BSc (Hons) Real Estate Management & Development

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT (Part 1)6506BEKL

ASSIGNMENT SM01 (No. 1)1. Critically review management functionsin managing projects.2. Training and development process carried out by companies.

Assessment RequirementsandStudent Checklist

Name:Chung Vui Hsiung

Student ID:(Imperia/LJMU)1006540/670078

Lecturer:Pn. Rosita Arman Michael Anniah

End date:9th March 2015

Table of ContentTable of ContentsQuestion 13-8Question 29-12Reference13

Question 1According to Certo (1997), management can be defined as a process to accomplish organizational goals by working with humans and other organizational resources. According to Bin (2008), management as a discipline refers to an area of knowledge that attempts to investigate methods to properly manage an organization. This is because management can come from various approaches that is best suited for certain types of organization. For an organization to utilize management, it is important that every organization needs to establish goals and objectives in order to compete and stay relevant and existing in the industry (Bin, 2008). The quality of the projects these organization undertakes are heavily dependent on how the management is carried out and whether the function of management is acknowledged and utilized properly. It remains a valid point that management as a process involves several work activities and functions that must be followed and completed by every managers in order to achieve goals that were set by the organizations (Bin, 2008). As someone who takes up the leading role, it is the duty of managers to utilize management principles to guide the employees and staffs in carrying out the management process (Bin, 2008). The functions of management for projects can be divided to 4 parts, which are planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

Firstly, for planning, it involves the process of forming organizational goals and objectives that are based on a logical plan (Bin, 2008). This is the basic foundation that needs to be established in order to form a proper management for project. In this stage, the management will first set up goals and the relevant procedures that are required to achieve existing goals taking into consideration the available resources within the organization. Planning requires that managers be consistently aware of any environmental conditions that are facing their organization and are also able to forecast conditions in the future (Mason Carpenter, 2015). Project managers are also required to be capable of making good decisions in this management stage (planning). Otherwise, a badly thought out plan will jeopardize the entire management process and may negatively affect the outcome of the project, be it in terms of quality or quantity or both depending on its nature.

There are several steps that planning is consist of. Planning begins with environment scanning that means that the managers or planners have to be aware of any critical contingencies that are or potentially affecting his or her organization (Mason Carpenter, 2015). The contingencies may come in the form of economic conditions, competitors or customers. Planners must be capable of forecasting future conditions. This is because should these contingencies arises, there has to be a contingency plan concocted in order to tackle the arising problem. Otherwise, the loss would be greater if the contingencies affect the organization in the future but with no ample preparation or anticipation to handle it. As a result, the attempt of creating and implementing proper project management will end up in an eventual failure. To sum up, in this phase, planners or project managers must be able to establish objectives which consists of statements, written or otherwise, of what is required to be achieved and when should it be achieved, identify various alternatives means to achieve the established objectives, make best decisions about the best courses in which that should be taken in order to accomplish objectives, formulating plans necessary along with ensuring that implementation is conducted effectively, and constantly evaluating their plan and take corrective measures where necessary (Mason Carpenter, 2015).

There are 3 types of planning which can be applied for projects by project managers, the first being strategic planning where it involves the analysis of both competitive opportunities and threats along with strength and weaknesses (SWOT Analysis) of a given organization, which will be followed by determining ways to position the organization in order to compete effectively in their current environment (Mason Carpenter, 2015). Generally, strategic planning aims to provide coverage for longer time frame such as 3 years and above. In this planning, usually the entire organization is included within and objectives are formulated taking into consideration the results of SWOT analysis (Mason Carpenter, 2015). This type of planning is suitable for project managers or stakeholders who are intending on producing certain goods which either takes a long time to complete such as property developments or one that needs to maintain or increase sales of product for a long period of time without losing customer base(Eg. Nestle, Milo, KFC, and McDonald). These companies are not looking into short term business but long and lasting relationship with the consumer base and will implement strategic planning to undertake projects in order to ensure that people will still be interested in the products they sell.

The second type of planning used for project is tactical planning. Unlike strategic planning, tactical planning is not targeted for long term usage but for shorter term that usually ranges around one to three years. This type of planning is used to develop concrete and specific means to implement the plan into action. Usually, middle-level managers are engaged in tactical planning (Mason Carpenter, 2015). This planning is useful for preliminary preparations or procedures of a project for three years and below.

The third type of planning is operational planning. Generally, operational planning assumes the existence of organization-wide or subunit goals along with objectives and contains specific ways to achieve them. Operational planning covers a shorter duration than the previous two planning, which is usually 1 year and below. This type of planning is mainly used to develop specific actions or steps that supports both the strategic and tactical plan (Mason Carpenter, 2015). This planning method can be used for laying out the foundation or groundwork for a long term project.

The second part for the function of management is organizing. Organizing involves the effort to coordinate activities that were done by two or more individuals in an organization (Bin, 2008). In other words, organization involves developing an organizational structure as well as allocating human resources to ensure accomplishment of established objectives (Mason Carpenter, 2015). Effort is coordinated through the framework which is the structure of the organization. This done in order to arrange all established actions based on priorities or degree of importance. Should this arrangement not done, more cost in either monetary, energy, labor or time will be incurred by the organization in taking actions towards problem that are not deemed an immediate or great threat which might be incoming within a short period of time. The organization structure is usually represented in a chart which provides a graphical representation of the chain of commands within a given organization (Mason Carpenter, 2015). This is to show the position as well as roles played by every individual within an organization in order to avoid any confusion as to who does what. Decisions made about the structure of an organization is usually referred to as organizational design decisions (Mason Carpenter, 2015). Organizing in a project is important because the process involves deciding how best to departmentalize jobs or roles of every individual into department in order to coordinate actions accordingly. In a project, organizing will save a lot of time as every individual can perform their designated duties and coordinate with each other in order to create a healthy level of productivity. In other words, organizing enables smoothness in an organization. According to Mason Carpenter (2015), traditionally, job design which means process of putting together various elements in order to form a job, taking into consideration organizational and individual worker requirements, was based on the principles of divisions of labor and specialization, which assumed that the more narrow the job content, the more proficient the individual performing the job could be. This is related to organizing as individuals can be delegated to specific and specialized job in order for higher productivity out of the job due to increased proficiency of the worker doing it. In projects, this will allow individuals to perform better in their designated duties. However, there is a drawback for such job design. This is because a job content can be too narrow and specialized. As a result, negative outcomes might be resulted, due to poor job satisfactory among workers as well as organizational commitment who are having to repeat the same specific and specialized work. For projects, a good motivation is required to ensure good work output from all individuals and there needs to be a proper balance between that (good job satisfactory level) and job specification.

The third functions of management are to lead or provide proper or adequate leadership to the organization. According to Bin (2008), leading or leadership is the process of training employees on how to perform their duties in an organization. An organization requires someone who can direct it and all the components within it in order to progress to greater heights than where it is currently. Without a proper direction, an organization will fail to progress with maximum efficiency and productivity and may collapse given time. As leading involves the social and informal sources of influence that a leader uses in order to inspire action taken by others, the managers need to be an effective leaders to ensure their subordinate remain enthusiastic about exerting their efforts to achieve organizational objectives (Mason Carpenter, 2015). In order to achieve that, especially for projects, the managers need to understand the personalities, values, attitudes and emotions of their subordinates. This is because personality research and studies of job attitudes gives useful information as to how managers can effectively lead subordinates (Mason Carpenter, 2015). An undertaking of a project requires managers who can truly take the helm and bring his or her team to exercise the required or additional effort in order to achieve the completion or succession of the project.

The fourth and last function of management is controlling. Controlling or otherwise known as managerial control is the effort from the management in order to ensure that the organization is progressing towards achieving goals based on the developed plans (Mason Carpenter, 2015). Controlling involves the process of ensuring that performance does not deviate from established standards. This is because any work or effort done in a project that does not come hand in hand with existing regulations or plans will act as a detriment to the organizations goals and objectives and may prevent them from being achieved. Controlling consists of 3 steps, which the first one is establishing performance standards, secondly being creating a comparison between current performance against the established standards and the third being taking any corrective actions if deemed necessary (Mason Carpenter, 2015). These 3 steps must be done systematically and orderly so that a performance can be controlled to ensure quality of the outcome of a project. This function is sometimes misunderstood as some may think it implies project managers should attempt to control or manipulate the personalities, attitudes, values or emotions of their subordinates, which is incorrect (Mason Carpenter, 2015). Rather, this function is more focused on the roles of a project manager in taking the appropriate actions in order to ensure that work-related activities by the team members are in consistent with the standards established which will contribute towards the accomplishment of a project, not to mention departmental and organizational objectives (Mason Carpenter, 2015). It is undeniable that controlling requires the existence of plans as planning provides the appropriate standards or objectives. Other than that, controlling also requires a good understanding of where responsibility for deviations from standards lies (Mason Carpenter, 2015). This is related to organizing within the function of management. Despite controlling being often perceived of in terms of financial criteria, managers should also include production and operation processes, procedures for service delivery and compliance with company's policy within the definitions of controlling in management (Mason Carpenter, 2015). This is to ensure that any projects undertaken will have their good quality and quantity (where applicable) ensured.

In conclusion, management is not as simple concept as one may think. It involves several functions in which a lot of effort and performance is being conducted in order to ensure that optimum operation and productivity can be attained when undertaking a project or attempting to achieve goals and objectives. The four functions of management, which is planning, organizing, leadership and controlling are vital in ensuring that management is being performed well. Without one of them, the quality of a project or an undertaking will be compromised. These four functions are harmonious towards one another and each and every one of them needs to be carried out to its optimum level in order to increase productivity, efficiency and quality as well as pushing the organization to greater heights than it was.

Question 2

Training and development process carried out by a company can be defined as a planned effort by a company in order to facilitate employees learning of job-related competencies (Noe, 2010). The outcomes obtained from these trainings include knowledge, skills, or behaviors that will no doubt be critical for a better or/and successful job performance by the trained employee. The purpose of training, according to Noe (2010), is to master the knowledge, behavior and skills that the training program entails and apply them to their day-to-day basis. Such improved application to day-to-day work will no doubt improve efficiency and productivity of the employee, which ultimately benefits the organization in form of reputation and profits. In order for a company to obtain any competitive advantage among other competitors, the training module provided by the organization must involve more than just basic skill development (Noe, 2010). A company must also have a mindset of viewing training as a way to create intellectual capital. Intellectual capital can be categorized under basic skills which are skills required to perform ones job, and advanced skills such as ways to use available and existing technology to share information with other employees. Intellectual capital can be seen as a form of investment by company to produce skilled employees that can take on tasks required to advance the company to higher levels than before.

There are several steps which are deemed necessary in the training process, the first being the need to clearly determine organizational objectives. Training and development cannot occur if the purpose of the training is not made clear and to what goals or objectives the training were to accomplish should it be undertaken by the employees. The training has to allow the employee to perform measures using the skills learned via the training to achieve or at least move towards to achieving objectives set by the company. Should training be conducted but no goals and objectives are established, there will be unnecessary costs incurred in providing training to staffs or employees which will not prove to be productive in the organization. In some cases, those skills which were learnt will barely be used in a day-to-day basis. Should that were to occur, productivity and efficiency will drop down and that will deter the company from progress towards greater heights. In training and development process, valid considerations need to be taken as to the long and short term of the companys objectives as well. This is because both long and short term objectives may constitute different training methods or decisions (to train or not) to all related employees. Determining such factor improves accuracy and relevancy of the training module, if it were to be done.

Secondly, a needs assessment has to be done to determine whether training and development of an employee is required or otherwise. The company is required to define the needs of the company by identifying weak areas where training would prove beneficial (McKay, 2015). The examples of such needs are dependent on the nature of the company itself. For example, there may be a need to develop training modules on how to use machinery, office equipment or a specific process (hard skills), or soft skills such as time management, conflict resolution, harassment and company policies (McKay, 2015). This is important to ensure that the training process that were to be deployed is relevant to the daily works being conducted by the employees.

There is a need to plan the training by identifying individuals or groups that are likely to benefit from it (McKay, 2015). This is to ensure that the proper employees receive the proper training module. It is unlikely that a cleaner in the company will benefit a lot from training on note taking. Certain modules, such as those covering company policies and time management should be given to all employees within the company (McKay, 2015). Such training is important for them to be well aware of the ways to manage time efficiently and the dos and donts in the company. However, more specific skills such as how to use a piece of equipment or perform a specific duty may only provide benefits to the employees whose job coverage are directly impacted by the addition of those knowledge via training (McKay, 2015).

Implementation is an important part in training and development process. There is a need to implement training modules based on the level of importance (McKay, 2015). This is to ensure that resources are allocated based on priority or degree of urgency that the company deems it to be. A proper arrangement on what to be trained and when should it be carried out as well as to who it should be carried out is very important to ensure proper efficiency and lesser costs incurred by avoiding ineffective and unimportant trainings. For example, if customer services or time management is an important issues that needs to be addressed immediately, then it is advisable that training be provided as soon as possible regarding those issues (McKay, 2015). Lesser important trainings can be arrange in a later date depending on its level of importance. Such course of decision making will also promotes proper organizing in a systematically way within a company and will prevent messes throughout.

During training and development process, a professional trainer or experienced employee should be used whereas possible, whether from within the company or outsourcing from a different company (McKay, 2015). This is because the trainers interaction with the audience as well as its way of presentation is important in ensuring the effectiveness of the training module (McKay, 2015). If the person conducting the training process does it poorly, the employees wont be able to learn much from the training module. Worst of all, the training module may backfire if the trainers are poor in presenting their knowledge to other people. This may cause the trainees to perform poorly after the training procedure. This explains why a good and professional trainer is recommended for training process.

In training process, there are different methods that can be employed to train trainees. One example of the methods is presentation where trainees are passive recipients of information such as facts, processes, and problem-solving techniques (Noe, 2010). Another example includes lecture where trainers communicate through spoken words on what they want the trainees to learn. Audiovisual instruction is also a method of training trainees. This method uses overheads, slides or videos. It is important to determine which training method is suitable for which purpose as well as the participants that are expected to benefit from the training module. This is because a certain group of participants might be able to learn way more from a certain method but not so much as with another method.

In conclusion, training and development process is important for the productivity and efficiency of a company. Without training, employees or staffs will be less skilled in a particular skill which may impede their ability to perform well in a given task. This will also cause the company to be unable to utilize higher use of their employee that it could have gotten if training is provided for the staffs. Some may argue that it may cost a lot to provide these training to the staffs, but the outcome may be a lot better than the downside of training. Some companies treats training and development as a form of investment that is believed to provide higher returns in the future, whether it be in form of productivity, efficiency or profitability. Therefore, there is a need to promote proper training and development in order to compete with other companies that are continuously improving as well in order to stay relevant in the market.

ReferencesAnon., n.d. BizMove. [Online] Available at: http://www.bizmove.com/personnel/m4d.htm[Accessed 9 March 2015].

Bin, A. H., 2008. Business Management. Shah Alam: Oxford Hajar Sdn. Bhd..Certo, S. C., 1997. Modern Management. Upper Saddle River: NJ: Prentice Hall.

Mason Carpenter, T. B. B. E., 2015. Principles of Management, v. 1.1. [Online] Available at: http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/6?e=fwk-127512-ch01_s03[Accessed 5 March 2015].

McKay, M., 2015. Chron. [Online] Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/developing-effective-employee-training-program-1181.html[Accessed 9 March 2015].

Noe, R. A., 2010. Employee Training and Development. 5th ed. New York: Paul Ducham.

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