Exam Review Flashcards
What are the four types of engineering managers?
- Project Manager:
- Facility Manager:
- Leader / Strategist
- Consultant
What is project management?
The application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills, and experience to achieve the project objectives.
What is Facility Management?
The practice of coordinating the physical workplace with the people and the work of the organization.
What is leadership?
Leadership: the process of influencing people to accomplish the targets, inspiring their commitments, and improving the organization.
What is Strategic Management?
Strategic management is a disciplined effort that produces priorities, fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, etc…
Define McFarland’s management
Historically, “to handle” or “the process of training or directing”.
- An organizational or administrative process.
- A science, discipline, or art
- The group of people running an organization
- An occupational career
What are the 3 levels of management?
- First-Line
- Middle
- Top
What is a First-Line Manager?
Responsible for carrying out plans and objectives from higher management, assign tasks to workers, and supervise work.
Make short-range operations plans
Foreman, supervisor, etc…
What is a Middle Manager?
Establish department policies, evaluate the performance of subordinates, and provide integration and coordination function
Make plans for the intermediate range
Plant manager, operating manager, etc…
What is a Top Manager?
Define the character and mission and objectives of the enterprise, and evaluate the performance of the major departments.
Establish criteria for and review long range plans
CEO, V.P., etc…
What are Fayol’s five elements of management?
- Planning
- Organization
- Commanding
- Coordinating
- Controlling
What are Mintzberg’s three managerial roles?
- Interpersonal: Figurehead, leader, liaison
- Informational: Monitor, disseminator, spokesperson
- Decisional: Entrepreneurial, disturbance, resource, negotiator
What is a paradigm? What is a paradigm shift?
A typical example.
To accept something new as the norm
What are paradigm shifts in management caused by?
- Organizational and technological changes
- Changing relations in service and production
- Globalization
- Changing conceptions of time and space
- Changing demographics
- Changing values
What is an organization?
Goal-oriented collectives, in which we are organized. To be organized means being an elements in a systematic arrangement of parts creating a unified, organic whole.
Name some characteristics of an organization
- It has a design expressed through its routine practices and structure
- Always changing (as future unfolds, redefine actions, roles, etc…, through change management)
- Future-oriented
- Hierarchy and division of labour
- Defined actions, roles and responsibilities
What are the five types of organizational rules?
- Formal
- Professional
- Legal
- Standards
- Informal
What is sensemaking?
A managerial term for the phenomenon of us always attempting to make sense of everything around us.
Occurs within an ideology that rationalizes decisions made to suit the goal of that ideology (unionism assumes decisions are made in the best interest of employees; stakeholders assume decisions are made for maximum profitability)
What are some characteristics of sensemaking?
- Ongoing
- Retrospective (review what sense we make with additional data)
- Plausible (not perfect sense, but provisional sense)
- Images (work with representations of things)
- Rationalize
- People (People who do sensemaking)
- Doing (thinking and action define one another)
What is framing?
The practice of removing unimportant details and focusing on the important stuff that managers do
What is organizational behaviour?
Concerned with individual, group, and organizational-level processes and practices that inhibit or enable organizational performance
Involves understanding, researching, and addressing phenomena from a multidisciplinary perspective
What is Nature? What is Nurture? What is the debate?
Nature: Is human personality, cognition, and behaviour genetic or preprogrammed?
Nurture: Is human personality, cognition and behaviour learned or socialized?
What is perception?
The process of receiving, attending to, processing, storing, and using stimuli to understand and make sense of our world.
Stimuli are experiences through any and all of these senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch)
What are schemas?
Sets of cognitive constructs developed through social interactions that organize thoughts, feelings, and attentions
Are used to structure and organize info that we experience in our social world and often hierarchical
Name the 5 types of schemas
Person schemas: forms the ideal that a person strives to be
Self-schemas
Social schemas
Role schemas
Script schemas: The instructions to do anything and everything
Name and define the five types of errors in perception
Stereotyping: grouping objects into simplistic categories based on generalizations
Self-fulfilling prophecy: a belief that comes true because people behave as if it is true
Halo effect: ascribing positive characteristics to a person formed in one situation to other situations
Devil effect: Ascribing negative characteristics to a person formed in one situation to that person in other situations
Attribution errors: How people attribute cause to their own and other’s behaviours
Name the three types of attribution errors
Fundamental attribution error: Using internal attributions when explaining the cause of behaviours of others
Self-serving bias: Success is due to internal causes / failures are due to external causes
Cognitive dissonance: Discomfort caused by holding inconsistent and conflicting sets of cognition
What are values? What are trans-situational values? What are value priorities?
A set of beliefs and goals that serve as guiding principles in one’s life
Trans-situational values: Values that are consistent and stable across situations
Value priorities: The order of values in terms of importance to one’s life
What are Schwartz’s 10 value types?
Achievement: Valuing of personal success by demonstrating one’s competence according to social standards
Benevolence: Preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent contact
Conformity: Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses that are likely to upset or harm others and that might violate social expectations or norms
Hedonism: Pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself
Power: One’s social status and prestige, control, or dominance over people and resources
Security: Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self
Self-direction: Independent thought and action
Stimulation: Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life
Tradition: Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provides
Universalism: Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature
Define personality
Stable patterns of behaviour and internal states of mind that help explain a person’s behavioural tendencies
What are the four top personality theories and their founders?
Trait theory (e.g. McCrae and Costa) - Big Five
Socio-cognitive theory (Bandura)
- Reciprocal determinism
- Locus of control
Psychoanalytic theory (Freud)
Humanist theory (Rogers)
What is the hierarchy of needs?
Self-actualization Esteem needs Belongingness and love Safety Physiological needs
Describe the theory of positive psychology and state how it is applied to management
The study, research, and theorizing of the psychological bases for leading the best life possible through positive thinking, feelings, and behaviour
Applied to management: positive psychology seeks to understand and to foster civic virtues, social responsibility, altruism, tolerance, happiness, and psychological well-being
Define ‘emotions’
Feelings in response or expectation to an object or event
What is emotional intelligence?
The capacity to recognize our own emotions and the emotions of others
The ability to manage our emotions in our relationships with others
What is affected forecasting?
Decisions made in the present based on feelings forecasted into the future
Impact bias is overestimated intensity in affective forecasting
What is a group?
Two or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal.
Two or more people with a common relationship
Name and define the types of groups
Formal work groups: Groups that are established by organizations to facilitate the achievement of organizational goals
Informal groups: groups that naturally emerge in response to the common interests of organizational members
Name and define the five stages of group development
Forming: the situation is ambiguous and members are aware of their dependency on each other
Storming: Conflicts often emerge as roles and responsibilities are sorted out
Norming: Members resolve the issues provoked by storming and develop social agreement
Performing: The group devotes its energies towards task accomplishment
Adjourning: Characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather than task performance
What is a role? What are role expectations?
Role: A set of expected behaviour patterns associated with someone occupying a given position in the unit.
Role expectations: How others believe a person within a specific role should act in a given situation
Name and define the four types of role issues
Role Conflict: An individual is confronted by divergent role expectations
Role Ambiguity: A person is unclear about his or her role
Role Overload: Too much is expected of someone
Role Underload: Too little is expected of someone and that person feels that he or she is not contributing to the group
What are norms? What do norms define?
Norms: Acceptable standards of behaviour within a group that are shared by the group’s members
Norms define: Performance Appearance Social arrangement: how team members interact Allocation of resources
What is a team? How do teams differ from groups?
What is a team? A group of people who have different talents and are often assigned different tasks, but who work together towards a common goal through meshing of functions and mutual support
Teams differ from groups because a team is psychologically contracted together to achieve common goals, and share responsibility and accountability for outcomes
Name the 4 types of teams
Problem-solving / Process-improvement
Self-managed / Self-directed
Cross-functional
Virtual: uses computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal
Name and define the 10 team roles
Process managers: Leaders of the team
Conceptual thinkers: source of new and original ideas
Radicals: do not accept conventional thinking and solutions, bring an unusual perspective to problem-solving
Technicians: specialists on the subject being considered
Harmonizers: main aim is to ensure there is a sense of harmony between team members
Planners or implementers: Drive for completion of team goals
Facilitators: Provide support wherever needed
Critical observers: Look for problems, advise caution
Politicians or power-seekers: influence team members into their way of thinking, responsible for shaping the team’s views
Salespeople or diplomats: Provide a link between the team and other teams
What is the objective of delegating?
To improve manager’s overall efficiency by selectively distributing work for employees to do
What type of work can be delegated?
Problems/issues requiring exploration
Activities coming within the job scope of the employee
Tasks promoting employee development and growth
Activities that would save manager’s time
What type of work should NOT be delegated?
Planning Morale problems Coaching Performance reviews Manager’s own assignments from upper management Pet projects
Name and define the three stages in team forming
Drifting: Individuals come together and define roles
Gelling: Like-minded individuals form small groups, team identity is developed under an unofficial leader
Unison: Whole team is behaving as a single, highly-organized body under a single leade
What is team conflict? When can it occur?
Conflict refers to one or more people, groups, or entities perceiving that their interests are or will be negatively affected by the interests of others
Conflict may occur when people what the same thing, but access to that same-thing is limited
Conflict may occur because parties may actually want different things
Conflict can be functional or dysfunctional
Name the five methods of conflict management. What kind of resolution is achieved with each?
Collaborative: Seek win/win solution
Avoiding: Lose-lose position because nothing is resolved
Forcing: win/lose outcome
Accommodating: lose/win outcome
Compromise: Both parties win a little or lose a little
What are the 7 Deadly INs?
Toxic Handling of Organizational Conflict
Intention to cause pain Incompetence Infidelity Insensitivity Intrusion Institutional forces Inevitability
What is creativity?
The ability to produce new and useful results, usually though new developments or novel applications of known facts
What is planning?
1 - A primacy function of management
2 - Provides a method of identifying objects and designing a sequence of programs and activities to achieve these objectives.
3 - Amos and Sarchet: Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who to do it.
4 - The work done to predetermine a course of action, in order to provide focus and direction for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the company
What three reasons make planning necessary?
Technology
Environment
Organization
What are the two types of planning?
Strategic planning: Defines future activities that are worth doing by the unit/company, to which the company applies its resources effectively to achieve short-term and long-term goals
Operational Planning: Defines tasks / events to be accomplished with the least amount of resources, within the shortest time, to assure that the company applies its resources efficiently to achieve its short-term and long-term goals
Name the stages of the product life cycle and how sales change throughout the cycle
Entry → Growth → Saturation → Decline
Sales increase from Entry to Saturation and decrease from Saturation to Decline
What is a mission and a mission statement?
Mission: Why do we exist, whom are we serving, what do we do to serve them?
Mission statement: what the company is now
What is a vision and vision statement?
Vision: Company aspiration
Vision statement: what the company would like to be
Name some tools of Strategic Planning
SWOT analysis Sensitivity analysis External benchmarking Technology forecasting Product lifecycle analysis
What is the purpose of SWOT analysis?
For determining the current status and success of the business at this point
What does SWOT stand for?
Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats
What is GAP analysis?
To analyze where you are now (from SWOT) against where you would like to be in the future
Name some tools for Operational Planning
Project management
Action planning
Design, test, and analysis procedures
Operational guidelines
What are the different types of Performance Metrics?
Customer-related Process-related Financial Employee-related Competition-related
What are the four planning activities?
Forecasting
Action Planning
Issuing policies
Establishing procedures
What is forecasting and what is its purpose?
Forecasting: To estimate and predict future conditions and events
Purpose of forecasting:
Set bounds for possibilities to help focus on specifics
Form basis for setting objectives
Promote inter-group coordination
Provide basis for resources allocation
Induce innovation through forecasted needs
What is action planning? What is the action planning process?
The process of establishing specific objectives, action steps, and a schedule and budget related to a predetermined program, task, or project
Action Planning Process: 1 - Analyze critical needs 2 - Set objectives 3 - Define KPIs 4 - Specify action steps 5 - Determine dates of task initiation and completion 6 - Develop a budget
From the APP, how to analyze critical needs and what are some different types of critical needs?
How to analyze critical needs?
Needs are to be defined with respect to position charter, duties, management expectations, and company goals
Types of Critical Needs: Development Maintenance Deficiency Strategic Long-term / short-term
From the APP, how to set objectives?
Objectives are set to satisfy the critical needs
Objectives need to be specific and measurable
From the APP, how to define metrics?
Metrics are what takes to measure the attainment of the objectives
Metrics need to quantitative
Must be defined with the doer’s participation and consent
From the APP, how to specify action steps?
List major action steps, identify work contents, define sequential relationship between steps, determine resource requirements for each, specify expected results, and assign people to each action step
Evaluate risk for completing the steps planned, define contingencies to manage risk
From the APP, how to determine a schedule?
Determine dates of initiation and completion of each task
Allow scheduling flexibility (slag)
Focus on management of critical path tasks
From the APP, how to develop a budget?
Determine the basic resource units to accomplish each step
Define other resources
Review action steps, to see if projected cost exceeds value expected
What are policies, what is their purpose, and name some characteristics of policies
Policies are directives, promulgated to address repetitive questions and issues of general concern (ex: firing policy)
Purpose of policies:
Save management time
Capture the distilled experience and past learning of the company
Facilitate delegation
Characteristics of Policies:
Applied uniformly
Relatively permanent
Foster corporate objectives
What are procedures? Why are procedures important?
Procedures are standardized methods of doing work
Importance of procedures: Preserve the best way to perform repetitive work Provide the basis for method-improvement Insure standardized action Simplify training Save corporate memory
What is the process for developing procedures?
Concentrate on critical eeds Chart the work Review the work Propose procedure Improve procedures Formulate / Communicate procedures
What are some ingredients of good planning?
Assumptions People Benefit vs. Cost Small, but Sure Steps Change in Future Commitment
Why set goals?
Concentrate your efforts
Increase motivation and enthusiasm
Set priorities
Define urgent vs. important
Urgent: Time-rushed, but not critical (you have to answer the phone right away, regardless of who is on the other line).
Important: Meaning on what you want to achieve
What are some reasons for not achieving a goal?
Goals are unrealistic
Circumstances change
Being too consumed by a single goal
Name the three questions to answer when setting a goal:
WHAT do I want to accomplish?
WHY do I want to accomplish this?
HOW am I going to do it?
Name some characteristics of effective weekly goals
Have to be driven by conscience
Are goals you feel positive about
Important, not necessarily urgent
Reflect our four basic needs and capacities
Are in our center of focus
Are either determinations or concentrations
For goal-setting, what are the four basic needs?
Physical dimension
Spiritual dimension
Social dimension
Mental dimension
What is the center of focus?
Within our center of influence and within our center of concern
What is a determination? What is a concentration?
Determinations: Things you are determined to do no matter what
Concentrations: Things where you want to focus your time and energy
What are SMART goals?
Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Time-Bound
What is the goal cycle?
Organize → Act → Evaluate
Define empowerment. When does empowerment occur?
Sharing your power with people over whom you have power.
Empowerment occurs when team members are given authority to make decisions that were previously reserved for managers
Name the Three Pluses of empowerment
Ideas: Two heads are better than one philosophy. Empowerment solicits input from team members
Synergism: One idea sparking a new idea in another member, etc…
Ownership: Team members identify with the project and become committed to its success
Name two reasons why someone may not want to be empowered
Empowerment forces them to change their routine
Does not fully understand their new roles
Name two methods to encourage empowerment
Train team members in methods for generating ideas (brainstorming)
Get underway slowly
Define entrepreneurship
A person who undertakes and operates a new venture, and assumes accountability for the inherent risks
An individual who sees an opportunity that others do not and marshalls the resources to exploit it
Name some motivations to become an entrepreneur
To be independent
To choose the nature of your occupation
To earn more money
To meet familial commitments
What are the four theories of entrepreneurship?
Richard Cantillon (1755): Arbitrage and the bearing of uncertainty
Jean-Baptiste Say (1828): Co-ordination of factors of production
Joesef Schumpter (1934 - 1939): Innovation
Leibenstein (1968): Leadership and Motivation
Name some psychological traits of entrepreneurs
Need for achievement Creativity Perseverance Optimism Independence
Can entrepreneurship be taught?
Currently, there are university programs that offer entrepreneurship classes
Historically, it was a born-trait
Only by doing can one become an entrepreneur
Instructors in entrepreneurship can only assist you
Failure / Success of Entrepreneurship depends on: Personal skills, experience, timing, and luck
Define organizing
Arrange and relate the work, so that it can be done efficiently by people.
Name some benefits of organizing
Ensure that important work is done Provide continuity Form basis for salary administration Aid delegation Promote growth and diversification Encourage teamwork Stimulate creativity
What is organizational structure?
Organizing involves defining activities that are necessary to achieve planned goals or objectives, obtaining resources, establishing informal- and reporting relationships among people, and allocating planning sub-goals to those people
Define contingency and state how it comes about. What do contingencies have to do with organization?
Contingency: something that management cannot avoid
Contingencies arise from routines, rather than emergencies, as facts of organizational life, and have to be acknowledged and dealt with.
Different organizations face different contingencies; how they handle these contingencies is reflected in their organizational design
What is Contingency Theory? What are its three key tenets?
Contingency Theory: The dominant theory of organizational design
Key Tenants of Contingency Theory:
Suggests that there are several key contingencies that shape organizations, no matter where in the world they are
The basic idea of contingency approaches is to stress that all organizations have to deal with a predictable number of contingencies
Contingencies will shape the organization’s design as it adapts to them
What are the three assumptions of contingencies?
Environment: The more certain and predictable the environments in which organizations operate, the more probable it is that they will have bureaucratic structures
Technology: As organizations adopt more routinized technologies (that is, technologies with repetition and routines associated with them), they tend to become more bureaucratic
Size: As organizations become bigger, they become more bureaucratic
What are the Six Questions for Organizational Structure, and How is the Answer Provided?
To what degree are tasks subdivided into separated jobs? Work specialization
On what basis will jobs be grouped together? Departmentalization
To whom do individuals and groups report? Chain of command
How many individuals can a manager efficiently and effectively handle? Span of control
Where does the decision-making authority lie? Centralization and decentralization
To what degree will there be rules and regulations to direct employees and managers? Formalization
