Friday, February 14, 2020

Apollo 13 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Apollo 13 - Essay Example It is the highest level of managerial activity and is usually directed by the company's Chief Executive Officer and executive team, and provides overall direction to the whole enterprise. Project management is the actual discipline of defining and achieving targets "while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, materials, energy, space, etc) over the course of a project (a set of activities of finite duration)". (Wikipedia, 2006). Project management is often times the province and responsibility of an individual person titled the project manager, and this individual seldom actually participates in the actions that produce the end result, but instead maintains the progress and productive mutual interaction and intervention of various parties in that the overall risk of failure is reduced. Apollo 13 is a movie which is highly influential in regards to promoting modern project and program management practices. This film is commonly used as an example for these theories and those of the like. This is primarily due to the fact that the objectives were made clear: classic project ones: in the words of President Kennedy: "to achieve the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth." (Morris, 1997). A strategy involving the matter of actually getting the moon and back had to be developed, which itself entirely revolved around motivational and management theories. Tasks had to be completed, such as: the engineering of the rockets, landing modules and support infrastructure had to be developed, and astronaut biobehavior in space understood and designed to; and all within highly determined schedule and cost restraints. (Morris, 1997). "The resulting project management approach was hailed at the new management paradigm: the answer to how to tackle many of mankind's problems. (Morris, 1997). Apollo 13 is a prime example of project management; it was not a project in itself, but it is the act of going from concept to definition, development, build, and hand-over. Management is an activity. It is the activity of planning, organizing, directing and controlling (Fayol et al, 1949). Most definitions of project management would agree that, at a minimum, there is (a) integration of the work of others needed to ensure project success - the "single point of integrative responsibility" (Archibald, 1997) - (b) the application of certain project management practices. It is the extent of application of these practices, and the hitherto

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Wachovia Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Wachovia - Research Paper Example All the major cause will be expansively presented in this paper. The valuable lessons learnt from the crisis will also be thrown light upon in this paper. Wachovia, Bear Stearns, AIG, Lehmann Brothers, Northern Rock, Goldman Sachs are some elite names that suffered the most because of the economic crisis also known as recession. Wachovia was once the fourth largest bank in America but it could not sustain the wrath of recession and was taken over by Wells Fargo in the year 2008. Lehmann brothers filed for bankruptcy while AIG and a few other elites just hung in there with the skin of their teeth. This economic crisis is still having repercussions on countries like Greece and Spain; the whole of Euro Zone is facing a financial turmoil. There are a few other countries that have been not so severely affected by the same. The crisis triggered off because of unchecked debt, banks kept issuing loans to people who invested heavily in buying assets, several things were taken for granted but when proved otherwise there was hardly a place in the world to hide. Overvaluation in real estate is perhaps the biggest cause of the current economic crisis, it is better known as the subprime crisis in the US. The likes of Lehmann Brothers and other financial services went bust because they kept issuing credit to the people who thought the property price would increase and they would be easily able to pay off the debt that they are borrowing. It did not turn out that way and there was a short of equity, this is exactly why the financial institutions went bankrupt. The overvaluation is the biggest factor that caused the current economic crisis. Factors like bad income tax practices have added insult to injury, bad mortgage lending also contributed heavily to this current economic crisis. â€Å"The way to address the root cause is to let house prices drop to where an average house is within the means of an average household.   (Or, alternatively, boost the income of the average h ousehold to the point that they can afford an average house.   But that's very hard.   Letting houses prices go on falling, although painful for everyone who owns a house or who has lent money to someone who owns a house, is very easy.)† (Root Cause of the Financial Crisis) The UK housing market was also greatly affected because of recession. The impact of the global economic crisis on UK property companies was dire. Previously well performing firms in terms of turnover and profits experienced drastic falls in profits and even losses. Tightened lending conditions and dips in confidence in the UK housing sector translated to inactivity in business and thus reduced turnovers, hindered growth and difficult operations. In the general pattern as the rest of the economy, property firms found it untenable to maintain workforce numbers as lack of activity and the heavy toll of remuneration on available resources. Reduced spending propensities and the lack of credit in the housing sector left most of these companies’ futures hanging in the balance. There is also the question of how the entire properties sector and the property companies have set out to recover from the economic crisis. Concerns also arise in terms of how well the instituted strategies can buffer such firms against an occurrence of another financial downturn in the future. The content analysis reveals that the property companies went through severe impacts on their management dispositions as well as on their employees. The managers were