Simultaneous work and an Agile Approach There are ways to divide the work up using an agile approach.  This can get complicated for distributed teams but for teams that are on the same site the challenge is greatly reduced. We once worked on an embedded development project for an electronic control unit on a vehicle. […]

  Why Statistics and Control Are Important to the Project Manager More from the TQM and Project Management [1] One of the purposes of statistical analysis lies in its ability to discern random variation from non-random (or “controllable”) variation. Random variation is extremely difficult to control, although we have seen situations where variance could be […]

  Some companies offer perks to their employees, a reward for sticking out with the company.  After all, in some cases the company invests considerable time and money into employee development. The company may pay to move them.  The company will spend some money on training the employee in the ways of the organization.  I […]

By Shawn P. Quigley More on Maslow In our previous discussions we have referred to Maslow’s Theory of Human Motivation (Hierarchy of Needs) and how this relates to work place motivation. To best continue our discussion we must first review some of the tenets of Maslow’s theory in more detail and dispel the misconception that […]

By Shawn P. Quigley Needs and Motivation – Organization and the Individual In our article “Needs, wants, and motivation” we discussed the correlation between the needs of an organization and that of the individuals who comprise it. This would be an example of “The Macro fit” or job fit as commonly stated in the Human […]

We see some company responses to economic downturn are to eliminate staff as if that were the only way to become a viable company once again. We wonder if these companies have some cost improvement methodology behind them that would give their management other options than summarily removal of personnel.