Friday, November 27, 2009
Blog#6 from Lau
Learnings
I first come across the terms IRR, WACC (MARR equivalent), ROR, NPV (PW equivalent) and etc in a training I attended 3 years ago on “Financial Justification for Projects”. That was a short training that covers various methods, overview or high level understanding to justify a project and the ROR. The outcome from the training was that I did not learn much but only some of the terminologies from the training as what I mentioned above. As compare to today, together with TRANSFORMERS and also with the intense involvement in the solving the problems/questions in Engineering Economy as project deliverables, I am getting to know more about financial justification for projects. In fact engineering economy has a greater and broader coverage as it is not only on financial or capital investment perspective of a project and also other intangible factors in decision making.
For the last 3 weeks, I was working on understanding cash flow, FW, CW, AW and PW, IRR, MARR, effective interest rate and etc which are from Chapter 4,5 and 6 Engineering Economy. Even though these are nothing new, for me all these have in fact opening up my eye sight and a new learning horizon to me which in turn helping me in making decision in my day to day activities disregards if the activities are personal or work related matters.
As for work related matters, the evaluation methods outlined in these 3 chapters are helpful in both internal and external projects. For e.g. evaluations on products and services that meet the equivalent technical requirements, evaluation method on initial investment cost as well as annual maintenance cost for the number of useful life of the product will then be determined and considered in the evaluation.
Financial justification or engineering economy valuation of alternatives can also serves as a tool or competition differentiator or a selling point to sell products and services to customer that helps the customer to evaluate various needs within customer’s organization that helping them to achieve strategic objectives and also allow them to see the net benefit of project by buying the products and services that we are selling in a measurable terms at project level as well as company level. Underlying requirement to be able to help the customer to make the right decision is to be able to understand their pain points and needs to improve business and operations efficiency.
Teaming
I have revisited Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument that we have gone through in our training, as part of my research for material for my paper. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is the world's best-selling instrument for understanding how different conflict-handling styles affect personal and group dynamics and for learning how to select the most appropriate style for a given situation. The TKI assessment is a key tool for managers, team leaders, and human resource experts to safely open a productive dialogue about conflict.
[Reference: http://www.i-leadonline.com/tkiinfo.asp ]
This instrument is designed to measure a person's behavior in conflict situations. "Conflict situations" are those in which the concerns of two people appear to be incompatible. In such situations, we can describe an individual's behavior along two basic dimensions: (1) assertiveness, the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy his own concerns, and (2) cooperativeness, the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy the other person's concerns.
[Reference: http://www.kilmann.com/conflict.html ]
These two basic dimensions of behavior define five different modes for responding to conflict situations:
- Competing
- Accommodating
- Avoiding
- Collaborating
- Compromising
TKI is view as a tool to resolve conflict between 2 individuals, according to the behavior demonstrated by the individual; however this is also an indicator the leadership style that the person can perform best. I vaguely can remember who are those categorized in other behavior modes however participants (Nui, Thao and Pak Gatot) with Competing Mode during the training has demonstrated their leadership style throughout the progress the delivery process of our project as assertive as defined by TKI - Competing means "standing up for your rights," defending a position which you believe is correct, or simply trying to win, win for the team.
TRANSFORMERS have the blend of all the behaviors as defined by TKI whereby situational leadership style can best be demonstrated. Disregards of the Program Manager and Project Managers that we have nominated, selected or volunteered as the lead for the program, there will be player or team member emerged as leader automatically based on the behavior according to the situation or the teaming stage as defined by Tuckman’s team development model took place. TRANSFORMERS is a good team setup that the team members can learn from each other in term of PM knowledge from diverse industries, technical knowledge and best practices from different industries, countries, cultures, up-bringing and also leadership style that best fit to the situation or different stage of the teaming.
I first come across the terms IRR, WACC (MARR equivalent), ROR, NPV (PW equivalent) and etc in a training I attended 3 years ago on “Financial Justification for Projects”. That was a short training that covers various methods, overview or high level understanding to justify a project and the ROR. The outcome from the training was that I did not learn much but only some of the terminologies from the training as what I mentioned above. As compare to today, together with TRANSFORMERS and also with the intense involvement in the solving the problems/questions in Engineering Economy as project deliverables, I am getting to know more about financial justification for projects. In fact engineering economy has a greater and broader coverage as it is not only on financial or capital investment perspective of a project and also other intangible factors in decision making.
For the last 3 weeks, I was working on understanding cash flow, FW, CW, AW and PW, IRR, MARR, effective interest rate and etc which are from Chapter 4,5 and 6 Engineering Economy. Even though these are nothing new, for me all these have in fact opening up my eye sight and a new learning horizon to me which in turn helping me in making decision in my day to day activities disregards if the activities are personal or work related matters.
As for work related matters, the evaluation methods outlined in these 3 chapters are helpful in both internal and external projects. For e.g. evaluations on products and services that meet the equivalent technical requirements, evaluation method on initial investment cost as well as annual maintenance cost for the number of useful life of the product will then be determined and considered in the evaluation.
Financial justification or engineering economy valuation of alternatives can also serves as a tool or competition differentiator or a selling point to sell products and services to customer that helps the customer to evaluate various needs within customer’s organization that helping them to achieve strategic objectives and also allow them to see the net benefit of project by buying the products and services that we are selling in a measurable terms at project level as well as company level. Underlying requirement to be able to help the customer to make the right decision is to be able to understand their pain points and needs to improve business and operations efficiency.
Teaming
I have revisited Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument that we have gone through in our training, as part of my research for material for my paper. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is the world's best-selling instrument for understanding how different conflict-handling styles affect personal and group dynamics and for learning how to select the most appropriate style for a given situation. The TKI assessment is a key tool for managers, team leaders, and human resource experts to safely open a productive dialogue about conflict.
[Reference: http://www.i-leadonline.com/tkiinfo.asp ]
This instrument is designed to measure a person's behavior in conflict situations. "Conflict situations" are those in which the concerns of two people appear to be incompatible. In such situations, we can describe an individual's behavior along two basic dimensions: (1) assertiveness, the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy his own concerns, and (2) cooperativeness, the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy the other person's concerns.
[Reference: http://www.kilmann.com/conflict.html ]
These two basic dimensions of behavior define five different modes for responding to conflict situations:
- Competing
- Accommodating
- Avoiding
- Collaborating
- Compromising
TKI is view as a tool to resolve conflict between 2 individuals, according to the behavior demonstrated by the individual; however this is also an indicator the leadership style that the person can perform best. I vaguely can remember who are those categorized in other behavior modes however participants (Nui, Thao and Pak Gatot) with Competing Mode during the training has demonstrated their leadership style throughout the progress the delivery process of our project as assertive as defined by TKI - Competing means "standing up for your rights," defending a position which you believe is correct, or simply trying to win, win for the team.
TRANSFORMERS have the blend of all the behaviors as defined by TKI whereby situational leadership style can best be demonstrated. Disregards of the Program Manager and Project Managers that we have nominated, selected or volunteered as the lead for the program, there will be player or team member emerged as leader automatically based on the behavior according to the situation or the teaming stage as defined by Tuckman’s team development model took place. TRANSFORMERS is a good team setup that the team members can learn from each other in term of PM knowledge from diverse industries, technical knowledge and best practices from different industries, countries, cultures, up-bringing and also leadership style that best fit to the situation or different stage of the teaming.
# posted by Lau @ 11/27/2009 12:16:00 AM 
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Good posting, Lau. As this is the topic for your paper, exactly what SPECIFIC recommendations do you have for your Program and Project Managers at this point?
While it is obvious you are doing your research, I am hoping/expecting to see evidence that you are putting the theory to work to solve real problems.
As this team is doing so well in some regards and so poorly in others, what do you have to offer them for advice and guidance?
BR,
Dr. PDG, Jakarta
While it is obvious you are doing your research, I am hoping/expecting to see evidence that you are putting the theory to work to solve real problems.
As this team is doing so well in some regards and so poorly in others, what do you have to offer them for advice and guidance?
BR,
Dr. PDG, Jakarta
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