...techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project. (Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge Project Management Institute 2004) Project Management in Your Organization • What are the current methods of project management in your organization? • What project management issues is your organization facing? Important Characteristics of Real Life Projects • Accomplish with shared resources often only available on part-time basis • Require cross-functional team work • Involve uncertainty and are subject to change during execution • Subject to specific deadlines and time and resource constraints • Project manager often lacks functional authority over team members Proven Benefits of Project Management ✓ Provides clear roles, responsibilities, activities and schedules for team efforts ✓ Includes a method for considering the consequences of decreasing or increasing funds, resources, time, or quality ✓ Specifies a detailed plan of how to achieve our objectives ✓ Assists in the realistic assignments of tasks and responsibilities to team members according to the skills and resources available ✓ Gives structure to communicating the progress of projects ✓ Allows teams to identify potential problems and take preventive action early ✓ Keeps management...
Words: 2885 - Pages: 12
...2012). By analyzing the importance of cost accounting to the success of a firm, we will get a better understanding as to why companies use this type of accounting process. Becoming knowledgeable about the various methods of cost accounting and how they are used will enable the company to operate the process appropriately. Understanding how an operating budget works to discipline a firm’s management is also useful information when running a company. To do so, one needs to know the actual elements of the budget and how they are constructed. Lastly, one more beneficial piece of information to comprehend would be what a variance analysis is and how it is used. In the midst of discussing the previous items, there will be various elements that relate to the above topics in which there will be further detail provided. First, why is cost accounting so important to the success of the firm? “Managers rely on cost accounting to provide an idea of the actual cost of processes, departments, operations or product which is the foundation of their budget, allowing them to analyze fluctuation and the way funds are used socially for profit” (Llango, 2009). It is believed that if more companies had better cost accounting, there wouldn’t be the issues there are in the downturn in the economy today. “Businesses that understand cost accounting do well in these economic times and are more profitable than their competitors” (Wright, 2009). “Cost accounting helps managers make better decisions...
Words: 2748 - Pages: 11
...(Review) How is the taxation multiplier calculated? Why is it lower than the government purchases multiplier? How is the transfers multiplier calculated? 2. Given some gaps and marginal propensities to consume, calculate how much government purchases, taxes, or transfers should be changed. 3. Explain why an equal increase (decrease) in government purchases and net taxes (taxes minus transfers) has an expansionary (contractionary) effect. 4. What is the balanced budget multiplier? 5. Explain why discretionary fiscal policy has not been very effective in reducing recessions in the United States. 6. What are the “time lags”? 7. What is meant by "automatic stabilization"? What are the main automatic stabilizers? 8. What is meant by "official budget deficit"? by "structural deficit"? Why is the structural budget deficit a better measure of the intent of fiscal policy? 9. What does it mean that "fiscal policy is expansionary (or contractionary)"? How does one determine whether fiscal policy is expansionary or contractionary? 10. In what ways might budget deficits be bad for an economy? In what ways might they be good for an economy? 11. What is meant by “crowding-out”? 12. Explain the relation between the budget deficits and the trade deficits. 13. What is meant by the "national debt"? What is the difference between "budget deficit" and "national debt"? What is the difference...
Words: 9913 - Pages: 40
...and hire a contracting company to manage and complete the project. Recommendations: Consult with any of the 850 SMEs throughout project lifecycle, develop a plan to maintain production, house a backlog of products on site as part of a contingency plan. Did they consider other solutions? Project was planned in a “vacuum” Pricing research was only conducted after original high quote by EID Did not pursue other options Project Scope Planning and Scheduling Cost Estimating Project Planning Quality Progress Monitoring and Control Cost Control Contracting for Engineering and Construction Services Communication and People Management Risk Identification and Management Facility Startup and Project Closeout Why do you suppose renovation of the President and Executive Vice President's offices were included in the project and was that a good idea? Continued support and approval for the project Renovations were superfluous as they did not affect the project’s objective Write a simple project scope statement. The Woody 2000 project will encompass expanding its current production facilities, installation of new and more modern equipment to increase its productivity and meet...
Words: 1807 - Pages: 8
...they've come to hitting the sales targets or to see if they've met their budgetary goals. A well-rounded budget variance report will address trends, overspending, and under spending. In the healthcare field variance reports are used in every department of the hospital. Each unit of patient care has a limit and goals that need to be met from the administrators’ position. The framework for cost control is following two approaches is possible: preventive and detection-correction. ( ) On the Intensive Care Unit we are given a strict budget and we over this month. We have to explain why it has been over budget. The Intensive Care unit is an area with very heavy workload and requires a two to one ratio for the care of the patients. With the budget and the twenty five bed floor we are allowed thirteen nurses a shift for the care. In our staff we have eighty-one employees staffed on our roster. With this being said we have many days when or staff is in overtime, which hurts our budget each month. On our unit we get some patients who then turn to one on one patient and at that point we are paying extra for them to be on staff. Changes in our census are another thing we work on as a floor, and try to manage at full census to allow us the nurses and secretary that are on schedule. As a manager we are given the numbers each month to follow with our employee, which includes the overhead budget for the overtime and extra hours. As a manager we have to stick to these numbers. The number one factor...
Words: 878 - Pages: 4
...Abstract Hughes, Ginnet & Curphy define Leadership as “the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its goals”. But what if you were not given the power to properly influence others? I am not talking about power to make others do things against their will, but the power to change behaviors to meet the desired outcome. A recent example of this is the Katrina disaster. Many groups went in with the desire to lead and help the survivors of the natural disaster; however, since they were not given the power to control all the entities, they failed. It wasn’t until the President put Lieutenant General Russel L. Honore in charge to lead the tasks force, that order was finally restored. This example is seen also again with Haiti, however, they have yet to see a leader with enough power to address their issues and bring their nation back to order. It doesn’t take natural disasters to see how a failure in leadership can bring down an organization. Look at the Enron scandal or the current economic ruin of our financial institutions where in these cases, the abuse of power can lead to the destruction of a city, organization or economies. With power being defined as the capacity to cause change, we can see that too little and too much can also be...
Words: 2420 - Pages: 10
... In the management accounting, the term cost accounting includes the works of establishing budget and actual cost of operations, processes, departments, analysis of the variances and profitability or social use of the funds. In the external stakeholders we include all those who have invested money in the company, such as banks, financial houses, investors and others. Internal stakeholders are those people who work within the premise of the company, such as business or company directors, division heads and managers. Cost accounting has long been used to help managers understand the costs of running a business. Modern cost accounting originated during the industrial revolution, when the complexities of running a large scale business led to the development of systems for recording and tracking costs to help business owners and managers make decisions. In the early industrial age, most of the costs incurred by a business were what modern accountants call "variable costs" because they varied directly with the amount of production. Money was spent on labor, raw materials, power to run a factory, etc. in direct proportion to production. Managers could simply total the variable costs for a product and use this as a rough guide for decision-making processes. Some costs tend to remain the same even during busy periods, unlike variable costs, which rise and fall with volume of work. Over time, the importance of these "fixed costs" has become more important to managers. Examples of fixed...
Words: 3232 - Pages: 13
...Evaluate the problems they have identified from unmonitored costs and budgets (D3) a) Using the budget completed in P6, identify, analyse and evaluate the key costs which were left unmonitored. b) Evaluate which unmonitored cost will lead to (or may not lead) to severe problems for Gordon Brown Ltd. Justify your answer and make three recommendations on how to overcome the problems Inadequate planning: As in most businesses, Gordon Browns budget will involve planning for both short and long term needs of the business. If a business’s financial plans and budgets figures focus only on the short term, then there is a risk that future profit opportunities and real economic realities may be ignored /or not given adequate considerations. Gordon browns business needs to learn from past mistakes and avoid these mistakes in planning for the future. 1. Projections may be overstated. Budgets and projections needs to be realistic and achievable. Business decision makers and investors may be fooled by numbers in the short term, but in the end the company almost always gets hurt. A realistic budget takes gives adequate considerations to the business’ activities, competition, cost and state of the economy. It may lengthen the search for funding and profit, but when the money does arrive, it will be honest money. This helps to ensure that the business does not over-promise and under-deliver its targets. Stakeholders, customers and staff are also encouraged and adequately...
Words: 1561 - Pages: 7
...high. bridge, the Verrazano Bridge that links New In this chapter, we will learn how discre- York City’s Staten Island to the borough of tionary fiscal policy fits into the model of Brooklyn, carries more than 300,000 cars short-run fluctuations we developed in each day. Chapter 10. We’ll see how deliberate In Japan, stories like this are common. During the 1990s the Japanese government What you will learn in this chapter: changes in government spending and tax policy affect real GDP. We’ll also see how ® What fiscal policy is and why it is an important tool in managing economic fluctuations ® Which policies constitute an expansionary fiscal policy and which constitute a contractionary fiscal policy ® Why fiscal policy has a multiplier effect and how this effect is influenced by automatic stabilizers ® How to measure the government budget balance and how it is affected by economic fluctuations ® Why a large public debt may be a cause for concern ® Why implicit liabilities of the government are also a cause for concern spent around $1.4 trillion on...
Words: 15653 - Pages: 63
...S169-S182_Krug2e_Macro_PS_Ch13.qxp 2/25/09 8:02 PM Page S-169 Fiscal Policy 1. The accompanying diagram shows the current macroeconomic situation for the economy of Albernia. You have been hired as an economic consultant to help the economy move to potential output, YP. Aggregate price level LRAS SRAS P1 E1 AD1 Y1 YP Potential output Real GDP a. Is Albernia facing a recessionary or inflationary gap? b. Which type of fiscal policy—expansionary or contractionary—would move the economy of Albernia to potential output, YP ? What are some examples of such policies? c. Illustrate the macroeconomic situation in Albernia with a diagram after the successful fiscal policy has been implemented. 1. Solution a. Albernia is facing a recessionary gap; Y1 is less than YP. b. Albernia could use expansionary fiscal policies to move the economy to potential output. Such policies include increasing government purchases of goods and services, increasing government transfers, and reducing taxes. c. Aggregate price level LRAS SRAS P2 P1 E2 E1 AD2 AD1 Y1 YP Real GDP Potential output Recessionary gap S-169 MACROECONOMICS 29 13 ECONOMICS chapter: S169-S182_Krug2e_Macro_PS_Ch13.qxp 2/25/09 8:02 PM Page S-170 S-170 MACROECONOMICS, CHAPTER 13 ECONOMICS, CHAPTER 29 2. The accompanying diagram shows the current macroeconomic situation for the economy of Brittania; real GDP is Y1, and the aggregate price...
Words: 5634 - Pages: 23
...ALTERNATIVES | 12 | 6. | FINAL DECISION & RECOMMENDATION | 13 | 7. | QUESTIONS & ANSWERS | 15 | 8. | REFERENCE | 17 | TABLE OF CONTENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The city of Yorba Linda which is located in northern Orange County, California was incorporated in 1967 as a general law city. This city had been growing at a rate of about 3,000 people per year, as in 1991, it had 53,000 residents living there. Yorba Linda city used a city manager form of government. Mr. Simonian has been appointed by the City Council to be the city manager, where he will be managing all the city departments except for the Legal Services. The city’s budget included 68 full-time employee for general city operations and 17 for library operations. The city council comprised of five city residents which was elected on an at large basis for a four-year, part-time term. Their responsible is to set the city policies. Yorba Linda city is a contract city where this city contracted with public and privates agencies to provide services in the city. As in Yorba Linda the agencies are the City of Brea, County of Orange and a private agency. The purpose of this approach is to cut back or delay noncritical services or projects when revenues were not available. The city revenue is primarily derived from the state and local resources. City of Yorba Linda implements fund accounting as their financial control as it is required by the California state law. The California state law also required all...
Words: 5162 - Pages: 21
...Manager’s Hot Seat Case 13: Listening Skills: Yeah, Whatever The Meeting M: Pilar, hey. I just came down the street and I was stopped by 3 different people. We’re a hit. I mean we are a huge hit. I can’t believe how beautiful this is. P: That means it’s all over the place right? M: Absolutely. P: Congratulations. M: I mean it looks right. It looks exactly; I couldn’t even have imagined it. P: Yeah, I saw it, it was great. M: So what did you want to see me about? P: Ok, well. First of all, I wanted to congratulate you. M: Oh, thanks, thanks so much. I called my mom and dad I was so excited. P: I’m really happy with your work. And I also want to talk to you a little a bit about how I think, for us to organize ourselves a little bit better… M: Did you see this? P: Yes, I saw it, I loved it. M: Of course you have. P: Of course. You know, with the few campaigns you have been working on, there was a tiny complaint by the client that you went over budget by quite a bit of money. Now, I know that they were not told in advance. It was 11 grand over budget. M: Oh come on, that’s nothing. You know that’s nothing. That’s a drop in the bucket to these people. P: But they were upset about it. And you know that we have to… M: Oh, hold on. P: …cater a little… M: I was buzzing, I just… P: Yeah, ok. M: Oh, oh it’s Scott and Abby. P: Miguel, let’s turn our cell phones off while we’re in the meeting if you don’t mind. M: Oh my god. No, I’m just kind of on cloud nine still...
Words: 1768 - Pages: 8
...Case 1-8 A Faulty Budget Jackson Daniels graduated from Lynchberg State College two years ago. Since graduating from the college, he has worked in the accounting department of Lynchberg Manufacturing. Daniels was recently asked to prepare a sales budget for the year 2011. He conducted a thorough analysis and came out with projected sales of 250,000 units of product. That represents a 25 percent increase over 2010. Daniels went to lunch with his best friend, Jonathan Walker, to celebrate the completion of his first solo job. Walker noticed Daniels seemed very distant. He asked what the matter was. Daniels stroked his chin, ran his hand through his bushy, black hair, took another drink of scotch, and looked straight into the eyes of his friend of 20 years. “Jon, I think I made a mistake with the budget.” “What do you mean?” Walker answered. “You know how we developed a new process to manufacture soaking tanks to keep the ingredients fresh?” “Yes,” Walker answered. “Well, I projected twice the level of sales for that product than will likely occur.” “Are you sure?” Walker asked. “I checked my numbers. I'm sure. It was just a mistake on my part,” Daniels replied. “So, what are you going to do about it?” asked Walker. “I think I should report it to Pete. He's the one who acted on the numbers to hire additional workers to produce the soaking tanks,” Daniels said. “Wait a second,” Walker said. “How do you know there won't be extra demand for the product...
Words: 583 - Pages: 3
...Discussion Budget, Savings, etc., what are the definitions of these terms? According to an article entitled “Financial Literacy to Everyone” at www.practicalmoneyskills.com, budgeting is plan for your future income and expenditures that you can use as a guideline for spending and saving. Budget came from the old French word “bougette” which means purse. It is practically, a plan and list of all planned expenses and revenue. It is a plan for borrowing, saving, and spending. So why Budget? An average student spends his allowance for books, student housing, tuition fee, and food. These are all expenses encountered not only by students but, in general, most of the people in the world. There are generally three types of expenses usually faced by students, the Academic, Living, and Personal Expenditures or Costs. Academic Costs are usually what eats up the total budget of students. It contains the different expenses that are required in able to carry out a student’s academic life. It varies from tuition fees until the very miniscule expenses utilized for photocopying hand-outs from your professor. Living Costs, on the other hand, are expenses that a student need for day to day living however, indirectly related to academics. These include your expenses in utilities (e.g. electricity, water, and internet bills), personal care expenses (shampoo, soap, etc.), and clothing and food expenses. Lastly, Personal Costs are expenditures that are unique yet still a part of a student’s budget. This...
Words: 1203 - Pages: 5
...used to monitor the business performance such as: account summaries and balances, balance sheets, bank statements, banking summaries and business activity statements. (b.) What are they used for? Financial reports are used to keep track of the business operation. These reports are produced to reflect the business's earnings and spending within the given fiscal year. (c.) What do they reveal about the condition of the business? The reports reveal the impacts the financial information may have on operational activities in the restaurant. Activity 2 Objective To provide you with an opportunity to interpret financial information and reports applicable to operational or departmental activities. Activity Name five types of information, such as a bank statement or balance sheet that you may have to interpret at work. 1. Profit and loss statements 2. Invoices 3. Bank Statements 4. Balance sheets 5. Business activity statements What kind of information can you gain from each document? Profit and loss statements: summarizes the revenues, costs and expenses incurred during a specific period of time, usually a fiscal quarter or year. Invoice: record of purchase that allows a customer to pay a company for goods or services they have provided to him. Bank Statements: a printed record of the balance in a bank account and the amounts that have been paid into it and...
Words: 2094 - Pages: 9
