INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROPOSAL Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROPOSAL - Assignment Example This helps to ensure that orders from customers are hence met in due period, and that the shareholders and the suppliers are settled and hence can make their payments by following proper procedures. Hence, the transaction-processing arena has now grown and become a very important aspect of better commercial management. The term enterprise resource planning also summarised as ERP, is that process or aspect which tries to merge all of a firm’s departments, objectives and the various functions, into one existing computer system. This also services every department’s requirements by virtue of being specific. It merges by bringing together persons, software and the crucial hardware, into an effective service and an efficient delivery and production system. This hence generates profit for the firm (Peter, 1992). Even though this idea has the ease to be explained theoretically, its truth has been of a varied nature. Most firms do conglomerate varied systems and processes for meeting their own requirements. Office automation system does refer to the different machinery of a computer and its software that is utilised to make, make a collection, store, carry out manipulation of data, and finally convey office information required for the purpose of finishing tasks and objectives that are of a basic nature (Peter, 1992). For example, storing data in raw form, transferring electronically, and the prior managing of e-commerce information, does constitute the activities that relates to office automation system The term management information systems, is a set of commands and procedures that carries out the function of collecting, processing, storing and conveying the vital information to the support part of decision making and the control system. Mostly, information systems do appear to be of a formal nature that is only involved in playing the integral task in firms. Although these systems are

Diabetic neuropathy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Diabetic neuropathy - Essay Example st likely causes of nerve damage include hereditary qualities that lender an individual susceptible to nerve infection, physical injury caused to the nerves, lifestyle characteristics such as smoking and alcohol usage. In addition, the other causes are metabolic aspects such as irregular blood fat levels, low levels of insulin, high blood glucose and neurovascular factors, which result to the damage to the blood vessels that carry oxygen and nutrients to the nerves (Benjamin, n.d.). Some patients will have no symptoms while others may show a range of signs including pain and numbness for starters. Symptoms of nerve damage may include erectile malfunction in males, vaginal dehydration in females, deteriorating of the muscles of the feet or hands, indigestion, nausea, weakness, difficulties during urination, numbness, tingling, pain in the arms and legs, constipation or diarrhea and finally wooziness as a result of a drop in blood pressure after standing up (Tesfaye, 2009). Other symptoms like loss in weight and depression have been reported in some patients, but they are not as a result of neuropathy, but often go together with it. There are various types of diabetic neuropathies which usually have varied effects to its patients such as autonomic neuropathy that causes hypoglycemia unawareness and changes in bladder role, perspiration and sexual response in patients. Focal neuropathy causes an unexpected weakness of nerves resulting to muscle weakness. Proximal neuropathy results to pain in the leg muscles like the thighs causing a weakness in the legs and finally the peripheral neuropathy mainly results to pain in the arms and legs (Veves, 2006). There is also the autonomic neuropathy will mostly affect sex organs, urinary track, digestive system and blood vessels, and focal neuropathy that affects the abdomen, facial muscles, chest, and pelvis and lower back (Veves and Rayaz, 2007). Futhermore, ther is proximal neuropathy will specialize with the legs and

Indentured servitude Essay Example for Free

Indentured servitude Essay Indentured servitude was considered a fine replacement for slavery, rising as slavery fell out of favor in many of the European countries. However, despite the rules that were out in place, they were often changed and didnt follow the what could be considered the lowest form of humanity. Indentured servitude was used instead of slavery, but in the end, it was almost the same affliction. David Northups Doc 4 compares directly with Doc 3, 6, and 9. They show almost just the sheer amount of indentured servants that were shipped for the purpose of hard labor. All three documents are purely data and can be considered un-bias, trustworthy sources. In Doc 3 it is hugely visible that a massive amount of servants are sent to the Caribbean such as Trinidad and plantations in Suriname from India, a British colony. Doc 4 backs up this information as well as provide a huge number of455,000 people bent sent from India to the Spice Islands, Mauritius. Doc 6 shows that many of these indentured servants were previous slaves, or Asian Indians, whom the British considered below their station. Doc 9 also shows this huge number of indentured servants in Mauritius, showing that 71% of the population was Asian Indian, as well as the population of Trinidad being 33% Asian Indian. This information may not seem prevalent, but when compared to the stark contrast of Doc 7 and Doc 8. Doc 7 is an official document from the British Guiana Indenture Agreement from 1895. The document itself is a sign-up sheet that the servant would sign to agree to conditions that he trusted were to be followed until the end of his term, which lasted 5 years. This agreement states that work is every day except Sundays and Holidays and work will be 7 hours in the field or 10 in the buildings. However in Doc 8 an indentured servant complains about the conditions of his work. He works from 5:30 to 8:30, which is 15 hours total, and must work on Sundays till 2:00, which is 8 hours and 30 minutes. This amount of work is double the promised 7 hours, and even more than the normal hours on a day in which they werent to work at all. This was a gross abuse of rights and scholars even knew it, but people still didnt see them as people but workers. Doc 1 and 2 shows this. At first it was drafted just as the necessity of importation of foreign labor, but grew into a huge problem. The natives couldnt keep up with the work and more and more immigrants were needed to keep up a study supply of sugar. However, it wasnt as what one could call, nice, as it sounded. They were machines.  Indentured servant were not voluntary immigrants, but they werent slaves. They were raised, with pain, much like recruits for military service. Indentured servitude was indeed not a slavery of people, but it was the outcome of slavery and led to something very similar. People were worked to the bone and foreigners were pulled in to tiny islands just to maintain a steady flow of sugar and other rich resources. I believe Doc 5 was completely unnecessary and would have preferred another document with another account of mistreatment, or a change of time graph of indentured servants, or a change over time graph of slaves to indentured servants.

Internationalisation of SMEs: Challenges and Barriers

Internationalisation of SMEs: Challenges and Barriers Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are becoming more important in today’s international markets. (Oviatt and McDougall,1994, 1999). The internationalisation of SME’s can be expected to increase further due to the economy of the world becoming further harmonised with continued declines in government imposed barriers and advances in technology (Lu, Jane W, and Paul W Beamish, 2001). In 2013 there was an estimated 4.9 million private sector businesses in the UK which is an increase of 102,000 compared to that of 2012. SME’s account for over half of employment, 53.9%, and almost half of the turnover in the UK private sector, 48.1%. (Department for Business Innovations and Skills, 2013). Hence, showing that SME’s are still growing and are an integral part of the UK’s economy. Through SME’s, this essay will discuss and critically analyse the process of creating (pre start up) and managing a new venture (post start up). It will begin with considering issues relating to the entrepreneur, and examine the challenges that they are faced with when starting up a business idea, the opportunity, and the innovation. The problems with managing a new venture are then inspected. In French, the term entrepreneur means someone who â€Å"undertakes†, for example someone who undertakes a significant project or activity. It later came to be used to identify individuals who accelerated economic progress by finding new and better ways of doing things. The French economist most associated with giving the name is Jean Baptiste Say who was quoted saying â€Å"The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield†. Entrepreneurs create value (Dees, J Gregory, 1998). The sources of entrepreneurship are studied by researchers in a wide range of disciplines, the study varies per discipline. For example, an economist would look at mainly socio economic variables, whereas psychologists would look at the personality traits of the entrepreneurs to see which ones were more integral to that of an entrepreneur (Fritsch, Michael, and Alina Rusakova, 2010). The Big Five model of personality provides a framework for analysing the relationship between personality traits and the tendency to become an entrepreneur. The five dimensions of this personality model are: Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience (Barrick, Murray R, and Michael K Mount, 1991). Zhao and Seibert (2006) investigated the personality characteristics of business founders in comparison to dependently employed managers. They found that self employed individuals are different from managers on the dimensions of openness to experience, consci entiousness, neuroticism, and agreeableness (Zhao, Hao, and Scott E Seibert, 2006). Schmitt-Rodermund states that early entrepreneurial interest is related to elevated levels of openness to experience, extraversion, and conscientiousness (Schmitt-Rodermund, Eva, 2004). Although these relationships show a correlation between single personality traits and entrepreneurship, the effect of personality characteristics for entrepreneurship is still not entirely clear (Rauch, Andreas, and Michael Frese 2007). A main motivation for entrepreneurship is the need for freedom. Stepping into self employment means becoming your own boss and a need for autonomy as a non financial value becomes an important part of the entrepreneurs career choice, despite a potential decrease in income (Fritsch, Michael, and Alina Rusakova, 2010). The Croson and Minniti (2011) model shows that newly self employed individuals are willing to accept a lower income in exchange for the psychological benefits that come with self employment (Croson, David C, and Maria Minniti 2012). This is similar to self determination theory in that autonomy leads to well being and explains why autonomy in the workplace might be a compensator for higher incomes in a position that involves less freedom (Deci, Edward, and Richard M Ryan, 2008). Entrepreneurial opportunities can arise from from structural gaps in the market or from business transformations, for example the genesis of an internet company. The entrepreneurial opportunity itself, consists of a business idea and its potential. The business idea is then formed into a business plan which is the foundation for creating a company and exploiting the gap in the marketplace (Volkmann, Christine K, Kim Oliver Tokarski, and Marc Grà ¼nhagen 2010). The term â€Å"opportunity† seems to be a central part of many definitions of entrepreneurship. It relates to Say’s notion of shifting resources to a higher area. An opportunity, therefore, means an opportunity to create value in some way. Entrepreneurs have a mind-set that sees the possibilities rather than the problems created by change such as technological advances. The entrepreneur always looks for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity (Dees, J Gregory 1998). However, Peter Drucker, a management consultant, educator, and author, says that â€Å"not every small business is entrepreneurial or represents entrepreneurship†. An example of this would be a â€Å"husband and wife who open a delicatessen or a mexican restaurant in the american suburb†. There is nothing specifically innovative or change oriented in this (Drucker, Peter Ferdinand 1995). He also claims that entrepreneurship does not require a profit motive. Further backing up the Crosson and Minniti (2010) model. With social entrepreneurs, the social mission is central and mission related impact becomes the central criterion, not the creation of wealth. For social entrepreneurs the money is not important, it is the actual outcome of their work that they strive for. However, with business entrepreneurs, the income of money is a way of measuring the creation of value. Business entrepreneurs are subject to market discipline. If they do not shift resources to become more economically functional then they tend to be driven out of business (Dees, J Gregory 1998). The challenges involved in starting a new venture, as well as the characteristic uncertainty and the lack of resources and stability that have led some researchers to view survival as the focused dimension of success (Van de Den 1984), are authentic in the social field. Furthermore, given the difficulty of measuring the performance of firms they use multiple measures of performance. The criteria of success of social ventures are determined as follows: 1. The level to which the venture achieves its set goals, 2. the ability of the venture to ensure continuity and sustainability by acquiring resources necessary to maintain the objectives, and 3. the level of resources that are available to maintain the ventures growth and expansion (Sharir, Moshe, and Miri Lerner, 2006). A large field study was carried out between 1999 and 2001 on the process of initiating and establishing social ventures (Sharir, Moshe, and Miri Lerner, 2006). Of the social ventures, it was deduced into fifteen variables that determined their success. These include: Previous experience this involved checking the history of the entrepreneur for previous expertise in the venture area. Total dedication The time that was invested in the development by the entrepreneur, the investment of the entrepreneur’s private resources. Support from family and friends this was measured by the amount of involvement that was made by the friends and family of the entrepreneur. Acceptance of the idea of the venture in the public’s eyes the public’s awareness of the issue. The primary social network examined the activities that were involved in assisting the venture to acquire needed capital and support in the establishment stage. Support from public sector agencies yes or no. Funding received from foundations support received by foundations for three or more years. Support received from another non profit organisation whether it acquired capital, received support, or was integrated within an older organisation. The amount of budget at the establishment stage fifty thousand dollars was acquired at the establishment stage. Composition of the staff at the establishment stage The number of staff members and their jobs as salaried or part time, and also the distribution of workload between them. Governing board performance the involvement of board members in planning, decision making, personal financial investment, and expanding the social network. The planned expansion and stabilisation of the venture’s social network the actions taken by the entrepreneur in this way. Preliminary planning the preparation of a business plan or detailed planning involving environmental aspects, staffing and budgeting. Long term cooperation with another organisati on cooperation with another organisation for at least three years. Market test of the venture’s service charging fees for receipt of selected services or obtaining long term contracts from public agencies. Eight of the fifteen variables were found to contribute to the success of the social venture (Sharir, Moshe, and Miri Lerner, 2006). Business mortality rates suggest that discontinuous rates of start ups can be as high as seventy percent in the first five years, although this depends on the specific industry in question. Within a new venture, the main problem arises due to a lack of organisational structure and a lack of a specific set of roles, tasks, and capabilities. Therefore the founders of the company must use what little resources they have to address the issues involved. Thus taking up management time. Moreover, the inclusion of structure and teachings of new roles, tasks, and capabilities within the company can cause inefficiency and may lead to worry, and conflict among the members. However, there is one way in which new ventures have an advantage over older businesses. They are able to form a business plan without being restricted because of the decisions that have been made in the companies’ past. They are also not liable to aging. Older ventures suffer from processes such as routinisation and s tandardisation which makes them reluctant to transform their company in the face of change (Gruber, Marc, and Joachim Henkel 2006). There are three stages that can be applied to the growth of a company once the initial start up procedure has finished. These are: early development, (rapid) development, and sustained growth. In the early development stage, the entrepreneur must strengthen the structures laid out at the foundation stage. They must also aim confidently at successful market establishment. Within this stage the growth of the company is determined by the strategies and implementation of those strategies into business operations. During the rapid development stage, the main strengths and strategic advantages of the business must be capitalised on and created. Frequent changes to structures such as communication, leadership, information, and communication are also required for rapid growth. New resources might need to be acquired or existing ones, redistributed to account for the new demands. In order for a company to achieve sustained growth, it must be planned using growth strategies established by the founders of the company (Volkmann, Christine K, Kim Oliver Tokarski, and Marc Grà ¼nhagen 2010). To summarise, SME’s are still a major part of the economy and they are constantly expanding. Entrepreneurs are the people responsible for the stable growth of SME’s and their innovative minds will ensure that technology advances. Psychologists believe that entrepreneurs have different personality traits than normal people which helps them to strive more and become more confident when setting out to achieve their goals. There are two different types of entrepreneur, the social entrepreneurs and the business entrepreneurs. The social entrepreneurs seek pleasure in getting their idea known to the world whereas business entrepreneurs always look for ways to gain wealth. Due to the entrepreneurs ability to seek out gaps in the market, the world will become a more comfortable place to live in with innovations that will make lives easier. Entrepreneurs do not enjoy the restrictions of a workplace and this leads them to becoming their own boss, however, they must face the chall enges that entails with starting up a business. Such as the resources, organisational structure, and growth. References Lu, Jane W, and Paul W Beamish. The internationalization and performance of SMEs. Strategic management journal 22.6à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ 7 (2001): 565-586. Department of Business Innovations and Skills. â€Å"Business Population Estimates for the UK and Regions.† 2013. Fritsch, Michael, and Alina Rusakova. Personality traits, self-employment, and professions. 2010. Croson, David C, and Maria Minniti. Slipping the surly bonds: The value of autonomy in self-employment. Journal of Economic Psychology 33.2 (2012): 355-365. Barrick, Murray R, and Michael K Mount. The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a metaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ analysis. Personnel psychology 44.1 (1991): 1-26. Zhao, Hao, and Scott E Seibert. The big five personality dimensions and entrepreneurial status: a meta-analytical review. Journal of Applied Psychology 91.2 (2006): 259. Schmitt-Rodermund, Eva. Pathways to successful entrepreneurship: Parenting, personality, early entrepreneurial competence, and interests. Journal of Vocational Behavior 65.3 (2004): 498-518. Rauch, Andreas, and Michael Frese. Born to Be an Entrepreneur? Revisiting the Personality Approach to Entrepreneurship. (2007). Deci, Edward, and Richard M Ryan. Self-determination theory. Handbook of theories of social psychology (2008): 416. Dees, J Gregory. The meaning of social entrepreneurship. Comments and suggestions contributed from the Social Entrepreneurship Funders Working Group, 6pp (1998). Drucker, Peter Ferdinand. People and performance: The best of Peter Drucker on management. Routledge, 1995. Sharir, Moshe, and Miri Lerner. Gauging the success of social ventures initiated by individual social entrepreneurs. Journal of world business 41.1 (2006): 6-20. Gruber, Marc, and Joachim Henkel. New ventures based on open innovation–an empirical analysis of start-up firms in embedded Linux. International Journal of Technology Management 33.4 (2006): 356-372. Volkmann, Christine K, Kim Oliver Tokarski, and Marc Grà ¼nhagen. Entrepreneurship in a european perspective: concepts for the creation and growth of new ventures. Springer, 2010.

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humans are by far the most complex species on this planet. we have knowledge, emotions and the ability to know and choose from right or wrong. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... ...ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The Sun Lord of All Ages :: Sun Culture Cultures Cultural Essays

The Sun Lord of All Ages "Sun, heavenly body whose light makes our day, member of the solar system round which the planets revolve "( definition according to the Webster's New Elementary Dictionary). In the literature of the mythology, the legends that relate to the creation of the shiny body occupy a very important role. It was natural for ancient cultures in remote times to speculate about the creation of the visible universe, and specially about the creation of the sun. The sun is presented in a lot of different myths as born from one of the eyes of The Creator God, or as springing into life as the sacrifice of the life of a god or hero, or sometimes as the Supreme Creator itself. While traveling through the different cultures existent in the ancient times, we can recognize common aspects in their different myths. In the case of the sun related myths, we can see common aspect concerning: his creation, and the sun-man relationship. Even though the sun plays an important role in almost all the creatio n myths, there are some cultures were his role it is more important than in others. For example, in the Egyptian myths he is presented as the supreme creator, in the case of the Toltec and Aztec myths he is mostly related to the creation and destruction of the five different worlds and the humans that lived in each of them. In order of importance of the role of the sun in the different cultures, the Egyptians are one of the first ones. For them the sun was the greatest god of all. According to their legends, at the beginning , the world was a waste of water called Nu, from were the sun god was born. "He first appeared as a shiny egg, which floated upon the water's breast and the spirits of the deep, who where the Mother and the Father, were with him there as he was with Nu, for they were the companions of Nu. Ra [Egyptian name for the sun] was greater than Nu from whom he arose. He was the divine father and strong ruler of gods" (Mackenzie, 1). This was the Egyptian explanation for the appearance of that shiny body in the sky, who kept them warm and gave them light during the day, and caused plants to grow which they needed as food to survive.

Project Management Essay

Project management is one of the most important and critical tool or technique, which defines the entire course of development of any kind of project. Project management works as an ignition for the chain reaction of the whole development cycle. It also helps to layout each and every step of the development cycle and defines the action plan to be followed during the risk-conditions. Not only this, project management methodologies help track down the success rate for a project and improve the understandability of the workforce. Conventionally, any project management approach revolves around the 5 basic processes involved in project management, named as: †¢ Initiation: This step determines the nature and scope of the project. All the basic elements of the project like requirements analysis and feasibility, review of current operations, goals are determined. It is the most crucial stage and if performed incorrectly, results in the failure of the whole project. †¢ Planning & design: This stage basically helps to plan time, cost, and resource during the course of the development. Risk planning is also performed to effectively tackle uncertainties. †¢ Executing consists of the activities used in the process to work in sync with the project plan so as to meet the deadlines of different milestones. †¢ Monitoring & control: These processes verify and validate the activities and their sequence and timelines with the project plan. The quality of activities is also considered here. †¢ Closing includes the formal acceptance of the product so developed. Administrative and other formal activities are performed to release the product to the end-user or client after thorough testing. Different project management approaches are designed for easily carrying out the different process in a planned way for accomplishing all the requirements. Each approach have key feature of its own which keeps the activities in sync with the project plan. Some project management approaches are: †¢ The traditional approach: This approach is the most basic approach in project management. It is quite similar to the waterfall model in software development services. All the five processes are executed in sequence, with the extension of recursive-ness of a few processes to support the development cycle. †¢ PRINCE2: It is a structured approach for project management introduced in 1996. It posses the  key feature of automatic control of any deviation observed against the project plan. Each specified process in this approach, has its key input and output with the associated activities to be performed and specified goals of those activities. Processes are divided into manageable stages and close monitoring of each stage results in an organized and controlled rolling out of activities. †¢ Lean Project-management: This approach to project management is based on the concept of lean-manufacturing. Lean-manufacturing is centered on the elimination of wastage in order to minimize the cost of production and hence improving the quality of the product. †¢ Event Chain methodology: It has a key feature of identifying and managing events and event chains which affects the schedule of the projects. This approach helps in handling the negative impact & allows the modeling of uncertainties in project schedule. However, it is not necessary that all the project management methodologies work well. In the dynamic industry environment, the basic aim of any project management strategy is to accomplish a task. However, it should be within the allocated budget and time while maintaining the quality of the final product. Project management approaches enable organisations to accomplish projects efficiently, addressing both internal constraints and dynamic external situations in the interim. Project management enables organisations to prevent or remove internal project constraints and also adapt to unforeseen changes in project scope or goals. An organisation can, depending on its requirements, either adopt a standard project management approach or combine multiple approaches. Additionally, an organisation has the advantage of project management software applications which facilitates intelligent planning, constraint removal and monitoring of projects. Here is a list of standard project management approaches. Traditional approach The traditional approach assumes that the project scope and goals will remain constant till project completion. Obviously, a project manager plans and identifies project resources based on this assumption. The traditional approach lays down the following project phases: †¢ Project initiation †¢ Project planning and design †¢ Project monitoring and control †¢ Project execution †¢ Project completion Since the approach is inherently rigid, many organisations may choose a hybrid project management approach. Critical chain approach The approach assumes that at least one constraint (behavioural or process-related) is likely to hinder projects which utilise complex processes and a large number of cross-functional teams. The approach recommends the use of behavioural and mathematical sciences to first predict, and then analyse and remove constraints. The project team can use data to remove the constraints. For example, if productivity is a foreseen concern, then a project manager could track the actual time spent by team members on the job. This approach is useful in sending quality deliverables on time by proactively removing constraints. Extreme project approach This approach is suitable for projects which handle dynamic situations, such as, changing customer requirements. Often, it may not be possible to obtain a full clarity of requirements and a project may purely be guided by market changes. The mobile phone industry, which experiences rapid changes, is a case in point. The project team, hence, plans purely on the basis of the currently available data and depending on requirement changes, modifies plans. Event chain project approach According to this approach, a single constraint can create a chain of constraints and severely impede a project. For example, in a project, if several departments depend on one another, then constraints in any one department can negatively impact the productivity of downstream departments. A project team can use past data to foresee a negative event and identify  preventive measures. Reliable data, collected over time, can even help track event chains. The Gantt chart is a popular event chain tracking tool. The event chain approach, hence, could be an excellent problem solving approach for critical projects. Project management software — how useful is it? Project management software capabilities have expanded notably and it gives more than just scheduling meetings and activities. A project management tool can estimate the effort, monitor project progress and highlight risks. It can also preserve historical data on past projects, which can be extremely useful in foreseeing constraints. Project management tools are available as desktop, web-based and collaborative applications and they are compatible for every type of project management approach. Many organisations have begun to adopt a hybrid project management approach, by combining the best features of standard project management approaches. This approach has been beneficial and indeed goes to show how flexible the project management approaches are. Read more at http://www.business2community.com/strategy/differing-approaches-to-project-management-0154472#iEJ2HHvpfEMXGPye.99