Thursday, December 2, 2010

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES


Time Management:

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

How to proceed with Time management
"Get organized" - Paperwork and task review
"Protect Your Time" –Time is money use accordingly
"Set gravitational goals" – Automatically action oriented ones
"Achieve through Goal management" - Motivational emphasis
"Work in Priority Order" – Prioritize your goals
"Use of Magical Tools" – Use of ideas to achieve the goal
"Master the Skills of Time Management"- Time is everything
"Go with the Flow" – Follow Logical sequence
"Recover from Bad Time Habits" - Avoid procrastination

Time Management can be considered as a project management which is more commonly known as project planning and project scheduling. Time Management has also been identified as one of the core functions identified in project management. Its strategies are often associated with the recommendation to set goals. These goals are recorded and may be broken down into a project, an action plan, or a simple task list. For individual tasks or for goals, an importance rating may be established, deadlines may be set, and priorities assigned. This process results in a plan with a task list or a schedule or calendar of activities.

Developing time management skills is a journey that may begin with this Guide, but needs practice and other guidance along the way. One must prioritize assignments and follow the important strategy of weekly reviews. Each week, like a Sunday night, review your assignments, your notes, and your calendar. Be mindful that as deadlines approach, your weekly routine must adapt to them!  To achieve “stage one”--get something done! The Chinese proverb of the longest journey starting with a single step has a couple of meanings:  First, you launch the project!  Second, by starting, you may realize that there are some things you have not planned for in your process. Details of an assignment are not always evident until you begin the assignment.  Another adage is that “perfection is the enemy of good”, especially when it prevents you from starting! Given that you build in review, roughly draft your idea and get going!  You will have time to edit and develop later.

Here is the first step which can identify for an assignment and help to get started. Postpone unnecessary activities until the work is done! Postpone tasks or routines that can be put off until your assigned project is finished! Develop criteria for adjusting your schedule to meet both your academic and non-academic needs. Also create a simple "To Do" list. This simple program will help you identify a few items, the reason for doing them, a timeline for getting them done, and then printing this simple list and posting it for reminders. Following of Daily/weekly planner will also remind us appointments, classes, and meetings on a chronological log book or chart. If one is more visual, sketch out the schedule. First thing in the morning, check what's ahead for the day always go to sleep knowing you're prepared for tomorrow. Use of monthly chart can plan ahead. Long term planners will also serve as a reminder to constructively plan time for oneself to better MANAGE the TIME.

Crisis Management:

Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major unpredictable event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. Three elements are common to most definitions of crisis: (a) a threat to the organization, (b) the element of surprise, and (c) a short decision time. It can be said as "crisis is a process of transformation where the old system can no longer be maintained." Crisis management involves dealing with threats after they have occurred. It is a discipline within the broader context of management consisting of skills and techniques required to identify, assess, understand, and cope with a serious situation, especially from the moment it first occurs to the point that recovery procedures start.

Crisis management methods of a business or an organization are called Crisis Management Plan. Crisis management is occasionally referred to as incident management; although several industry specialists such as Peter Power argue that the term crisis management is more accurate. The credibility and reputation of organizations is heavily influenced by the perception of their responses during crisis situations. The organization and communication involved in responding to a crisis in a timely fashion makes for a challenge in businesses. There must be open and consistent communication throughout the hierarchy to contribute to a successful crisis communication process.

During the crisis management process, it is important to identify types of crises in that different crisis necessitate the use of different crisis management strategies. Potential crises are enormous, but crises can be clustered. Natural crisis, typically natural disasters considered as’ acts of God,' are such environmental phenomena as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes and hurricanes, floods, landslides, tidal waves, storms, and droughts that threaten life, property, and the environment itself. Sudden crises are circumstances that occur without warning and beyond an institution’s control. Consequently, sudden crises are most often situations for which the institution and its leadership are not blamed.

The Bhopal disaster in which poor communication before, during, and after the crisis cost thousands of lives, illustrates the importance of incorporating cross-cultural communication in crisis management plans. According to American University’s Trade Environmental Database Case Studies (1997), local residents were not sure how to react to warnings of potential threats from the Union Carbide plant.

When crisis hits, organizations must be able to carry on with their business in the midst of the crisis while simultaneously planning for how they will recover from the damage the crisis caused. Crisis handlers not only must engage in continuity planning (determining the people, financial, and technology resources needed to keep the organization running), but will also actively pursue organizational flexibility.

In the wake of a crisis, organizational decision makers adopt a learning orientation and use prior experience to develop new routines and behaviors that ultimately change the way the organization operates. The best leaders recognize this and are purposeful and skillful in finding the learning opportunities inherent in every crisis situation.

Preparing contingency plans in advance, as part of a crisis management plan, is the first step to ensuring an organization is appropriately prepared for a crisis. The contingency plan should contain information and guidance that will help decision makers to consider not only the short-term consequences, but the long-term effects of every decision.

Crisis management has become a defining feature of contemporary governance. In times of crisis, communities and members of organizations expect their public leaders to minimize the impact of the crisis at hand, while critics and bureaucratic competitors try to seize the moment to blame incumbent rulers and their policies. In this extreme environment, policy makers must somehow establish a sense of normality, and foster collective learning from the crisis experience.

In the face of crisis, leaders must deal with the strategic challenges they face, the political risks and opportunities they encounter, the errors they make, the pitfalls they need to avoid, and the paths away from crisis they may pursue. The necessity for management is even more significant with the advent of a 24-hour news cycle and an increasingly internet-savvy audience with ever-changing technology at its fingertips. Public leaders have a special responsibility to help safeguard society from the adverse consequences of crisis. Experts in crisis management note that leaders who take this responsibility seriously would have to concern themselves with all crisis phases: the incubation stage, the onset, and the aftermath. Crisis leadership then involves five critical tasks: sense making, decision making, meaning making, terminating, and learning.

Crisis management has developed as a response to natural disasters (e.g., floods, fire, famine, earth quakes) Approaches to, and the structures associated with, crisis management have evolved from militarist responses to warfare and natural disasters. Contemporary conceptualizations of crisis management deal with broader issues of prevention and mitigation, as well as the need to deal with issues related to response and recovery.

Many Western organizations concerned with crisis management have invariably adopted a four-stage model, such as the MPRR (mitigation, preparation, response, recovery), or the PPRR (prevention, preparation, response, recovery). Both the MPRR and PPRR are iterative models intended to provide ongoing opportunities for learning. Education about crisis management relates closely to the ‘preparation’ aspect of both the MPRR and the PPRR models. The prevention, preparation, response, recovery aspects of the model depicts a flow of events.

Effective crisis management is vital for the survival and prosperity of organizations. Preparedness is important for organizations concerned about preventing sudden arising events. The PPRR aspects of the Crisis Management Model can be applied to local facilities and organizations, national infrastructure such as electrical power distributors, and national government organizations such as the military and police services. The role of learning in crisis management is crucial as it is provides the means through which organizational processes and outcomes can be achieved. In order to achieve a more professional approach to crisis management, organizations need to effectively prepare, plan, and implement especially for security and natural disaster threats, by assessing the risk to the organization and evaluating the consequence of up coming crisis.

Courtesy: Google

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