This is quite a different approach, because the focus moves from the present success criteria to the future, in a way that a project can be unsuccessful during execution if it is judged by criteria like cost and quality, but in the long term it can turn to be a thriving story. A good example of this hypothesis is hosting the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, which received mass criticism both during the planning period, due to delays in construction time, and when it was finished, due to huge cost. But the benefits that Greece will gain from the Olympic Games can be fully understood after 5 or maybe 10 years from the hosting year (Athens2004.com). All the above success criteria should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion. Also Shenhar et ‘al (1997) are of view that project success can be seen from the four area: Project efficiency, impact of the project to the customer, business success and finally what the project holds for the future. This was further explain in the diagram in 3. 2.9 Defining Project Success Factors and Project Success Criteria Muller and Turner (2007) defined the two components of project success in relation to the use of project management as follows: Project success factors are the elements of a project that can be influenced to increase the like hood of success; these are independent variable that makes success more likely. Project success criteria are the measures by which judge the successful outcome of a project; these are dependent variable which measure project success. We often hear or read about various success stories. But what is success and what criteria should organizations use to identify success? What factors lead to a successful project? The purpose of this study is to define project success criteria, clarify their difference with success factors and analyse their importance in project management methodology. One of the vaguest concepts of project management is project success. Since each individual or group of people who are involved in a project have different needs and expectations, it is very unsurprising that they interpret project success in their own way of understanding (Cleland Ireland, 2004, p2). For those involved with a project, project success is normally thought of as the achievement of some pre-determined project goals (Lim Mohamed, 1999, p244) while the general public has different views, commonly based on user satisfaction. A classic example of different perspective of successful project is the Sydney Opera House project (Thomsett, 2002), which went 16 times over budget and took 4 times more to finish than originally planned. But the final impact that the Opera House created was so big that no one remembers the original missed goals. The project was a big success for the people and at the same time a big failure from the project management perspective. On the other hand, the Millennium Dome in London was a project on time and on budget but in the eyes of the British people was considered a failure because it didnt deliver the awe and glamour that it was supposed to generate (Cammack, 2005). In the same way that quality requires both conformance to the specifications and fitness for use, project success requires a combination of product success (service, result, or outcome) and project management success (Duncan, 2004). The difference between criteria and factors is fuzzy for many people. The Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary describes a criterion as a standard by which you judge, decide about or deal with something while a factor is explained as a fact or situation which influences the result of something. Lim Mohamed applied those definitions to project success and illustrated the difference. It is clear now that critical factors can lead to a series of events which ultimately meet the overall success criteria of the project, so they should not be used as synonymous terms. Project success can be seen from two different perceptive, the micro and macro viewpoint (Lim Mohamed, 1999). This can help in better understanding of what project success means to different people. 2.9.1 Success Criteria Many lists of success criteria have been introduced in the previous decades by various researchers. Primal success criteria have been an integrated part of project management theory given that early definitions of project management included the so called ‘Iron Triangle success criteria cost, time and quality. (Atkinson, 1999, p338) Atkinson continues that as a discipline, project management has not really changed or developed the success measurement criteria in almost 50 years. To meet the urgent need of modernizing the out of date success criteria, he suggest the ‘Square Route ( 3) success criteria instead of the ‘Iron Triangle, where he groups the criteria that other academics have proposed. The main change is the addition of qualitative objectives rather than quantitative, namely the benefits that different group of people can receive from the project. These benefits are seen from two perspectives, one from the organisational view and one from the stakeholders view. It is obvious that each part will have benefit differently from projects. For example one organisation can gain profit through achieving strategic goals when a project is completed and at the same time these goals have a serious environmental impact in the stakeholders community. This means that a successful project must bargain between the benefits of the organisation and the satisfaction of end users. The fourth corner of the ‘Square Root is the Information System which includes the subjects of maintainability, reliability and validity of project outcomes. Belassi and Tukel (2001) are of the opinion that criteria for measuring project success/failure can grouped into two groups: the factor and system response groups. The identified factor groups are: factor related to project manager, factor related to project team members, factor related to the project itself, the organisation handling the project and the factor related to the external environment in which the project takes place. The diagram below shows this in more detail. 2.9.2 Success Factors As mentioned earlier; success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data (Rad Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to. 2.9.2.1 The Organization Top management support is the principal success factor for many independent research groups (Tukel Rom, 1998, p48) (CHAOS Report, 2001, p4) (Cleland Ireland, 2002, p210) (Tinnirello, 2002, p14), which means that no project can finish successfully unless the project manager secures true support from the senior or operational management. It is extremely difficult to work in a hostile environment where nobody understands the benefits that the project will deliver to the organisation. Stakeholder management and contract strategies (number of and size of the contracts, interface between the different contracts and the management of contracts) are separate success factors which are also considered part of organization issues (Torp, Austeng Mengesha, 2004, p4). 2.9.2.2 The Project Manager Having a project manager is not going to guarantee the success of a project. He must have a number of skills to use during the project to guide the rest of the team to successfully complete all the objectives. In the 2001 CHAOS report (The Standish Group International, 2001, p6), business, communication, responsiveness, process, results, operational, realism and technological skills are mentioned as some of the most important skills a project manager should have to deliver success. However, more resent research by Turner and Muller (2005, p59) has concluded that the leadership style and competence of the project manager have no impact on project success. It is very interesting to investigate why a highly respectable professional body for project managers published such a contradictive position. A possible answer could be found in the fact that project managers results are difficult to prove and even more difficult to measure. If the project is successful, senior management will probably claim that all external factors were favourable. On the contrary, if it turns to be a failure, project manager easily becomes the scapegoat. 2.9.2.3 The Project Team Project managers are very lucky if they have the option to choose their project team. More often, their team is inherited to the project from various sectors of the organisation. It is vital to have a good project team to work with, with core skills that can be evolved to core competences and capabilities for the whole organisation. All m