Management and Supervision

"360 Degree Performance Appraisal"

In Human Resource Management, 360-degree feedback, also known as "multi-rater feedback," "multisource feedback," or "multisource assessment," is feedback that comes from all around an employee that is the feedback is received by those above (Supervisors), by those below (Subordinates), by coequals (peers) and by customers (internal/external customers or suppliers).

It also includes a self-assessment in some cases. It may be contrasted with a "traditional performance appraisal," where the employees are most often reviewed only by their managers or supervisors.

It has been suggested that multi-rater assessments often generate conflicting opinions, and that there may be no way to determine whose feedback is accurate (Vinson, 1996). Studies have also indicated that self-ratings are generally significantly higher than the ratings of others (Lublin, 1994; Yammarino & Atwater, 1993; Nowack, 1992).

The 14 Management Principles from Henri Fayol (1841-1925) are:

1. Division of Work. Specialization allows the individual to build up experience, and to continuously improve his skills. Thereby he can be more productive.
2. Authority. The right to issue commands, along with which must go the balanced responsibility for its function.
3. Discipline. Employees must obey, but this is two-sided: employees will only obey orders if management play their part by providing good leadership.
4. Unity of Command. Each worker should have only one boss with no other conflicting lines of command.
5. Unity of Direction. People engaged in the same kind of activities must have the same objectives in a single plan. This is essential to ensure unity and coordination in the enterprise. Unity of command does not exist without unity of direction but does not necessarily flows from it.
6. Subordination of individual interest (to the general interest). Management must see that the goals of the firms are always paramount.
7. Remuneration. Payment is an important motivator although by analyzing a number of possibilities, Fayol points out that there is no such thing as a perfect system.
8. Centralization (or Decentralization). This is a matter of degree depending on the condition of the business and the quality of its personnel.
9. Scalar chain (Line of Authority). A hierarchy is necessary for unity of direction. But lateral communication is also fundamental, as long as superiors know that such communication is taking place. Scalar chain refers to the number of levels in the hierarchy from the ultimate authority to the lowest level in the organization. It should not be over-stretched and consist of too-many levels.
10. Order. Both material order and social order are necessary. The former minimizes lost time and useless handling of materials. The latter is achieved through organization and selection.
11. Equity. In running a business a 'combination of kindliness and justice' is needed. Treating employees well is important to achieve equity.
12. Stability of Tenure of Personnel. Employees work better if job security and career progress are assured to them. An insecure tenure and a high rate of employee turnover will affect the organization adversely.
13. Initiative. Allowing all personnel to show their initiative in some way is a source of strength for the organization. Even though it may well involve a sacrifice of 'personal vanity' on the part of many managers.
14. Esprit de Corps. Management must foster the morale of its employees. He further suggests that: "real talent is needed to coordinate effort, encourage keenness, use each person's abilities, and reward each one's merit without arousing possible jealousies and disturbing harmonious relations."

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The Government has placed a duty of best value on local authorities to deliver services to clear standards - of cost and quality - by the most economic, efficient and effective means available. Best value is a challenging new performance framework that requires authorities to publish annual best value performance plans and review all of their services every five years.

Authorities must show that they have applied the four Cs of best value to every review:

• challenging why and how a service is being provided;
• comparing their performance with others' (including organisations in the private and voluntary sectors);
• embracing fair competition as a means of securing efficient and effective services; and
• consulting with local taxpayers, customers and the wider business community.

Authorities must demonstrate to local people that they are achieving continuous improvement in all of their services. The Government has decided that each council should be scrutinised by an independent Inspectorate, so that the public will know whether best value is being achieved. The purpose of the inspection and of this report is to:

• enable the public to see whether best value is being delivered;
• enable the Council to see how well it is doing;
• enable the Government to see how well its policies are working on the ground;
• identify failing services where remedial action may be necessary; and

identify and disseminate best practice.

Advantages of using project management tools are:

• Tools can facilitate the creation and maintenance of project artifacts (e.g. project schedule) and especially good at complex analysis (e.g. Earned Value Management);
• Tools are very good at linking to sub-projects or other work packages/plans;
• Tools are very good at providing various outputs (e.g. Gantt Charts, Milestone Charts, Network Diagrams etc)
• They can assist in the estimating/scheduling/planning stage and many scenarios can be run to find the most appropriate course of action;
• They are a good reminder of what needs to be done and what is outstanding;
• They can help record, link and analyse lots of data (e.g. Requirements Management Tool, Change Management Tool; Stakeholder Management Tool or Lessons Learnt Tool);
• They are good for trend analysis and looking at prioritising or re-scheduling activities (e.g. resource scheduling);
• Contribute to the build up of statistical information to assist in improving management of future projects;
• Allows a more objective comparison of alternative actions/decisions and provides repeatable results;
• Helps distinguish between good and bad luck and good and bad management;
• It can provide electronic methods of approvals, speeding up decision making;
• Can be very good when teams are not co-located at one place, and the team can access data when they need it and not rely on any individual (e.g. methods and procedure database with the most up-to-date versions on it);
• Can be good at generating automated reports (e.g. timecards associated with individual projects), if they are setup in the right way in the first place;
• Very good at re-assigning authority when individuals are away, so decisions can still be made and do not rely on single points of failure;
• The requirement to measure physical items facilitates tighter management controls;

Disadvantages of using project management tools are:

• Some people (including management, team members, stakeholders) can find them difficult to understand;
• Tools can sometimes take too much time just to maintain the data and keep the tool updated - Don't under estimate the cost of capturing the data;
• They take time and effort and funding to train the staff to use;
• Often can often be expensive and there is a license fee attached to the tool (if not developed in house) and annual maintenance charges;
• Change them and updating can be costly and complex;
• Staff can use them inappropriately and not enter the required data to make them worthwhile (e.g. risk management tools);
• They can require lots of data to be generated and if it is not generated, then the results of the tool maybe suspect;
• If not understood properly they can be prone to error and can produce misleading results and can lead the Project Manager to make ill-informed decisions;
• They can be too complicated, too time-consuming and unnecessary for small projects;
• Use with caution on very large and complex networked projects because you can make a change and this could affect the rest of the project and you may not be aware of the automated changes the tool makes;
• People can tend to trust the tool outputs without questioning the rigor that went into producing the results;
• It can be very difficult retrospectively looking at what happened if you didn't capture the input data at the time;
• Tools can hide the detail and provide a whole project view, which may hide over performance in one area and under-performance in another.

Project Management Tools are very useful if applied in a disciplined manner. If they are used to replace expertise and in other inappropriate ways, then they will not provide value for money. Project Managers should constantly review the use and output of tools, because just because one was bought some time ago, it doesn't mean it is still of value today or in the future. If you want to migrate data to the next generation system, consider using open architecture or commercial standard tools and systems, otherwise if you use be-spoke systems it could be more costly in the future. Also look at what tools your customers and competitors use.

Effective Business Communication achieves following Important Points for a Business.

1. Enhance Business
2. Create Goodwill
3. Retain Customers
4. Determines the Efficiency of teh Firm

Lack of capital

Lack of capital is often the most critical challenge that a successful manager or leader faces as its very success creates this and it quickly becomes a vicious circle. Without very diligent cash flow management and/or raising of more capital, including debt, the business often is constrained by capital as it grows. Often the profit in one operating cycle is insufficient to fund the extra working capital required for the next operating cycle. Many capable managers cannot overcome the obstacles in their businesses cash flow cycle and cannot understand why bankers and other lenders often cannot provide the financing as the manager often does not have the security to support the debt.

The solution is often easier than most entrepreneurs realize. It often starts with a plan to see what your cash needs are and when your cash needs arise. Then one is in a position to manage it and focus on the cash management techniques most likely to be successful in his/her business.

Lack of management skills

Lack of management skills is a problem that is very difficult to deal with in most small and medium enterprises as the size of the senior management team is necessarily limited. These areas of weakness could be in finance, human resources, marketing or any area where the current management does not have the expertise, or the time to deal with the issues.

It can be solved by determining the weak areas and then developing a plan for dealing with those challenges. Solutions can be as simple as assigning the responsibility to an existing manager with a requirement to watch for the obvious pitfalls, to hiring a person part-time or a consultant.

Lack of focus

Ignoring risks in their assessment of alternatives and opportunities

Lack of a plan

Failure to plan for issues absorbing the majority of your time

Scope changes -

Insufficient team skills - To quote a colleague, "Availability is not a skill."

Vision and goals are not well-defined

Ineffective communication