McClelland's Human Motivation Theory

McClelland's Human Motivation Theory is also known as Three Needs Theory, Acquired Needs Theory, Motivational Needs Theory, and Learned Needs Theory.

In the early 1960s, David McClelland built on this work by identifying three motivators that we all have. According to McClelland, these motivators are learned (which is why this theory is sometimes called the Learned Needs Theory).

McClelland says that, regardless of our gender, culture, or age, we all have three motivating drivers, and one of these will be our dominant motivating driver. This dominant motivator is largely dependent on our culture and life experiences.

The three motivators are achievement, affiliation, and power. People will have different characteristics depending on their dominant motivator. These characteristics are as follows:

Dominant Motivator	Characteristics of This Person
Achievement	Has a strong need to set and accomplish challenging goals. Takes calculated risks to accomplish their goals. Likes to receive regular feedback on their progress and achievements. Often likes to work alone.
Affiliation	Wants to belong to the group. Wants to be liked, and will often go along with whatever the rest of the group wants to do. Favors collaboration over competition. Doesn't like high risk or uncertainty.
Power	Wants to control and influence others. Likes to win arguments. Enjoys competition and winning. Enjoys status and recognition.

Those with a strong power motivator are often divided into two groups: personal and institutional. People with a personal power drive want to control others, while people with an institutional power drive like to organize the efforts of a team to further the company's goals. As you can probably imagine, those with an institutional power need are usually more desirable as team members!

McConnell'​s four dimensions of Project Development

According to Steve Mc Connell , there are 4 dimensions , or components that impact development speed of any project. If any or all of the these dimensions can be improved , the development schedule is likewise improved.
The 4 dimensions are
1.       Process
2.       People
3.       Product
4.       Technology

These four dimensions apply in every project , in every industry and in every organization.The obvious but often not recognized solution then would be to examine each of these 4 dimensions and to change those that are adversely affecting the project.

Pareto principle

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Business-management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.

It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients".

Economy of Scale & Economy of Scope

Economy of Scale

Reduction in cost per unit resulting from increased production, realized through operational efficiencies. Economies of scale can be accomplished because as production increases, the cost of producing each additional unit falls.

Economy of Scope

The situation that arises when the cost of performing multiple business functions simultaneously proves more efficient than performing each business function independently

Project Triangle

Pick any TWO.

Peter Principle

An observation that in an organizational hierarchy, every employee will rise or get promoted to his or her level of incompetence. The Peter Principle is based on the notion that employees will get promoted as long as they are competent, but at some point will fail to get promoted beyond a certain job because it has become too challenging for them. Employees rise to their level of incompetence and stay there. Over time, every position in the hierarchy will be filled by someone who is not competent enough to carry out his or her new duties.

Investopedia Says:
The Peter Principle was first observed by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and published in his book "The Peter Principle" in 1968. Dr. Peter also states that a promotion to the higher-ranking job position may not necessarily reveal the employee's incompetence, but rather the new position may require different skills the employee does not possess. Dr. Peter sums up the Peter Principle with the saying: "the cream rises until it sours." The Peter Principal can be a problem for businesses which can be solved through continued education. Even with proper employee training, the Peter Principal predicts the employee will eventually get to a position where they are incompetent because of further promotion.

ERG Theory

To address some of the limitations of Maslow's hierarchy as a theory of motivation, Clayton Alderfer proposed the ERG theory, which like Maslow's theory, describes needs as a hierarchy. The letters ERG stand for three levels of needs: Existence, Relatedness, and Growth. The ERG theory is based on the work of Maslow, so it has much in common with it but also differs in some important aspects.

Similarities to Maslow's Hierarchy

Studies had shown that the middle levels of Maslow's hierarchy have some overlap; Alderfer addressed this issue by reducing the number of levels to three. The ERG needs can be mapped to those of Maslow's theory as follows:

• Existence: Physiological and safety needs
• Relatedness: Social and external esteem needs
• Growth: Self-actualization and internal esteem needs

Like Maslow's model, the ERG theory is hierarchical - existence needs have priority over relatedness needs, which have priority over growth.

 

Ansoff's matrix

To portray alternative corporate growth strategies, Igor Ansoff presented a matrix that focused on the firm's present and potential products and markets (customers). By considering ways to grow via existing products and new products, and in existing markets and new markets, there are four possible product-market combinations. Ansoff's matrix is shown below:
 

	Existing Products	New Products
Existing Markets	Market Penetration	Product Development
New Markets	Market Development	Diversification

Ansoff's matrix provides four different growth strategies:

• Market Penetration - the firm seeks to achieve growth with existing products in their current market segments, aiming to increase its market share.
• Market Development - the firm seeks growth by targeting its existing products to new market segments.
• Product Development - the firms develops new products targeted to its existing market segments.
• Diversification - the firm grows by diversifying into new businesses by developing new products for new markets.

Miranda warning ( Miranda right )

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

The Miranda warning (also referred to as Miranda rights) is a warning given by police in the United States to criminal suspects in police custody (or in a custodial interrogation) before they are interrogated to preserve the admissibility of their statements against them in criminal proceedings. In other words, a Miranda warning is a prophylactic criminal procedure rule that law enforcement is required to administer in order to protect an individual who is in custody and subject to direct questioning or its functional equivalent from a violation of his or her Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination.
In Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court held that the admission of elicited incriminating statement by a suspect not informed of these rights violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Thus, if law enforcement officials decline to offer a Miranda warning to an individual in their custody, they may still interrogate that person and act upon the knowledge gained, but may not use that person's statements to incriminate him or her in a criminal trial.

Social engineering

Social engineering is essentially the art of gaining access to buildings, systems or data by exploiting human psychology, rather than by breaking in or using technical hacking techniques. For example, instead of trying to find a software vulnerability, a social engineer might call an employee and pose as an IT support person, trying to trick the employee into divulging his password.

Famous hacker Kevin Mitnick helped popularize the term 'social engineering' in the '90s, although the idea and many of the techniques have been around as long as there have been scam artists of any sort.

Liquidated Damages Clause in Contract

Liquidated Damages (LD) : It is a contract provision that establishes a predetermined award if a party fails to perform as promised.LD can only be compensatory damages – to make the injured party whole again. If they are disproportionately large , they are unenforceable. LD are the damages that are reimbursed on a set value .

For example , say that SOS had a penalty of 1000$ per day for late delivery.If a supplier delivered material to SOS 8 days late and caused SOS to be late and have an 8000$ penalty , SOS could go after the supplier for the 8000$ - but no more.An amount higher than 8000$ would be considered punitive damages .Punitive damages that are meant to punish the offender for egregious behavior .They are not normally awarded under contract law.

Liquidated damages and penalty share a common feature that both are payable on the occurrence of a breach of contract. The parties to a contract may provide in advance the amount of compensation payable in the case of failure to perform the contract. The sum so fixed may be either liquidated damages or penalty However, the main difference then is:-

Liquidated Damages
Where the amount is fixed and genuine pre-estimate of the loss in cases of breach, it is liquidated damages.

Penalty

If the amount is fixed and is without any regard to probable loss, but is intended to frighten the party and to prevent him from committing breach it is a penalty and is not allowed.

Abilene paradox ( Journey to Abilene )

The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group.
 It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group's and, therefore, does not raise objections. A common phrase relating to the Abilene paradox is a desire to not "rock the boat".

Summary of Abilene paradox :

Organizations frequently take actions in contradiction to what they really want to do and therefore defeat the very purposes they are trying to achieve.

Philtrum - Human Body Part

that little indent under your nose isn’t there to make it difficult to apply lipstick in the dark, but it doesn’t serve any other purpose either. The indent, called the philtrum, is just a residual reminder of your time in the womb: in utero, the two sides of your face develop independent of one another, then join at the middle. When the two sides fail to fuse properly, the result is a cleft palate, which occurs in about 1 of every 750 births. Ancient Romans found the philtrum erotic, and named that lipstick-thwarting dip in the upper lip “Cupid’s Bow.” In fact, the word philtrum comes from a Greek term meaning “love potion.”

 

BoilerPlate

A “boilerplate” in the marketing, public relations and journalism world refers to an organization’s standard description that is used repeatedly without change.

One usually can count on finding it on a website’s “About” page or at the end of a news release.  boilerplate is usually found at the end of a press release, and briefly describes the company or organization related above. The short paragraph consisting of just a few sentences concisely explains the company or organization. The same boilerplate is usually used on every press release the company releases. It is important to remember boilerplates should be up to date, clearly written and short in length!

This one paragraph (sometimes two or three, unfortunately) is likely the single piece of company writing that receives the broadest exposure across an organization’s many publics.

Wikipedia Definition :-

Boilerplate is any text that is or can be reused in new contexts or applications without being changed much from the original.

Pygmalion effect - power of expectations

We can summarize the Pygmalion effect, often known as the power of expectations, by considering:

• Every supervisor has expectations of the people who report to him.
• Supervisors communicate these expectations consciously or unconsciously.
• People pick up on, or consciously or unconsciously read, these expectations from their supervisor.
• People perform in ways that are consistent with the expectations they have picked up on from the supervisor.

The Pygmalion effect was described by J. Sterling Livingston in the September/October, 1988 Harvard Business Review. "The way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them," Livingston said in his article, Pygmalion in Management.

The Pygmalion effect enables staff to excel in response to the manager’s message that they are capable of success and expected to succeed. The Pygmalion effect can also undermine staff performance when the subtle communication from the manager tells them the opposite. These cues are often subtle. As an example, the supervisor fails to praise a staff person's performance as frequently as he praises others. The supervisor talks less to a particular employee.

Livingston went on to say about the supervisor, "If he is unskilled, he leaves scars on the careers of the young men (and women), cuts deeply into their self-esteem and distorts their image of themselves as human beings. But if he is skillful and has high expectations of his subordinates, their self-confidence will grow, their capabilities will develop and their productivity will be high. More often than he realizes, the manager is Pygmalion."

Can you imagine how performance will improve if your supervisors communicate positive thoughts about people to people? If the supervisor actually believes that every employee has the ability to make a positive contribution at work, the telegraphing of that message, either consciously or unconsciously, will positively affect employee performance.

And, the effect of the supervisor gets even better than this. When the supervisor holds positive expectations about people, she helps individuals improve their self-concept and thus, self-esteem. People believe they can succeed and contribute and their performance rises to the level of their own expectations.

Student Syndrome

Student syndrome refers to the phenomenon that many people will start to fully apply themselves to a task just at the last possible moment before a deadline. This leads to wasting any buffers built into individual task duration estimates.

It was noted by Eliyahu M. Goldratt in his novel-style book about Critical Chain, titled Critical Chain.

Economics - One line definition

Economics is the study of how society allocates its limited resources to satisfy the unlimited wants of the society.

Vox Populi

Vox populi , a Latin phrase that literally means voice of the people, is a term often used in broadcasting for interviews with members of the "general public".

RFX ( RFI , RFP , RFQ , RFB)

An open Request for Information (RFI) is a way for buyers to gather information about prospective suppliers and the items they can provide. Buyers often use the information gathered by an RFI as input for designing a future sourcing activity, as an initial stage of a multistage RFX activity. Valuable information for a buyer could include the number of sellers interested, specific seller identities, and how well sellers match or might change details about the items being sought (as specified by term values accompanying their responses).

Most RFIs are typically designed as a questionnaire for suppliers to complete (at the RFX Info page when preparing their response). Often, specific items are not identified in the RFI, or if they are, the buyer wants suppliers to select only items they are interested in, without entering prices, quantities, or any other specific item terms. If multiple line items are sought in the RFI, a supplier's response must include all items.

A buyer initiates the RFI, seeking responses from potential suppliers. A supplier's bid in an RFI is called a response, but the process of submitting a response is the same as placing a bid in most other RFX activities because it uses the bid process to help the supplier.

The Request for Quote (RFQ) and Request for Bid (RFB) are similar RFX types, operating in much the same way. The main difference is the action in the two types is switched, reversing the roles of the owner and participants:

RFQ is a buy-side RFX type. The owner is a buyer, and participants are potential suppliers.

RFB is a sell-side RFX type. The owner is a seller, and participants are potential customers.

A Request for Proposals (RFP) is an RFX type designed to collect information in the form of responses from suppliers. Proposal collection is typically a sealed process, where participants know very little if anything about other participants and the proposals they submit.

Like RFIs, RFPs often include an RFX Info section describing the buyer's specific business scenario and the needs the buyer wants to solve. This RFX Info section typically also contains a questionnaire, sometimes very extensive, which the buyer uses to determine the capabilities and flexibility of potential suppliers.

Google ncr page

Google likes to redirect users to regional google page. This explains how to reset your google to the US version.

f google thinks you are from a foreign country or region, it likes to redirect you to your regional google page. For most people, this makes sense. However, if you prefer the generic, english, plain version, this would be very annoying.

This worked for me.

1. Open IE
2. Clear your cookies.
3. Allow your system to accept cookies.
4. Navigate to: http://www.google.com/ncr

the “ncr” stands for “no country redirect.”

Planking

Planking is the act of lying facedown for a photograph. The term planking originated from Australia but is actually just another name for 'the lying down game' .

The specific instructions: to put your body face down to the ground (or table, or object, or anything) with your arms to the side.

You get creativity points for planking in odd places like trees branches. Or escalators. Or animals! Or balls. The more wild you get, the 'better' the picture will be.

Kaizen

Kaizen comes from two words: kai, which means “to change,” and zen, which means “good or for the better.” Together, the words mean continuous change for the better, which many readers will recognize as continuous improvement. The philosophy of kaizen is straightforward. It requires that everyone in the organization be involved in the improvement process-executives, management, supervisors, and workers. This process has been immortalized in Deming’s plan-do-check-act cycle of continuous improvement, which is the backbone of many quality systems in use today.

SCRUM

Scrum is a "lean" approach to software development. The term Scrum comes from a 1986 study [1] by Takeuchi and Nonaka that was published in the Harvard Business Review. In that study, Takeuchi and Nonaka note that projects using small, cross-functional teams historically produce the best results. They write that these high-performing teams were like the Scrum formation in Rugby. When Jeff Sutherland developed the Scrum process at Easel Corporation in 1993, he used their study as the basis for team formation and adopted their analogy as the name of the process as a whole.

Scrum is a simple framework used to organize teams and get work done more productively with higher quality. It allows teams to choose the amount of work to be done and decide how best to do it, thereby providing a more enjoyable and productive working environment. Scrum focuses on prioritizing work based on business value, improving the usefulness of what is delivered, and increasing revenue, particularly early revenue. Designed to adapt to changing requirements during the development process at short, regular intervals, Scrum allows teams to prioritize customer requirements and adapt the work product in real time to customer needs. By doing this, Scrum provides what the customer wants at the time of delivery (improving customer satisfaction) while eliminating waste (work that is not highly valued by the customer).

Paralingual communication

Paralingual communication is the tone and pitch of your voice when you’re talking to people. If you sound anxious or upset, that will have an impact onthe way people take the news you are giving. You use paralingual communicationall the time—it’s a really important part of how you communicate. When your toneof voice makes it clear you’re really excited about something, or if you’re speakingsarcastically, that’s paralingual communication in action. paralingual communications.

Paralingual describes the pitch, tone, and inflections in the speaker's voice that affect the message

SOPA & PIPA

SOPA is an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act, and is a bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives by Represenative Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011.

SOPA, if passed, will work in conjunction with PIPA. As described by such entities as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, SOPA is nothing more so than the U.S. government and private corporations black list.

PIPA is an acronym for the Protect IP Act, and was first introduced to the U.S. Senate on May 12, 2011 by Senators Patrick Leahy, Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley.

PIPA, if passed, will give  U.S. corporations and the government the right to seek affirmative legal action with any website that they see as enabling copyright infringement weather of U.S. origin or not. 

BCG Matrix or the Growth-Share Matrix

The BCG Matrix, the Growth-Share Matrix and Portfolio Analysis

The origin of the Boston Matrix lies with the Boston Consulting Group in the early 1970s. It was devised as a clear and simple method for helping corporations decide which parts of their business they should allocate their available cash to. Following the credit crunch, this is newly important in some sectors because of the limited availability of credit.

However, the Boston Matrix is also a good tool for thinking about where to apply other finite resources: people, time and equipment.

The Boston Matrix categorizes opportunities into four groups, shown on axes of Market Growth and Market Share:

These groups are explained below:

Dogs: Low Market Share / Low Market Growth
In these areas, your market presence is weak, so it's going to take a lot of hard work to get noticed. You won't enjoy the scale economies of the larger players, so it's going to be difficult to make a profit. And because market growth is low, it's going to take a lot of hard work to improve the situation.

Cash Cows:
High Market Share / Low Market Growth
Here, you're well-established, so it's easier to get attention and exploit new opportunities. However it's only worth expending a certain amount of effort, because the market isn't growing, and your opportunities are limited.

Stars:
High Market Share / High Market Growth
Here you're well-established, and growth is exciting! There should be some strong opportunities here, and you should work hard to realize them.

Question Marks (Problem Child):
Low Market Share / High Market Growth
These are the opportunities no one knows what to do with. They aren't generating much revenue right now because you don't have a large market share. But, they are in high growth markets so the potential to make money is there.

Question Marks might become Stars and eventual Cash Cows, but they could just as easily absorb effort with little return. These opportunities need serious thought as to whether increased investment is warranted.

Pomodoro Time Management Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute intervals called 'Pomodoros' (from the Italian word for 'tomatoes') separated by breaks. Closely related to concepts such as timeboxing and iterative and incremental development used in software design, the method has been adopted in pair programming contexts. The method is based on the idea that frequent breaks can improve mental agility.

There are five basic steps to implementing the technique:
  1) decide on the task to be done
  2) set the pomodoro (timer) to 25 minutes
  3) work on the task until the timer rings; record with an x
  4) take a short break (5 minutes)
  5) every four "pomodoros" take a longer break (15–20 minutes)