3 paragraph assignment on Ancient Greece Research Paper

3 paragraph assignment on Ancient Greece - Research Paper Example Cleisthenes had these groups represented equally on their general assemblies were discussions were done for the welfare of their state. They safeguard each other against tyranny and monopoly of power. In Sparta, the reform of Lycargus was established. They also had reclassification and regrouping of people. Debts were cancelled and the land was divided equally among them. There was an established way of living where their children undergo specified developmental stages to make them warriors. They were considered as Spartan citizen at the age of 19 as soon as they have been awarded with shield, which is a great symbol for them. Women were also encouraged to work to make them able to bore strong children. The two forms of governments institutionalized greatly vary. Athens practiced democracy in all its sense, where they derive decisions for the state after discussions from every representative of the tribes. Spartans also had assemblies for their decision making but their way of living has been predetermined. They live and work for Sparta and nothing else. 2. Zeno who lived around 490 BC formulated certain paradoxes – an absurd or contradictory statement. His statements challenge scholars both from history until today, such as Plato, Aristotle and others. Various explanations surfaced to either prove or disprove the points of Zeno. Inclusions of explanations exploited mathematical reasons, physics, and other theories. One of his paradox included in the Paradox of Plurality titled The Argument from complete divisibility states that â€Å"†¦ whenever a body is by nature divisible through and through, whether by bisection, or generally by any method whatever, nothing impossible will have resulted if it has actually been divided†¦ though perhaps nobody in fact could so divide it†. This paradox touches the idea of a line or space that is composed of infinite number of points that can be divided into dimensionless parts. That if these

The MYKI electronic ticketing system Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The MYKI electronic ticketing system - Essay Example The MYKI Electronic Ticketing System Although the MYKI electronic ticketing system has been praised a number of times, it has also received a considerable amount of criticisms. These have been generated by the range of failures and loopholes experienced during the project. This project replaced the Metcard ticketing system that was used in Metropolitan Melbourne among other ticketing systems used in busies within the same region. It is the most recent contactless ticketing system that makes use of a smartcard and which is used on public transport. This system started on the 29th of February 2009 and was valid for train service transport of the Metropolitan system (Mitchelle, 2009). From the project management viewpoint, some of the things that have been discovered to have gone wrong include the lack of ability by Lynne Kosky, who was the public transport manager to remember the number that was to be used by passengers to buy a ticket. As a result of this, a computer error occur and r esulted in over 1,600 people receiving new Myki cards onto which their names were printed wrongly or indicated as anonymous. With its production alongside other similar Metcard services, the government continued to make payment in order to ensure that commuters had sufficient opportunity to switch to the Myki electronic ticketing system. Most of the News agents also refused to sell the Myki cards since they earned far less commission from the government than that generated from the other Metcards.

New Visa Policy Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

New Visa Policy - Article Example In recent news articles regarding the visit of President Barak Obama in China, as part of his official trip to Asia, talks on new visa policy allegedly elicited diverse reactions from members of the CSSFA, as well as other Chinese citizens living in the United States. According to the reported written by Leavenworth, the new visa policy focused on extending the time frame of visits to the U.S. of Chinese businessmen and students and likewise, of U.S. businessmen and students in China. As explicitly noted: â€Å"The new visa policy announced Monday was lauded by business and other groups. For U.S. citizens residing in China, the current one-year visa for business in China would be extended for as much as 10 years. The education visa would be extended as long as five years. Chinese business investors and students would also benefit, enjoying longer visa extensions to reside in the United States, according to a White House statement. A senior administration official said Monday that it could lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs being created in the United States, many of them in tourism. Some 100 million Chinese traveled worldwide last year, but only 1.8 million came to the United States† (Leavenworth 1). From an approximate number of students enrolled in the Miami University, where â€Å"based on Fall 2013 enrollment, 15,460 undergraduates and 2,260 graduate students study on the Oxford campus† (Miami University 1), the Chinese students represent about 1% of the student population. As such, membership to the CSSFA is about 150 to date. The reactions to the new visa policy were relayed diverse. Most of the members of the CSSFA expressed optimism that the new visa policy would create increased benefits in terms of access to greater potentials to learn more about American culture, including its language, way of life, and possibly pursuing higher

Traditional learning styles adaptation Essay Example for Free

Traditional learning styles adaptation Essay In the last decade, many universities have started to adapt traditional learning styles to new technologies. They have done so because flexible learning allows the student to study at their own time and pace, which fits in with their lifestyle with the aid of technology. Technology has allowed the delivery of lectures to become more varied and imaginative and therefore more accessible to a wider student base. They have also done so because flexible learning allows students to access university courses without having to step foot within a lecture hall therefore it has become more widely available to students as it fits in with their lives and can be worked around their schedules, whether they are in the outback, different country, working etc. Technology has allowed the lectures to be accessible anywhere anytime as long as you have access to internet. Task 2 1.Reference Lodge, J 2010. ‘Communicating with first year students, so many channels but is anyone listening?’ A practice report’. The international Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 100-105. 2.Purpose and argument Communication with students is constantly changing with new technology, whilst many enjoy communicating through social networking and other online media sites, many also prefer a more traditional method of communication. Technology will continue to develop and getting important information over to students without it becoming lost within social networking sites will continue to become difficult. Therefore there needs to be options for getting messages across to students from all age groups. 3.Academic credibility Jason lodge is a psychological scientist and a well-known lecturer at Griffith University. He is also a researcher at the University of Queensland as well as other well-known Universities in Australia. His paper ‘Communicating with first year students: so many channels but is anyone listening: a practice report’ was published in 2010 making it fairly recent and not out dated. Most of his referencing is also fairly recent within the last ten years making it more academically credible. The other 12 end text references that Lodge uses are also based on factual information and published in journals and well known publishers such as Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 4.Headings and their main ideas Abstract In today’s modern world, universities have to keep up with the quick changing world of technology in order to communicate students. As technology changes frequently, it is difficult to find out what the students prefer for these communications. Social networking and other new online deliveries were generally met with a positive feedback from students. Background New technologies Higher education has radically changed with the modernisation of new information. Adopting new technology too eagerly has led to a situation where communication between and organisations and students are being lost. It is difficult to find which hi-tech channel is efficient and successful in getting messages across to students without getting lost and what is best for studying. The issues surrounding communication with first year students Various groups of students are entering higher education which presents complications in making sure communication needs of all students are met. The younger generations seems to be thriving on modern technology whilst the older generation prefers the more established lines of communications. However what is better for some students may not necessarily be good for others therefore finding something that works for everyone is fairly difficult. The current research Introduction Understanding students’ needs and preferences for communication channels within university life needs to be closely monitored and met. This needs to take into consideration, the wide age range within the first year of University life. Which communication method also needs to be observed as the more popular means of communication? Methods Social networking sites seem to be the most popular form of communications. With this in mind a group of students in their first year of studying were asked to complete a survey about which communication methods they preferred to receive messages from regarding administrative and educational issues. Results and discussions The result of this research showed that social networking sites were amongst the highest preferred methods of communications amongst university students for unofficial teamwork between students. However concerns were raised about the privacy of social networking sites when it came to communications with the university. On the other hand, when it came to communication about administrative or academic issues, students preferred to have contact either via email, in person or by phone. Recommendations The recommendations were that official messages from the Universities were best left to more recognized methods of communications but that the universities could use the social media outlets for more informal communications as long as they kept the messages short and to the point. The recommendation also suggested that it didn’t really matter what the generation gap was amongst the first year students as they were all catching up with the know-how of modern technology. Outcomes of discussion and reflections The problems of communicating necessary information to students seem to be across the board throughout other learning institutions. Students are continually inundated with information from the establishments therefore institutions need to make it simply for students to use and access, they need to present it in such a way that it is interesting, eye catching and encourages the student to participate with the organization as well as making it cost effective for the establishment. It was also established that social networking sites are probably best left for the students to communicate informally amongst one another rather than universities trying to communicate with students through these mean as their messages were largely overlooked and went unnoticed. As technology continues to grow and more forward, this will always present a communication problem for universities with first year students as they themselves are often also trying to not only cope with life as a first year student but also with the many new technical forms of communication that are constantly flooding the market. 5.Relevance or usefulness This reading will be very useful in doing my assignment because Lodge covers all aspects of flexible learning. He has looked at the problems that modern technology brings and how the different generations within the first year of learning will cope with it. How the delivery of the materials will be received from first year students and the problems that first year students face in accessing the materials as technology continues to grow and improve. Lodge has also tried to establish in what way is the best method for establishments to get their communications across to students.

XY Chromosome in a Female With Secondary Amenorrhea

XY Chromosome in a Female With Secondary Amenorrhea Dania Al-Jaroudi, M.D Capsule A 17-year-old girl presented to our gynecology clinic with secondary amenorrhea. She had been diagnosed with ALL at the age of 5 years, she received chemotherapy and radiotherapy over the following years. Her chromosomal analysis showed a karyotype of 46, XY. Introduction Primary ovarian insufficiency is a disorder that is emotionally traumatic and bears lifelong consequences on fertility, bone and cardiovascular health (1,2), making it more challenging is its occurrence in adolescents. Previously the term premature menopause had been used and found to be incorrect; as about 50 % of women have intermittent ovarian function and may ovulate and conceive after this diagnosis (1,2,3). The diagnosis is made when women younger than 40 years, have four or more months of amenorrhea and two serum FSH levels taken one month apart in the menopausal range (2). Causes of primary ovarian insufficiency in adolescents include chromosomal abnormalities, premutation in the FMR1 gene for fragile X, or iatrogenic from chemotherapy or radiation therapy (1). Infiltrative, infectious processes and pelvic surgery are less common causes (1). Autoimmune disease is another cause, as around 4% of women will have adrenal or ovarian antibodies. Still the etiology remains unknown in many cases (3). Although advances in oncology treatments have improved survival of childhood cancer, this came at the expense of ovarian function, increasing the risk of ovarian insufficiency and infertility (4). Morse et. al showed in a prospective observational study of ovarian function during cancer treatment of females aged 0 to 18 years that ovarian insufficiency occurred in chemotherapy treated prepubertal and pubertal patients regardless of menarche, age, diagnosis or chemotherapy given (5). Furthermore, females receiving radiotherapy below the diaphragm and/or stem cell transplant (SCT) had no recovery in their ovarian function followed for one and a half years from the end of their treatment (5). Clinicians need to be sensitive in delivering the diagnosis of primary ovarian insufficiency to their patients (6). This diagnosis can be emotionally traumatic and emotional needs of the patient need to be addressed as should further support be available (6). Adequate information regarding the diagnosis should be given as according to Groff AA et al (6); most patients feel that inadequate information decreased their sense of control (6). Case Report Our patient is a17-year old single girl who presented to our clinic with secondary amenorrhea. She had been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in 2002 at 5 years of age. Therapy began with hyperfractionated chemotherapy with two courses; course A: cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone and Course B: methotrexate and cytarabine (HCVAD). She relapsed in 2007 and 2012 and was treated with methotrexate (MTX), dexamethasone (DEXA), vincristine, and L-asparagine. She then had total body radiation in 2012. In July 2012, patient was referred to King AbdulAziz medical city at 15 years of age with pancytopenia, she was again given hyperfractionated chemotherapy with two courses; course A: cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone and Course B: methotrexate and cytarabine (HCVAD). After remission she was given busulfan/cyclophosphamide then she had stem cell transplant (SCT) from her full HLA matched sibling. Patient had menarche at 11 years, after which she had regular menstruations for 4 years before she developed secondary amenorrhea. Progesterone challenge test was done with no response. Hormonal profile showed hypergonadotropic hypogonadism, normal thyroid function test and prolactin levels. Pelvic ultrasound showed normal, but small sized uterus and ovaries. Chromosomal analysis showed 46, XY, this confused her primary physician was unsure about the best plan of management. On further review of her previous investigations, her chromosomal analysis one-year back had been a normal female genotype. So with the stem cell transplant (SCT) from her HLA matched sibling her genotype and her whole cell line had changed. With the impression of premature ovarian insufficiency as her primary diagnosis, patient was started on cyclical hormonal therapy; estradiol valerate 2 mg, norgestrel 500 mcg (progyluton ®, Bayer Health, Germany) for 6 months. On follow up after 2 months, she didn’t start progyluton because she thought she needs to start 5th day of cycle; proper counseling was done and patient was seen 2 months afterwards on hormonal therapy, calcium and vitamin D with withdrawal bleeds. Objective: To report a case of primary ovarian insufficiency in 17 year old, single girl, who had ALL and was treated with chemo and radiotherapy, followed by bone marrow transplant. Design: Case report. Setting: King Abdulaziz Medical City Patient(s): A patient diagnosed with primary ovarian insufficiency, after receiving chemo and radiotherapy for ALL. She later received bone marrow transplant from her HLA matched brother. Intervention(s): Hormone replacement therapy. Main Outcome Measure(s): After ruling out other causes, counseling and emotional support where given to the patient. She was then started on hormonal replacement therapy, calcium and vitamin D. Result(s): Patient started hormonal therapy and was followed in the clinic. Conclusion(s): This case describes a primary ovarian insufficiency in a girl post chemo and radiotherapy; it also describes a change in cell line following bone marrow transplant from her HLA matched brother. Key Words: Secondary amenorrhea, primary ovarian insufficiency, Hormonal replacement therapy, stem cell transplant. Acknowledgments: We would like to express our thanks to Dr. Hanan Dahlawi for providing care to the patient. Discussion: Conditioning with chemotherapy and radiotherapy prior to stem cell transplant (SCT) particularly with cyclophosphamide and total body irradiation will inevitably lead to primary ovarian insufficiency and infertility (7). The risk of primary ovarian insufficiency when patients receive busulfan and cyclophosphamide is about 100%, similar to what our patient has received (7). We report this case as this patient’s karyotype changed to a male karyotype following stem cell transplant (SCT) from her full HLA matched sibling. This led to a diagnostic confusion at first, and was later understood after her karyotype one year earlier was reviewed and genetist was consulted. There was no similar cases reported in the literature, although numerous cases where reported on primary ovarian insufficiency in adolescents, and successful pregnancy thereafter. Therefore, we recommend to educate physician on changes occurring after stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, this patient was not offered fertility preservation options prior to her treatment; this again is another area of awareness that needs to be raised in physicians. Nonetheless, this patient was offered counseling and hormonal therapy after she was referred to our out patient clinics. The aim of hormonal therapy in adolescents with primary ovarian insufficiency includes the relief of hypoestrogenic symptoms in addition to bone support, cardiovascular, and sexual health (8). Adolescents may need higher doses of estrogen than menopausal women to ensure adequate replacement and optimal bone health (8).

Invent Your Own Technology :: Process Essays

Invent Your Own Technology â€Å"The first writing technology was writing itself (39 Baron).† -Dennis Baron, From Pencils to Pixels Re-introducing myself to a task that I have taken advantage of my entire life proved both frustrating and time consuming. Writing has always been done with at least a pencil hasn’t it? Apparently not, and I realized that as I set out to â€Å"create† a non-technological way to write. The new way of writing I created, although effective, took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated. Thinking of an idea for this project was easy; it was putting that abstract thought into concrete form that proved difficult. Armed with the best of intentions I set out to create a project equivalent to Egyptian hieroglyphics carved on the tops of pyramids. I soon realized that I set my goals a bit to high so I began scratching a few words into a piece of tree bark with a rock. When that proved not as interesting as I wanted, and certainly not as aesthetically pleasing, I moved to plan B: creating my own ink by boiling grape peals. The ink was a deep shade of purple (and smelled like w ine); I was sure it would write just like ink from a pen and I would have a beautiful project. However my ego got the better of me. As it turned out the fermented ink would not write on my bark surface. Instead it absorbed into the bark never to be seen again. I moved to plan C. Creating a smoother surface for my wonderful ink by mixing flour and water and spreading it over the bark-again unsuccessful. Plan D: stick with the flour and water mixture but carve into the surface, like clay, before it hardens completely. (I had utterly given up on the ink.) Success! I had finally created a new way to write. In just over three hours I had a ten-word document. It wasn’t profound; it wasn’t beautiful; but it was certainly permanent. My creation came to life. Through this inventing process I was not only able to make a new writing technology, but I also learned something very valuable about myself-I have surprisingly little patients.

Business Process Reengineering

Describe each of the four kinds of organizational change that can be promoted with information technology. What is business process reengineering? What steps are required to make it effective? How does it differ from business process management? Explain with example. In an organization, there are major risks and uncertainties in systems development that need to be addressed by the management. Determining when new systems and business processes can have the greatest impact is involved in these challenges.This may be the reasons why organizational change and development is becoming a common scenario to talk about involving management, organizations, business, and leadership. With the fast-changing environment, business conditions bring consequences in management both in inner and outer factors. That is why in most cases, most of the managerial activities revolve around decision – making. Knowledge plays a major role in organizational development.Organizational changes are also u sually described, including management and employee training requirements, recruiting efforts, changes in business processes and changes in authority, structure or management practices. Information technology can promote various degrees of organizational change, ranging from incremental to far-reaching. There are actually four types of organizational change enabled by information technology: automation, rationalization, reengineering, and paradigm shifts. [pic] This figure shows the four degrees of organizational change.Automation is the easiest and the most common form of change. Being the most common form of IT-enabled change, the using of computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks is an example of automation. This involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. AUTOMATION Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of ind ustrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization.Although automation speeds up performance of tasks, it does not guarantee a very high effectivity in business success. It is just the same as repeating the old manual way of disorders but in a faster way. However, this type of change, although common, is slow – moving, thus producing slow returns. Organizations using automation produce the same products and services as before but changes the way the organization functions. Example of automation in business are calculating paychecks and payroll registers, automated checkout and inventory system employed by many supermarkets. nd giving bank tellers instant access to customers deposit records. RATIONALIZATION Rationalization of procedures causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. It is the streamlining of existing operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. Rationalization follows quickly from automation. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING A more powerful type of organizational change is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business reengineering reorganizes work flows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper intensive tasks. It is usually much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized.Business process reengineering in simpler words is Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, and service, to maximize the benefits of technology. Process reengineering have been used by many companies to deal with a wide variety of problem. For example, the EMI Records Group was having difficulty filling orders for its most popular CDs. Retailers and recording stars were rebelling–it took the company as much as 20 days to deliver a big order for a hit CD, and then nearly 20% of the order would be missing. Small, incremental improvements would not have been adequate, so the company reengineered its entire istribution process with dramatic effects on on-time delivery and order fill rates. In business process reengineering, the organization can develop the business vision and process objective. It can identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback) and understand and measure the performance of existing processes. It can also identify the opportunities for applying information technology and build a prototype of the new process. PARADIGM SHIFT It is about changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself, whole new products or services that didn't even exist before.In other words, paradigm shifts deals with major disruption and extreme change. Paradigm is a complete mental model of how a complex system works or functions. In other words, a paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the organization. It is a complete re-conception of how the systems should function. For example, higher education is undergoing a major paradigm shift in the online delivery of education. Classes are now offered through the Internet so that students don't even go to classrooms. Many tried-and-true teaching methodologies are being radically altered to accommodate this shift in how education is offered.Paradigm shift is a radical re-conceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge to the management. It is said that seventy percent of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail. But still o rganizations change. The reason is because the rewards are high. Paradigm shift involves great risks, but great returns too. The Internet is causing all kinds of industries and businesses to alter their products, their services, and their processes in radical ways.Entire organizations are being created to handle the paradigm shifts involved in e-commerce. Look at the automobile industry as an example of this type of change: Traditional dealerships are being disrupted by auto malls and online buying opportunities. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING In today’s ever-changing world, the only thing that doesn’t change is ‘change’ itself. In a world increasingly driven by the three Cs: Customer, Competition and Change, companies are on the lookout for new solutions for their business problems.Recently, some of the more successful business corporations in the world seem to have hit upon an incredible solution: BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR). Business Process Re engineering (BPR) involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed. A reengineered organization is process oriented, where: 1) Processes are identified and named, 2) Everyone is aware of the processes they are involved in, 3) Process measurement, i. e. onitoring and control, is performed BPR advocates that enterprises go back to the basics and reexamine their very roots. It doesn’t believe in small improvements. Rather it aims at total reinvention. As for results: BPR is clearly not for companies who want a 10% improvement. It is for the ones that need a ten-fold increase. BPR focuses on processes and not on tasks, jobs or people. It endeavors to redesign the strategic and value added processes that transcend organizational boundaries. According to many in the BPR field reengineering should focus on processes and not be limit ed to thinking about the organizations.After all the organization is only as effective as its processes. Processes are currently invisible and unnamed because people think about the individual departments more often than the process with which all of them are involved. So companies that are currently used to talking in terms of departments such as marketing and manufacturing must switch to giving names to the processes that they do such that they express the beginning and end states. These names should imply all the work that gets done between the start and finish. For example, order fulfillment can be called order to payment process. Steps to an effective BPR are as follows – . Prepare for reengineering – Planning and Preparation are vital factors for any activity or event to be successful, and reengineering is no exception. Before attempting reengineering, the question ‘Is BPR necessary? ’ should be asked. There should be a significant need for the proce ss to be reengineered. Preparation activity begins with the development of executive consensus on the importance of reengineering and the link between breakthrough business goals and reengineering projects. A mandate for change is produced and a cross-functional team is established with a game plan for the process of reengineering.While forming the cross functional team, steps should be taken to ensure that the organization continues to function in the absence of several key players. As typical BPR projects involve cross-functional cooperation and significant changes to the status quo, the planning for organizational changes is difficult to conduct without strategic direction from the top. The impact of the environmental changes that serve as the impetus for the reengineering effort must also be considered in establishing guidelines for the reengineering project.Another important factor to be considered while establishing the strategic goals for the reengineering effort, is to make it your first priority to understand the expectations of your customers and where your existing process falls short of meeting those requirements. Having identified the customer driven objectives, the mission or vision statement is formulated. The vision is what a company believes it wants to achieve when it is done, and a well-defined vision will sustain a company’s resolve through the stress of the reengineering process. 2.Map and Analyze As-Is Process – Before the reengineering team can proceed to redesign the process, they should understand the existing process. Although some BPR proponents argue against analyzing the current enterprise, saying that it inhibits the creative process, that might not always hold true. It varies from case to case. While some organizations which are in dire straits might attempt a new process design while totally ignoring the existing processes, most organizations need to map the existing processes first, analyze and improve on it to de sign new processes.The important aspect of BPR is that the improvement should provide dramatic results. Many people do not understand the value of an As-Is analysis and rather prefer to spend a larger chunk of their valuable time on designing the To-Be model directly. The main objective of this phase is to identify disconnects (anything that prevents the process from achieving desired results and in particular information transfer between organizations or people) and value adding processes. This is initiated by first creation and documentation of Activity and Process models making use of the various modeling methods available.Then, the amount of time that each activity takes and the cost that each activity requires in terms of resources is calculated through simulation and activity based costing (ABC). All the groundwork required having been completed, the processes that need to be reengineered are identified. 3. Design To-Be process – The objective of this phase is to produc e one or more alternatives to the current situation, which satisfy the strategic goals of the enterprise. The first step in this phase is benchmarking.The peer organizations need not be competitors or even from the same industry. Innovative practices can be adopted from anywhere, no matter what their source. Having identified the potential improvements to the existing processes, the development of the To-Be models is done using the various modeling methods available, bearing in mind the principles of process design. Then, similar to the As-Is model, we perform simulation and ABC to analyze factors like the time and cost involved. It should be noted that this activity is an iterative process and cannot be done overnight.The several To-Be models that are finally arrived at are validated. By performing Trade off Analysis the best possible To-Be scenarios are selected for implementation. 4. Implement Reengineered Process- The implementation stage is where reengineering efforts meet the most resistance and hence it is by far the most difficult one. When so much time and effort is spent on analyzing the current processes, redesigning them and planning the migration, it would indeed be prudent to run a culture change program simultaneously with all the planning and preparation.This would enable the organization to undergo a much more facile transition. But whatever may be the juncture in time that the culture change program may be initiated, it should be rooted in our minds that ‘winning the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the BPR effort is most vital for the success of the effort. Once this has been done, the next step is to develop a transition plan from the As-Is to the redesigned process. This plan must align the organizational structure, information systems, and the business policies and procedures with the redesigned processes. 5.Improve Process Continously- A very vital part in the success of every reengineering effort lies in improving the reen gineered process continuously. The first step in this activity is monitoring. Two things have to be monitored – the progress of action and the results. The progress of action is measured by seeing how much more informed the people feel, how much more commitment the management shows and how well the change teams are accepted in the broader perspective of the organization. This can be achieved by conducting attitude surveys and discrete ‘fireside chats’ with those initially not directly involved with the change.Communication is strengthened throughout the organization, ongoing measurement is initiated, team reviewing of performance against clearly defined targets is done and a feedback loop is set up wherein the process is remapped, reanalyzed and redesigned. Thereby continuous improvement of performance is ensured through a performance tracking system and application of problem solving skills. An intense customer focus, superior process design and a strong and mot ivated leadership are vital ingredients to the recipe for the success of any business corporation.Reengineering is the key that every organization should possess to attain these prerequisites to success. BPR doesn’t offer a miracle cure on a platter. Nor does it provide a painless quick fix. Rather it advocates strenuous hard work and instigates the people involved to not only to change what they do but targets at altering their basic way of thinking itself. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving an organization's business processes.BPM activities seek to make business processes more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, the administrative area of concern dealing with maintenance and optimization of an organization's equipment and core operations. BPM Vs. BPR If BPM is a system software, then BPR is a method. BPR re-eval uates the processes used by the enterprise from the very basics and thoroughly redesigns them, enabling enterprises to have significant breakthroughs in cost, service, and speed.BPR can enable enterprises to reform from deep within, and create a new organization structure. Therefore, BPR is for the whole enterprise and may even include basic organization structures in its large modifications. BPM is a concept built internally in an enterprise that continuous to manage business processes. In an environment that stores internal and external events, BPM starts from a group of dependent processes, that describes, understands, indicates, and manages the whole process.BPM can integrate internal resources in an enterprise, automatically linking each department, enabling the enterprise to become a single united special forces team. As well, establishing standardized business processes through a single portal, the system can automatically make decisions based on rules and processes of the en terprise to satisfy the management needs of the enterprise, creating comprehensive core competitive force. Key aspects on which BPM differs from BPR are as follows: – Marked difference between BPR and BPM | |Aspect |BPR |BPM | |Level of change |Radical, one step change |Evolutionary & continuous | |Time taken for implementation |Long |Short time and smooth takeover | |Starting point |Drawing board |Current processes and automation levels | |Implementation |Huge effort required for the |Incremental | | |disruptive change | | |Expanse |One major process at a time |Flexible – simultaneously across one or more / | | | |small or major processes | |Methodology |Redesigning of business |Process and decision models | | |processes | | |Enabling technology |Primarily IT |Primarily process technology | |Involvement |Business and process experts |Process experts and all related people | |Risk |High |Low | |Outcome |Drastic |Incremental improvement | |Cultural issues |Major concern |Not much concern | |Implementation stress and concern|High |Low | BPM tools have taken the advantage of the BPR experience and conceptually are more flexible in terms of expanse and intensity.Unlike BPR which targets end-to-end process by radically redesigning it, BPM tools can be applied part by part to the whole enterprise at a time, by adopting much more manageable and smaller changes in the process. This way the investments, risks and amount of change are minimized but at the same time the tangible impact is much more modest than what was a possibility with BPR. Yet BPM tools for automating processes have their basis on the fundamental concepts that were emphasized by BPR, such as: †¢ Simple processes delivering on the metrics of quality, service, flexibility †¢ Focus on eliminating non-value adding activities †¢ Decisions becoming integral part of the processBPM unifies discrete tools through extension of technologies like BPR, EAI, Workflow automation and any other business application package in such a form where the implementation and upgradation is much easily handled and underlying business process are efficiently managed. In addition to the strength inherited from BPR that BPM is built around business processes and not business applications per se, yet another promising feature of BPM is that it is based on mathematical process models. For example: – BPM helps you improve predictability and repeatability. For example, it will help you identify and recruit 10 candidates for a specified position in 8 weeks. BPR helps you study this and reduce this 8 weeks to 6 weeks or 4 weeks , depending on the context. Once this is done, we need to again use BPM to stabilize this and get back to predictability. Business Process Reengineering Describe each of the four kinds of organizational change that can be promoted with information technology. What is business process reengineering? What steps are required to make it effective? How does it differ from business process management? Explain with example. In an organization, there are major risks and uncertainties in systems development that need to be addressed by the management. Determining when new systems and business processes can have the greatest impact is involved in these challenges.This may be the reasons why organizational change and development is becoming a common scenario to talk about involving management, organizations, business, and leadership. With the fast-changing environment, business conditions bring consequences in management both in inner and outer factors. That is why in most cases, most of the managerial activities revolve around decision – making. Knowledge plays a major role in organizational development.Organizational changes are also u sually described, including management and employee training requirements, recruiting efforts, changes in business processes and changes in authority, structure or management practices. Information technology can promote various degrees of organizational change, ranging from incremental to far-reaching. There are actually four types of organizational change enabled by information technology: automation, rationalization, reengineering, and paradigm shifts. [pic] This figure shows the four degrees of organizational change.Automation is the easiest and the most common form of change. Being the most common form of IT-enabled change, the using of computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks is an example of automation. This involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. AUTOMATION Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of ind ustrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization.Although automation speeds up performance of tasks, it does not guarantee a very high effectivity in business success. It is just the same as repeating the old manual way of disorders but in a faster way. However, this type of change, although common, is slow – moving, thus producing slow returns. Organizations using automation produce the same products and services as before but changes the way the organization functions. Example of automation in business are calculating paychecks and payroll registers, automated checkout and inventory system employed by many supermarkets. nd giving bank tellers instant access to customers deposit records. RATIONALIZATION Rationalization of procedures causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. It is the streamlining of existing operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. Rationalization follows quickly from automation. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING A more powerful type of organizational change is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business reengineering reorganizes work flows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper intensive tasks. It is usually much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized.Business process reengineering in simpler words is Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, and service, to maximize the benefits of technology. Process reengineering have been used by many companies to deal with a wide variety of problem. For example, the EMI Records Group was having difficulty filling orders for its most popular CDs. Retailers and recording stars were rebelling–it took the company as much as 20 days to deliver a big order for a hit CD, and then nearly 20% of the order would be missing. Small, incremental improvements would not have been adequate, so the company reengineered its entire istribution process with dramatic effects on on-time delivery and order fill rates. In business process reengineering, the organization can develop the business vision and process objective. It can identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback) and understand and measure the performance of existing processes. It can also identify the opportunities for applying information technology and build a prototype of the new process. PARADIGM SHIFT It is about changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself, whole new products or services that didn't even exist before.In other words, paradigm shifts deals with major disruption and extreme change. Paradigm is a complete mental model of how a complex system works or functions. In other words, a paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the organization. It is a complete re-conception of how the systems should function. For example, higher education is undergoing a major paradigm shift in the online delivery of education. Classes are now offered through the Internet so that students don't even go to classrooms. Many tried-and-true teaching methodologies are being radically altered to accommodate this shift in how education is offered.Paradigm shift is a radical re-conceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge to the management. It is said that seventy percent of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail. But still o rganizations change. The reason is because the rewards are high. Paradigm shift involves great risks, but great returns too. The Internet is causing all kinds of industries and businesses to alter their products, their services, and their processes in radical ways.Entire organizations are being created to handle the paradigm shifts involved in e-commerce. Look at the automobile industry as an example of this type of change: Traditional dealerships are being disrupted by auto malls and online buying opportunities. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING In today’s ever-changing world, the only thing that doesn’t change is ‘change’ itself. In a world increasingly driven by the three Cs: Customer, Competition and Change, companies are on the lookout for new solutions for their business problems.Recently, some of the more successful business corporations in the world seem to have hit upon an incredible solution: BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR). Business Process Re engineering (BPR) involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed. A reengineered organization is process oriented, where: 1) Processes are identified and named, 2) Everyone is aware of the processes they are involved in, 3) Process measurement, i. e. onitoring and control, is performed BPR advocates that enterprises go back to the basics and reexamine their very roots. It doesn’t believe in small improvements. Rather it aims at total reinvention. As for results: BPR is clearly not for companies who want a 10% improvement. It is for the ones that need a ten-fold increase. BPR focuses on processes and not on tasks, jobs or people. It endeavors to redesign the strategic and value added processes that transcend organizational boundaries. According to many in the BPR field reengineering should focus on processes and not be limit ed to thinking about the organizations.After all the organization is only as effective as its processes. Processes are currently invisible and unnamed because people think about the individual departments more often than the process with which all of them are involved. So companies that are currently used to talking in terms of departments such as marketing and manufacturing must switch to giving names to the processes that they do such that they express the beginning and end states. These names should imply all the work that gets done between the start and finish. For example, order fulfillment can be called order to payment process. Steps to an effective BPR are as follows – . Prepare for reengineering – Planning and Preparation are vital factors for any activity or event to be successful, and reengineering is no exception. Before attempting reengineering, the question ‘Is BPR necessary? ’ should be asked. There should be a significant need for the proce ss to be reengineered. Preparation activity begins with the development of executive consensus on the importance of reengineering and the link between breakthrough business goals and reengineering projects. A mandate for change is produced and a cross-functional team is established with a game plan for the process of reengineering.While forming the cross functional team, steps should be taken to ensure that the organization continues to function in the absence of several key players. As typical BPR projects involve cross-functional cooperation and significant changes to the status quo, the planning for organizational changes is difficult to conduct without strategic direction from the top. The impact of the environmental changes that serve as the impetus for the reengineering effort must also be considered in establishing guidelines for the reengineering project.Another important factor to be considered while establishing the strategic goals for the reengineering effort, is to make it your first priority to understand the expectations of your customers and where your existing process falls short of meeting those requirements. Having identified the customer driven objectives, the mission or vision statement is formulated. The vision is what a company believes it wants to achieve when it is done, and a well-defined vision will sustain a company’s resolve through the stress of the reengineering process. 2.Map and Analyze As-Is Process – Before the reengineering team can proceed to redesign the process, they should understand the existing process. Although some BPR proponents argue against analyzing the current enterprise, saying that it inhibits the creative process, that might not always hold true. It varies from case to case. While some organizations which are in dire straits might attempt a new process design while totally ignoring the existing processes, most organizations need to map the existing processes first, analyze and improve on it to de sign new processes.The important aspect of BPR is that the improvement should provide dramatic results. Many people do not understand the value of an As-Is analysis and rather prefer to spend a larger chunk of their valuable time on designing the To-Be model directly. The main objective of this phase is to identify disconnects (anything that prevents the process from achieving desired results and in particular information transfer between organizations or people) and value adding processes. This is initiated by first creation and documentation of Activity and Process models making use of the various modeling methods available.Then, the amount of time that each activity takes and the cost that each activity requires in terms of resources is calculated through simulation and activity based costing (ABC). All the groundwork required having been completed, the processes that need to be reengineered are identified. 3. Design To-Be process – The objective of this phase is to produc e one or more alternatives to the current situation, which satisfy the strategic goals of the enterprise. The first step in this phase is benchmarking.The peer organizations need not be competitors or even from the same industry. Innovative practices can be adopted from anywhere, no matter what their source. Having identified the potential improvements to the existing processes, the development of the To-Be models is done using the various modeling methods available, bearing in mind the principles of process design. Then, similar to the As-Is model, we perform simulation and ABC to analyze factors like the time and cost involved. It should be noted that this activity is an iterative process and cannot be done overnight.The several To-Be models that are finally arrived at are validated. By performing Trade off Analysis the best possible To-Be scenarios are selected for implementation. 4. Implement Reengineered Process- The implementation stage is where reengineering efforts meet the most resistance and hence it is by far the most difficult one. When so much time and effort is spent on analyzing the current processes, redesigning them and planning the migration, it would indeed be prudent to run a culture change program simultaneously with all the planning and preparation.This would enable the organization to undergo a much more facile transition. But whatever may be the juncture in time that the culture change program may be initiated, it should be rooted in our minds that ‘winning the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the BPR effort is most vital for the success of the effort. Once this has been done, the next step is to develop a transition plan from the As-Is to the redesigned process. This plan must align the organizational structure, information systems, and the business policies and procedures with the redesigned processes. 5.Improve Process Continously- A very vital part in the success of every reengineering effort lies in improving the reen gineered process continuously. The first step in this activity is monitoring. Two things have to be monitored – the progress of action and the results. The progress of action is measured by seeing how much more informed the people feel, how much more commitment the management shows and how well the change teams are accepted in the broader perspective of the organization. This can be achieved by conducting attitude surveys and discrete ‘fireside chats’ with those initially not directly involved with the change.Communication is strengthened throughout the organization, ongoing measurement is initiated, team reviewing of performance against clearly defined targets is done and a feedback loop is set up wherein the process is remapped, reanalyzed and redesigned. Thereby continuous improvement of performance is ensured through a performance tracking system and application of problem solving skills. An intense customer focus, superior process design and a strong and mot ivated leadership are vital ingredients to the recipe for the success of any business corporation.Reengineering is the key that every organization should possess to attain these prerequisites to success. BPR doesn’t offer a miracle cure on a platter. Nor does it provide a painless quick fix. Rather it advocates strenuous hard work and instigates the people involved to not only to change what they do but targets at altering their basic way of thinking itself. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving an organization's business processes.BPM activities seek to make business processes more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, the administrative area of concern dealing with maintenance and optimization of an organization's equipment and core operations. BPM Vs. BPR If BPM is a system software, then BPR is a method. BPR re-eval uates the processes used by the enterprise from the very basics and thoroughly redesigns them, enabling enterprises to have significant breakthroughs in cost, service, and speed.BPR can enable enterprises to reform from deep within, and create a new organization structure. Therefore, BPR is for the whole enterprise and may even include basic organization structures in its large modifications. BPM is a concept built internally in an enterprise that continuous to manage business processes. In an environment that stores internal and external events, BPM starts from a group of dependent processes, that describes, understands, indicates, and manages the whole process.BPM can integrate internal resources in an enterprise, automatically linking each department, enabling the enterprise to become a single united special forces team. As well, establishing standardized business processes through a single portal, the system can automatically make decisions based on rules and processes of the en terprise to satisfy the management needs of the enterprise, creating comprehensive core competitive force. Key aspects on which BPM differs from BPR are as follows: – Marked difference between BPR and BPM | |Aspect |BPR |BPM | |Level of change |Radical, one step change |Evolutionary & continuous | |Time taken for implementation |Long |Short time and smooth takeover | |Starting point |Drawing board |Current processes and automation levels | |Implementation |Huge effort required for the |Incremental | | |disruptive change | | |Expanse |One major process at a time |Flexible – simultaneously across one or more / | | | |small or major processes | |Methodology |Redesigning of business |Process and decision models | | |processes | | |Enabling technology |Primarily IT |Primarily process technology | |Involvement |Business and process experts |Process experts and all related people | |Risk |High |Low | |Outcome |Drastic |Incremental improvement | |Cultural issues |Major concern |Not much concern | |Implementation stress and concern|High |Low | BPM tools have taken the advantage of the BPR experience and conceptually are more flexible in terms of expanse and intensity.Unlike BPR which targets end-to-end process by radically redesigning it, BPM tools can be applied part by part to the whole enterprise at a time, by adopting much more manageable and smaller changes in the process. This way the investments, risks and amount of change are minimized but at the same time the tangible impact is much more modest than what was a possibility with BPR. Yet BPM tools for automating processes have their basis on the fundamental concepts that were emphasized by BPR, such as: †¢ Simple processes delivering on the metrics of quality, service, flexibility †¢ Focus on eliminating non-value adding activities †¢ Decisions becoming integral part of the processBPM unifies discrete tools through extension of technologies like BPR, EAI, Workflow automation and any other business application package in such a form where the implementation and upgradation is much easily handled and underlying business process are efficiently managed. In addition to the strength inherited from BPR that BPM is built around business processes and not business applications per se, yet another promising feature of BPM is that it is based on mathematical process models. For example: – BPM helps you improve predictability and repeatability. For example, it will help you identify and recruit 10 candidates for a specified position in 8 weeks. BPR helps you study this and reduce this 8 weeks to 6 weeks or 4 weeks , depending on the context. Once this is done, we need to again use BPM to stabilize this and get back to predictability.