Identify and elaborate on one or two lessons you have learned from our study of United States history that affect you today in your daily life and/or work.
Provide advice to the next group of students who will be taking this course.
How has this course affected you today in your daily life and/or work?
What should incoming students be aware of regarding this class?
What strategies did you use that they may find useful?
What advice can you provide to help them earn an A?
CLICK HERE TO MAKE YOUR ORDERon Identify and elaborate on one or two lessons you have learned from our study of United States history that affect you today in your daily life and/or work
answer this question and maximum 550 words per concept and there will be two concept
first concept is 19/90 gap and second one is globalization and course master objectives are
• accurately define the term “social development” and the role of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in shaping social development in a globalized world;
• critically examine the role of human rights in constraining, or advancing, social development;
• research the key social development issues confronting individuals, families, and communities in contemporary societies;
• explore the role of social advertisement and education in promoting social development in Canada and around the world; and
so how does the concept are important to master
• draw from and apply one’s own knowledge and experience in class activities
A) Definition of the concept
its relation to social development
B) The key reason why the concept is important to master course learning objective
C) One academic publication (outside of course textbook) where the concept is used and significance of the concept in the selected publication
D) One non-academic publication where the concept is used and significance of the concept in the selected publication
E) One video where the concept is used and significance of the concept in the selected video
F) One image where the concept is used and significance of the concept in the selected image
G) Personal quote that demonstrate the significance of the concept in practicing social development
H) Borrowed quote that demonstrate the significance of the concept in practicing social development
Air Canada has four competitors. They comprise WestJet, United Airlines, Lufthansa and American Airlines. Calin Rovinescu, the CEO is rated at 80% taking the 1st position. The CEOs of United Airlines and WestJet have a rating of 73%. The CEO of United Airlines takes the second position as his rating is from 173 employees while that of WestJet is from 28 employees. In form of quality of products, Air Canada takes the 2nd position due to a score of 3.7 out of 5 by 11 clients (Leppäjärvi,2018). WestJet takes the first position with a score of 4 out of 5. In form of a net promotion score, Air Canada takes the first position. It is ranked at 67% by 12 customers. Net promotion tracks the score of customers based on how likely they can refer a friend to a particular company. In net promotion, American Airlines takes the 2nd position with 26%. In pricing, Air Canada takes the first position with a score of 4.3 out of 5. The second position is taken by WestJet which has 3.7 out of 5. In form of its service to customers, Air Canada is ranked at 1st position with a score of 4.2 out of 5. WestJet takes the 2nd position with a score of 3.9. The performance of Air Canada can also be assessed from culture scores. Culture scores are attained from all the questions answered relating to a company in comparison to competitors. Air Canada takes the first position in culture score with an 86% score. The 2nd position is taken by WestJet with 75%. In form of employee net promotion, Air Canada takes the 1st position with a score of 67% followed by United Airlines which takes the 2nd position with a score of 15 percent. Employee net promotion involves scoring employees based on how employees are likely to refer a friend to work in a certain company.
Air Canada offers less expensive and the best premium products. It also offers the correct transit programs at critical airports. These make Air Canada suitable to attract transit customers. The firm has a subsequent worldwide champion and core elements which comprise expense reductions, profitable revenue initiatives, enabling product differentiation and cultural change. The company has enhanced effective operation with leisure customers traveling to and from Canada. These investing strategies have made the airline gain a competitive advantage.
Market analysis
Air Canada carries many passengers each year. Income elasticity in Air Canada is less than 1. Barriers to entry in Canadian Airlines are very high. The wide geographical region and sparse population have a very low demand for flights. The high fees and taxes of Canada reduce the competition of prices (Case & Jones,2018). This makes Air Canada capable of pricing new clients from the aviation market. Everchanging seasonal demand further makes it hard for new firms to survive in the market. Air Canada became the first airline to ban smoking on any flights. This has ever led to free socialization during flights. In Air Canada, the risks and opportunities are external factors. As per SWOT analysis, the risks comprise government restrictions, foreign currency fluctuations and low-cost carriers. Its opportunities comprise flourishing tourism in Canada, the launch of low-cost airlines and great penetration into the worldwide market by worldwide brand understanding.
Environmental analysis
The regulation put in place by the Canadian government requires Air Canada to follow all set Covid-19 guidelines. This has made Air Canada incur losses as some people planning to travel for leisure have ended up canceling their travel plans. The firm has lost a lot of money which could have been got in the present. Fluctuation of currency and ongoing inflation have made Air Canada plan to raise fares to offset the ongoing inflation(Shi & Li,2021). This will make the company lose some customers who cannot comprehend the impact of inflation and how it can be canceled. Air Canada is impacted by various political factors such as high fees, high taxes and substantial restrictions on foreign ownership of Canadian airlines. These political factors make it hard to start an airline in Canada. Rogue provides unique culture to customers. The end of smoking welcomed customers from different beliefs. Christianity is against smoking.
Findings
From the assessments, Air Canada leads in almost all aspects. It leads in CEO score, net promotion, pricing, customer service, culture score and employee promotion. It is only defeated by WestJet in product quality but the difference between the two is just 0.3. WestJet has 4 out of 5 whereas Air Canada has a ranking of 3.7 out of 5. This means Air Canada is far more successful in form of its performance when compared to competitors. It leads in all aspects apart from product quality. Even in product quality, it is surpassed by only 0.3. Government regulation and currency fluctuation are key issues as it is found in risks and economic determinants facing the company.
References
Leppäjärvi, P. (2018). Competitor analysis: Airlines’ leisure travel products from the
frequent flyer’s perspective.
Case, B., & Jones, O. (2018). Country of Origin branding: The Case of Air Canada.
Shi, Y., & Li, X. (2021). Determinants of financial distress in the European air transport
industry: The moderating effect of being a flag-carrier. Plos one, 16(11),
Portfolio Milestone – Intro to Business Intelligence
Data Analysis of United States Data
If you selected Option 1 to complete for your Portfolio Milestone in Module 2, be sure to complete this milestone. Review the background information for Option 1 of the Portfolio Project in Module 8. Also, you should incorporate any feedback given by your faculty member in the Module 2 Portfolio Milestone assignment.
For the Module 5 Portfolio Milestone assignment, you are to create a minimum of 4 business questions which, if answered, will solve the business problem. You are to explain why you selected those specific business questions. In addition, you are to create the alternate and null hypotheses for each business question. The business questions and hypotheses will become the primary framework for your Portfolio Project due in Module 8. Finally, you discuss any concerns you have in completing this assignment.
In this assignment, you are to expand on your deliverables from Module 2 by including your approach for conducting the analysis in the Portfolio Project in Module 8. Your approach should include which statistical tests you intend to conduct and why. How will these tests answer the business questions and prove or disprove your hypotheses? Also, your approach should include which visualizations you intend to use and why. Why are these visualizations the best formats for communicating the story the data is telling us?
Deliverables for this assignment are:
Description of the business problem including the organization’s strategic goals (incorporating any feedback from your instructor).
Description of the variables in the SAS dataset created in Module 2 (incorporating any feedback from your instructor)
List, at a minimum, 4 business questions. Justify how these business questions will solve the business problem.
List the alternate and null hypotheses for each business question. Incorporate any feedback from your instructor
List the statistical tests you intend to use and why.
List the visualizations you intend to use and why.
Describe concerns in completing the Portfolio Project.
Your Milestone assignment should be four to five pages in length, excluding your cover and references page, and formatted according to APA requirements
Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.
Race and the Death Penalty [WLOs: 1, 2, 3] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6]
This discussion focuses on topics addressed in several chapters of your text – the death penalty and discrimination in the United States. Although first discussed in Chapter 2, the death penalty is also discussed in Chapter 4. It is recommended that you review Chapter 4 this week, though you will read the chapter in Week 2. Your initial post should be at least 350 words in length. Support your claims with examples from the required material(s) and at least one other scholarly resource. Please properly cite credible sources in the body of your work and at the end of your work include the minimum of two required references. Consult the Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table for assistance. Prior to completing the discussion, please complete your assigned readings and watch the following video, available through the Films on Demand database in the Ashford University Library: Black Death and Dixie: Racism and the Death Penalty in the United States. After reading the text, your scholarly sources, and watching the video, please thoroughly discuss the following questions:
African Americans comprise approximately 13% of the population of the United States yet nearly half (50%) of the incarcerated population is African American. Based on research, which factors may best explain high incarceration rates for African Americans when considering what proportion of the general population is African American?
Based on research, which factors may best explain the high number of African Americans (approximately 42%) on death row in the United States?
Define institutionalized racism and then evaluate whether institutionalized racism is to blame for these high incarceration rates. Please be sure to conduct a thorough analysis of the research in this area and cite credible sources to support your assertions.
Judges in some jurisdictions are elected. Based on your research, is it possible that judges have implicit racial biases that influence their decision making in cases? Please elaborate and cite credible sources that support your assertions.
If a jury who has heard the case recommends a life sentence instead of a death sentence, should a judge be allowed to override the jury’s recommendation of life in prison and instead sentence the defendant to the death? Why or why not?
How can the problem of disproportionate incarceration rates based on race be resolved?
Guided Response: Please read several of your classmates’ initial posts and respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts by Day 7. Your peer responses should focus on the course concepts and be scholarly in nature. As you respond, evaluate the following:
Do you agree with your classmate? Why or why not?
What additional evidence have you found that can support your classmate’s claims?
Be sure to support any opinions you have with credible, scientific evidence
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations in 2015, has 17 Sustainable Development Goals. https://sdgs.un.org/goals Goal #7 is “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal7
After reviewing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, do research and write a paper entitled: Sustainable Electricity Generation in ___A (fill in the blank)____. You should discuss how electricity is produced by ____B (fill in the blank)_____ methods. Determine the percent contributions of the different types of electricity generation and plans for future generation capability (if future plans can be found, or maybe trends can be identified). For each method of production, summarize environmental, economic, and societal considerations. Summarize the role of an engineer, considering ethical and professional responsibilities. The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics for Engineers https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics.
Fill-in-blank options for “A” = location, like: San Antonio, Texas, Hawaii, California, United States, Mexico, China, Europe, Germany, France, Japan, Africa, Russia, etc.
Fill-in-blank options for “B” = method of generation, like coal, oil, natural gas, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, etc.
The report should be written using ASME paper template:
The ASME website has Word emplates files are available for download. In the top-right corner of first page, for conference header use:
Introduction Setting up service desks in offshore locations is big business. There are various drivers behind such efforts. Some are pure cost savings. Others are to attain quality improvements by leveraging superior language or business skills available in the new location. Some projects can be extremely emotive, and all are certainly challenging projects that need to be handled with care.
Recently I was employed by a corporation to manage their first foray into this arena. Their service desk supported not just internal but also external customers, providing in particular incident and access management plus request fulfilment. Their key driver was that their existing service desk was reaching capacity. Expansion in the current location was not physically possible or cost effective, and so an offshore location was selected. To add urgency, a new IT product was going to be released which meant an imminent increase in volume and pressure on the service desk. Demand and capacity management already had calculated the size of the expansion required (150 extra service desk staff, along with the usual supporting IT infrastructure).
The project to set up the new service desk following ITIL® procedures was formally initiated by the company’s official IT change authority, in our case called the Change Advisory Board (CAB). The CAB rightly recognized early on the scale of the change and so officially invoked the project management group. The vice president for the overall department was confirmed as the project executive to sponsor the project going forward. I was assigned the project to set up the new offshore service desk to run in parallel with the existing service desk. Specifically, I had to ensure the new desk was designed and built to replicate the existing service desk, and bring the two physical services desks together so that they became a single logical virtual service desk.
PRINCE2 supporting ITIL From the moment the CAB provided the project mandate, the project was run using PRINCE2™ methodology. PRINCE2 was extremely valuable in ensuring success. It did this in many ways, but of particular value were the following:
1. The PRINCE2 principle focusing on business justification throughout.
2. PRINCE2’s management by stages to break it down into manageable chunks.
3. The PRINCE2 emphasis on lessons learned from previous efforts.
4. PRINCE2’s risk management provided a methodical and consistent approach throughout.
1. Business Justification Perhaps the greatest benefit PRINCE2 brought was the principle of continued business justification and consistent focus on the business case throughout the project. It ensured that the project
did not deviate away from its central objective. And thank goodness. As there were many tests and traps trying to entice the project away from the original design.
One such lure away from the plan was in the area of function creep. The primary aim of establishing the new service desk was to ensure greater capacity ahead of the release of a new IT product. The new service desk had to be online and ready ahead of the IT product’s launch. It had to be done at minimal expenditure, and so the second site in an offshore location was selected rather than expanding the existing site. The second site did provide other benefits, in particular some extra cover for disaster recovery. If there was a denial of service (such as a fire alarm) or denial of access (such as a network outage) in the existing site, then the new second site could be designed to provide business continuity.
However, to guarantee such extra benefits were realized required extra expense. This additional expense was not overly significant in relation to the overall budget for the project. Moreover, some project savings had already been made elsewhere, so we did have sufficient funds to cover the extra expenditure. However, I did NOT authorise the expenditure. PRINCE2’s principle on focusing on the business case ensured I did not fall into the trap of spending the savings on realising these extra benefits.
Why not? Yes, thanks to the savings already made on the project, our budget would still have remained within our financial tolerances as laid out by the project board. And yes, it is certainly true that it is cheaper to put in place the disaster recovery (DR) infrastructure from the outset (as retrofitting offices with the extra DR requirements afterwards will always be the more expensive option). However, the DR benefits were a perfect example of gold plating. They were still an exception beyond what we had originally justified. Our PRINCE2 business case reminded us that we were not creating this site specifically for disaster recovery purposes. Our primary concern was to expand capacity. So when extra expense was requested to ensure the new site was fully capable of providing such business continuity options, it was clear this was beyond the scope of the original business case. As the project manager, I had been entrusted to spend specific company resources to expand capacity. I therefore could not authorise spending on something else, however inexpensive and beneficial that might be.
That is not to say that I ignored the potential extra benefits either. In such circumstances it is not the role of the project manager to say no and to move on regardless. I worked to ensure the project board were aware of the new opportunity. It was their decision, and the request had to be referred to them. My role and the role of the project team was to provide the board with all the information to help them weigh up the pros and cons of extending the project to include this extra requirement.
Ultimately they deemed the risk to the timeline to be too high and so the project continued as originally planned. The project board confirmed it was better for me and the project team to focus on delivering the extra capacity by the required date
as stated in the business justification and ensure that that meets the requirements. The cost of missing the deadline far outweighed the cost of retrofitting the new site with the full DR capability, and so only minimal DR that did not add any extra time was completed.
2. Management by stages ITIL is huge. It has a wide breadth, covering all IT functions across the organization. It also has a great depth, getting deeply involved in the very root of processes and their design. Making changes and additions to ITIL can therefore be very daunting. The ramifications can spread far and wide. PRINCE2 helped us be successful by ensuring we avoided biting off more than we could chew. It did this through PRINCE2’s management by stages.
We focused on Service Operations, and within that on the Service Desk. We ensured each of the ITIL service operations processes (Incident management, problem management, access management, event management and request fulfilment) were covered and adopted correctly by the new service desk. Of particular benefit was the Service V-model. The Service V-model breaks down relatively high level requirements into smaller more detailed designs. It does this by defining the requirements at the high level and requiring that to be signed off. Once that is approved, the next level of more detailed design is then documented and approved. Each step of the model can be considered a stage for PRINCE2. The V-model gets its name because the requirements and documented design represent the left hand side of the ‘V’. As they get towards the base of the ‘V’ the signed off definitions get progressively more detailed. The right hand side of the ‘V’ then shows the test plans, with each of the tests being built around its equivalent requirement definition on the left hand side. This stepping stone approach down one side and then back up the other helps ensure that you document and sign off first and then test and deliver precisely what is required. We tailored the model to meet the specific project requirements, making sure we kept the fundamental concept of the defined requirements at each level then being used as the acceptance test and sign off criteria going forward. Each definition itself was signed off before we moved onto the next one, thereby ensuring we managed the project in sizeable chunks.
3. Lessons learned The emphasis on learning from previous experiences is another area that PRINCE2 helped ensure the successful implementation of the ITIL based service desk. Lessons learned from past efforts (both successful and disastrous) were used from the outset. For example, the business justification and business case were based upon former historical failures. Previous IT product launches had swamped the service desk. The ramping up of service personnel had been reactive, with major decreases in customer satisfaction reflecting the lack of investment. Those lessons were used in the business case to justify the upfront expenditure ahead of the launch. It was the first time the company had geared up ahead of a major IT product release.
The consistently high customer satisfaction scores during the eventual IT product release were a real vindication of the forward planning.
Lessons learned also helped avoid common pitfalls in setting up the new service desk. A review of other expansion attempts within the company was carried out. There had been one or two attempts by other departments to expand, and so a few nuggets of value were gleaned from this internal review. In parallel a review of external sources for lessons learned was also undertaken. Some of the best lessons came from this. In particular, industry trade bodies were a wealth of information around what works and what doesn’t. I already had set up service desks abroad for previous companies as well, and so I brought with me some key lessons from outside of the organization. The combination of internal and external sources helped ensure all possible lessons were learned.
We reaped the reward for these internal and external lesson learned reviews as we progressed. The single biggest win I felt was in ensuring that all the potential costs were accounted for up front. We therefore avoided underestimating the total expenditure. The hidden costs were everywhere, ranging from individual extra talent acquisition to consultancy for local tax experts to help you move your IT stock from one floor to another within the same building! Not only were we able to identify up front the vast majority of the potential extra costs. (It is perhaps unreasonable to think you will get all of them!). We were also able to accurately estimate them as well. It was only thanks to the review of lessons that ensured we could provide the estimated costs with such accuracy. The fact that we successfully came in under budget is in no small part thanks to the effort made up front in calculating all the potential costs.
The lessons learned did not stop with previous projects. By identifying and capturing lessons within our own project itself, we learned quickly what we were doing right and wrong. By doing this methodically at least at the end of each stage, we were then able to communicate that out to the wider project team, so they could replicate what works and avoid what did not. For example, we learned early on that there was an incredibly long lead time to source IT equipment in the remote location. Items that might only take a few weeks in the UK could take many months to arrive in the new location. We therefore adjusted our project plans to ensure this lengthy delivery time was accounted for. We could not change the project completion date. Rather we moved other work around, and brought purchase requests forward as much as possible. The long delivery times actually moved some of the procurement items onto the critical path, and therefore they gained the correct visibility to get them completed on time.
Lastly, our project provided lessons for future efforts as well. In this regard our own project plugged well into ITIL’s “Continual Service Improvement” theme. While building the new service desk we identified specific process improvements which could
be harnessed by both service desks in the future. These follow- on action recommendations were collated and made available in the end project report, ready to be used by future projects.
4. Risk Management The risk management aspects of the PRINCE2 method helped guarantee a consistent attitude to both opportunities and threats. It provided a methodical and robust approach throughout the project. In particular it supported the change advisory board (CAB) in their efforts. PRINCE2’s emphasis on identifying and assessing risks helped the CAB in its role to provide approval for rolling out the changes. The detailed risk register reinforced to the CAB how seriously the project took risk management. The CAB recognized that the project team was working hard to reduce and avoid threats occurring. In particular the fallback or contingency plan (often a roll back plan) should the threat occur helped the Change manager and the CAB give the required approvals.
ITIL supporting PRINCE2 I found during the project that the relationship between PRINCE2 and ITIL was not all one-sided. Quite the reverse. For each occasion where PRINCE2 supported the ITIL implementation, ITIL reciprocated. In particular, ITIL helped the PRINCE2 implementation in the following:
1. During Starting Up a Project
2. Communication
3. Quality versus cost balancing
4. Plugging a potential PRINCE2 gap
1. ITIL supporting Start Up Over recent years I have noticed that projects initiated by departments that are mature practitioners of ITIL have certain things in common. Take for instance the project mandate; it is never an illegible scrawl on the back of an envelope. Service Strategy and Service Design generate very clear and detailed project mandates. The reasons why the project is being undertaken, why this particular approach is required, the scope, the success criteria and so on all tend to be clearly thought through and then documented. These greatly simplify the time and effort required in starting up the project.
It could be argued that the clear mandate is as much a reflection of the maturity of the organization as it is to do with their adoption of ITIL principles. What is less contentious is how ITIL helps the designing and appointing of the project board when the venture is starting up. ITIL initiated projects tend to have clearly identifiable personnel to fit the roles of the project management team. For instance, in my project, the incident manager was an obvious candidate to sit on the project board as the senior user.
2. Communication Another area where ITIL supported the PRINCE2 project was communication. ITIL provided a standard language around which all could operate. To ITIL practitioners, incidents are clearly different to problems which again are clearly different to requests. Thanks to ITIL, we were able to make these kinds of distinctions and therefore speak very precisely. It ensured there was no confusion.
For instance, PRINCE2 rightly places significant focus on defining the products required and the quality criteria of the products. We used ITIL heavily in the quality definitions of the end products. The service desk technology was all defined using ITIL terminology. Likewise ITIL featured in the job descriptions of the new service desk personnel. When the time then came to managing product delivery the team managers knew exactly what was required of them.
I mentioned the Service V-model earlier. One additional benefit of the Service V-model was in communication. There were stakeholders who were ITIL trained, and stakeholders who were PRINCE2 trained, but few knew both. Using the Service V-model allowed us to speak to both ITIL and PRINCE2 audiences at the same time, each understanding immediately where we were in the project. Even those uninitiated in these Office of Government Commerce best practices could still very quickly understand and follow the project plan thanks to the intuitive nature of the model.
3. Quality versus cost balance As with all things, there is a risk of getting bogged down in the detail. It sometimes becomes difficult to see the wood for the trees. ITIL’s emphasis on seeking an optimal balance between quality and cost proved extremely useful as a reminder to take a step back and weigh up quality improvements against the bigger picture. In our project, as we focused on the details, some of the IT teams began to lose sight of the need to be cost effective. IT teams generally can be extremely customer focused. They often go into IT support because they enjoy helping people, and this is a very positive attribute. This though became a concern during the project as some of the IT teams appeared to put the customer first regardless of costs. We were not a charity. I needed a way to gently remind members of the IT teams of the overarching company goal to increase revenue and decrease cost. ITIL’s constant balancing act of quality versus cost fitted the bill perfectly. When requests came in to spend budget on specific tools, functionality, resources, etc, I encouraged those making the applications to review them using this ITIL principle. The number of change requests decreased as people realized the costs of making the changes. More cost effective alternatives began to be sought. ITIL helped make sure that the project team only had to focus on the most important change requests.
4. Plugging a gap Perhaps the biggest benefit of ITIL was in plugging a potential gap within the project. We had been tasked to implement a new service desk following ITIL principles. As with all good projects, we were working and being measured against what the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) sums up as the “triple” constraints. This covered not just the traditional measures of cost, time and quality, but also the more modern and enlightened approach of measuring as well against risks, scope and customer satisfaction.
Towards the end of the project, we were ready to roll out the new service desk. We were within both time and cost tolerances. We had stayed within the clear scope outlined. The quality of the end product itself as well was met, as the new service desk team had been trained, tested and were ready to go.
From a purely PRINCE2 project perspective we were hitting our key targets as outlined in our own project’s success criteria. However, the rollout of the product (the new service desk) was going to impact the quality of the existing service desk. There was still some nervousness and anxiety within the existing service desk team. While it had not been technically within the boundary and scope of the project, this was obviously a major concern.
The nervousness of the existing teams had to be addressed. We could not let morale of the existing team suffer needlessly. Based on ITIL principles a change to our project was therefore made. The emphasis moved away from rolling out the new service desk by the deadline come what may. We still had to launch the new service desk by the required deadline, but now we had to do it without negatively impacting the existing service desk.
This reflected ITIL’s need for transition of the new service into operations without generating undesired consequences. ITIL’s stability versus responsiveness principle as well ensured that we looked at not just delivering the project’s end product regardless. We had to also be aware of and minimise any ramifications on other groups. So although it increased the costs, a more gradual rollout of the new service desk was agreed upon. This ensured a good balance of stability to the existing operations while allowing the new team to be introduced into their work.
Whilst this oversight in the original project brief might have been captured anyway, ITIL helped ensure that it was resolved satisfactorily, with the best solution in mind. Like programme management best practice (as reflected in Managing Successful Programmes), ITIL helped the project remember that it is simply an enabler. Delivering an end product is the goal of the project, but to only consider that goal is not enough. The project must also keep one eye on the benefit realisation that will come from that end product. The project itself cannot necessarily focus 100% on this, as often the benefits only commence after the project is completed. We successfully avoided the temptation to roll out the new service desk and declare victory too soon. When our post project review took place, it showed the extra
costs spent in rolling out the desk were well spent. The review demonstrated that the benefits had indeed been realized and firmly embedded in.
Weaknesses of combining PRINCE2 and ITIL This is not to say that ITIL and PRINCE2 were a marriage made in heaven. As in any partnership, there are some lows as well as highs. Some of the ITIL functions and processes certainly added an extra level of bureaucracy to the project. For instance, the change management process covered all IT changes. However, it was independent of the financial approval process which went through a completely separate procurement process. We therefore on occasions had the odd situation where we had the project executive’s approval, and the business and financial approval (shown through the approval of the purchase order), yet we still struggled to get approval from the IT change authority. This added if not time then certainly some frustration to the project. With hindsight, one potential solution could have been for the role of the leader of the CAB (the official IT change authority) to have been added to the project board. This would have given the CAB greater insight into the project, which could only be a positive step.
Another area where the two did not mesh so well was that ITIL did seem to introduce an inordinate number of stakeholders. It is understandable that lots of departments and lots of personnel would be interested in the introduction of a new service desk. However, we were somewhat taken aback by just how many groups felt they should have a say in project decisions. ITIL terms were often quoted to justify this. It is difficult to say if this was more to do with the specific ITIL implementation and the personnel involved rather than ITIL itself. Either way, it did seem to be overkill. The project team had did have to spend significant effort on engaging and managing stakeholders with sometimes tenuous links at best to the project.
Conclusion Whatever metrics you choose, the project was a success. From a timing perspective, it was completed ahead of the release of the new IT product, and so it was able to manage the spike of incidents that followed. From a quality and customer satisfaction perspective, our loyalty scores not only avoided a dip, but in fact increased, both during the period when the new service desk came on line, and then later when the new IT product was launched. From a cost perspective we came in just under budget, and that included some extra costs to provide a more gradual rollout.
Moreover, the project illustrated several key benefits in using PRINCE2 and ITIL together. Yes, there were some conflicts. But overall the two OGC best practices did naturally and neatly interlock together. ITIL worked well in defining the best
practice targets; PRINCE2 then assisted as the best practice route to get there. For me it was clear that combining the two provided benefits greater than the sum of the individual parts. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that we do not see more ITIL and PRINCE2 projects together.
Author Noel Scott (PMP)Consultant
Noel Scott (PMP) is a MSP Advanced Practitioner, PRINCE2 Practitioner and ITIL Practitioner specializing in managing programmes and projects within the contact centre industry. With over 10 years experience in a wide range of customer services programmes, Noel regularly delivers articles and speeches on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of contact centres. Noel is a leading member of the “Customer Contact Council” and the “Service and Support Professionals Association”.
Acknowledgements Sourced and published by TSO on www.Best-Management-Practice.com
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Please, read the case study called Training Crucial for Hotels in the United States and the World and provide your answers in APA format.
Training Crucial For Hotels In The United States And World
In the United States and worldwide, there are many different hotels for guests to select. Some are part of highend, luxury hotel chains such as Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons. Other chains have multiple levels such as Starwood with Sheraton, Four Points, and others, and Marriott Corporation with a range of brands from Marriott resorts to Fairfield Inns.
One common characteristic that all of these hotels have identified is how crucial training is. Hotel executives have learned that high-quality service is usually what determines if guests will return to their facilities, even more so than price. Consequently, having a well-trained hotel staff is crucial to delivering the high-quality customer service guests expect. The focus of much of the training is on creating positive organizational cultures through all facilities and with all managers and employees. Many of these chains have expanded their training commitments by hiring more full-time trainers to work throughout all locations and areas. Several different types of training illustrate these efforts.
The Starwood collection of hotels (St. Regis, Westin, Sheraton, Four Points, W Hotels) sees a specific focus on training as a contributor to competitive success. Over a recent six-month period, Starwood trained its 185,000 workers on areas such as social skills, handling worker emotions, and conflict/problem solving. These elements are seen as crucial to providing successful customer service. The focus of the training is for employees to know more about the types of guests in the hotels and how to respond to different situations that occur. Managers and others at hotels are trained on such factors as ensuring eye contact, evaluating customer and employee body language signals, and flexibility in resolving problems.
Choice Hotels and other chains use role-playing as part of their training for hotel staff members. Handling families with kids, tired business travelers, and other types of individuals enhances the customer services culture in a facility. Another side benefit is that employees become less frustrated and stressed, which has reduced turnover and increased employee satisfaction.
The upscale Ritz-Carlton group has established the Mystique technology program.
Individual guests’ preferences can be entered and accessed by employees. This system can track what individual clients’ preferences are for types of rooms, service that they have experienced, and even personal allergies. To implement this system and its use, the firm held train-the-trainer conferences. Then those trainers spread out and conducted training for hotel managers, local HR and training managers, and marketing/guest relations managers. However, training just existing employees can be too limited. So Ritz-Carlton and other chains have revised their new employee orientation training. Integrating job-related details and how to use the Mystique system with customers is now part of the on-boarding process for employees at all levels, including housekeepers, desk clerks, restaurant servers, supervisors, and managers.
From these examples, it is evident that many hotels are investing significantly in training. The payoffs of the training are likely to be seen in more satisfied guests, better-performing employees, and increased organizational revenues and profits.
QUESTION: 1). Discuss how these hotels are using a strategic and performance consulting approach to developing training efforts.
Various forms of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) have been used for decades in the United States to resolve minor civil disputes. What are examples of civil disputes that should be resolved via ADR? Should they be subject to mediation or arbitration?
Reply 1
Alternative Dispute Resolution is the use of methods such as mediation and arbitration to resolve a dispute instead of litigation. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is a way to settle disputes without litigation. Using ADR procedures can avoid the acrimony that often accompanies extended trials and allows parties to understand each other’s position and craft their own solutions. “The most common forms of ADR for civil cases are conciliation, mediation, arbitration, neutral evaluation, settlement conferences and community dispute resolution programs” (Carver, Vondra, May-June 2004). Facilitation assumes that the parties want to reach a settlement. The negotiation is done through telephone contacts, written correspondence, or via e-mail. Facilitation is sometimes used by judges at settlement teleconferences exploring alternatives to taking the dispute to trial. Mediation is more formal but still leaves control of the outcome to the parties. An impartial mediator helps the parties try to reach a mutually acceptable resolution to the dispute.
Arbitration is the most formal of the ADR procedures and takes the decision making away from the parties. The arbitrator hears the arguments and evidence from each side and then decides the outcome of the dispute. In my opinion Arbitration is good for cases where the parties want a third person to settle the dispute but want to avoid the cost of money and time that accompanies a court trial. Arbitration also resembles litigation in that many parties use arbitration as a springboard to negotiation. Parties who know that their dispute will wind up in arbitration often fail to commence serious negotiations until shortly before or shortly after the arbitration proceedings have begun. Frequently, negotiations will continue simultaneously with the arbitration proceedings, meaning the parties’ representatives will discuss settlement outside the hearing room while the hearing itself is underway inside. Arbitration can even expedite negotiations, since the parties know that once the arbitrator has issued a decision, the decision is typically final and rarely appeal-able.
Reply 2
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is gaining legitimacy in the United States as a way for litigants to work through disputes. This process aims to create a more convenient, quicker and, lower-cost alternative to the traditional judicial process. In claims where the plaintiff asks for damages below 50K and 100K, the case can begin with ADR. (Neubauer & Meinhold, 2017, p. 303)The textbook references the high dollar settlements reached in the BP oil spill case and how their settlements were reached through ADR. It was the “largest experiment in alternative dispute resolution ever attempted. (Neubauer & Meinhold, 2017, p. 305) Other civil matters that could be handled under the ADR model are custody agreements and divorce settlements. The type of process used is dependent on the case and the individuals involved.
Our family can speak from experience when working through custody agreements through mediation. My step-daughter’s agreement was constructed through mediation between my husband and her mom thirteen years ago. Both still had attorneys present, but no judge or attorney was leading the mediation. Mediation requires an agreed-upon third party to help the disputing parties work through the process together. They assist in resolving conflict by supporting communication between the litigants. The process can be voluntary, and there is no requirement of the mediator to determine an outcome. (Neubauer & Meinhold, 2017, p. 189)
Under arbitration, there are no judges or formal settings but third-party attorneys, either appointed or agreed upon by the parties, hear the evidence presented to them. There are no witnesses, only the parties involved and the evidence they provide. The arbitrator will issue their ruling based on the evidence presented. If either party is not happy with the outcome, they may reject the recommendations and request a trial in the traditional setting. One built-in safeguard against this is the requirement that parties that reject the results must reimburse the court. (Neubauer & Meinhold, 2017, p. 303)
Question 2
Chapters 10 and 11 address civil procedure. Do you believe the rules guiding civil litigation are properly structured to lead to the resolution of disputes? Which aspects of civil procedure could be improved?
Reply 1
In U.S. Common method, there are eight stages that work as devices of suit that administer how to begin claims, how to run them, and how to complete them.” (Neubauer, D. W., and Meinhold, S. S. (2013), p. 323. These means incorporate a documented objection of the solicitor, administration of the protest to the respondent, a composed or formal reply from the litigants given to the area representative for recording, the revelation interaction where the two players trade data appropriate to the current case, movement solicitations to the appointed authority, pretrial meeting, settlement, preliminary, and implementing judgment. (Neubauer, D. W., and Meinhold, S. S. (2013), p. 325. These advances work in a manner to assist with recognizing which cases are reasonable to continue further towards a preliminary or a settlement. Of the eight stages recorded, I am more worried about the disclosure cycle after evidence is heard, each side gives a closing argument. In a jury trial, the judge will explain the law that is relevant to the case and the decisions the jury needs to make. The jury generally is asked to determine whether the defendant is responsible for harming the plaintiff in some way, and then to determine the number of damages that the defendant will be required to pay. If the case is tried before a judge without a jury, known as a “bench” trial, the judge will decide these issues or order relief to the prevailing party. In a civil case, the plaintiff must convince the jury by a “preponderance of the evidence” (that it is more likely than not) that the defendant is responsible for the harm the plaintiff has suffered. By applying rules of evidence, the judge determines which information may be presented in the courtroom. So that witnesses speak from their own knowledge and do not change their story based on what they hear another witness say, they are kept out of the courtroom until they testify.
Reply 2
” The rules of civil procedure are strikingly different from those governing criminal prosecutions. For one thing, civil procedures are much more extensive, because they cover a much broader range of legal matters. Just as importantly, rules of civil procedure do not have a constitutional base. The extensive due process guarantees that protect those accused of violating a criminal statute are not applicable in civil proceedings. Civil litigants, for example, are not covered by the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination, which means that plaintiffs and defendants alike can be compelled to make statements before trial and can be forced to testify during trial” ( Neubauer p.316). I believe the rules guiding civil litigation are somewhat properly structured to lead to the resolution of disputes due to the interaction of both parties communicating and coming to an agreement. I believe it should remove the majority of divorce cases from the adversary court system and create an alternative that gives families access to needed services, counseling, and financial planning advice in an environment that encourages them to resolve their owndisputes at the end of the day
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Create a final report for the industry you selected detailing the impacts of the United States/China trade war. This report should address the following topics:
major issues of the trade war;
the tactics and measures taken by the United States and China during the trade war;
the impacts of the trade war on
the central economic problem of allocating scarce resources,
unemployment and inflation rates in the United States,
fiscal and/or monetary policy decisions,
the determination of foreign exchange rates based on supply and demand,
international trade between the United States and nations other than China, and
the long-range (5-year) potential impacts of the trade war on your selected industry.
You have compiled information on your selected industry in several earlier assignments. Review these and use their information as appropriate when completing this assignment.
Your paper must be a minimum of four pages, not counting the references page. Be sure to include an introduction. Use a minimum of three peer-reviewed scholarly sources. Information regarding peer-reviewed articles can be found in the tutorial Peer-Reviewed Articles.
All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced. Adhere to APA Style when creating citations and references for this assignment. APA formatting, however, is not necessary.
For information concerning what an introduction is and includes, view the brief tutorial Introductions and Conclusions
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