Now I will try to review a valuable certificate program given by Google and provided by Coursera online learning program. Recently Google continues to provide very very good programs especially for the beginners. Project management certificate program, Business intelligence certificate program, advanced data analytics certificate program are one of them. Both the names of Google and Coursera will emerge quite prestigious on your cv if you are a beginner. It will probably not give you a job directly but it will be a hint that you are determined to invest for data analytics and this is very valuable for job interviewers.
Cynefin Framework in Project Management
Now I'm going to introduce you to a fairly new concept actually this is called Cynefin framework. It is a way of dealing with uncertainty. it's a phenomenal new idea in dealing with uncertainty and uncertainty about a certainty.
Google Project Management Certificate Program
If you are a project manager and have a certain level of competence in this regard, you need to be able to show this competence to employers and institutions in order to receive what you have in return. That's what project management certifications are for. Examples such as PMP certification, Prince2 Certification are available. In addition to these examples, there are also certificates that can be used at the beginner level, are relatively easier to obtain and still add prestige to you. Google project management certificate is a certificate that you should be aware of and that has exactly these features.
Previously we have introduced you the Google Data Analytics and Google Business Intelligence Certificate Programs. This one is not related to them but also a part of Google and Coursera professional programs.
Cumulative Flow Chart
The Cumulative Flow Chart provides project managers a timeline. To me, it is an invaluable asset for teams that want to stay on top of their projects. Keeping a good track of project progress gives us numerous benefits. The most important of these are being one step ahead of potential problems, reaching goals, being aware of deadlines and budget constraints. Once having this awareness everything will be easier.
McGregor's Theory X, Theory Y, and Ouchi's Theory Z
One of the best-known and most fundamental process models of motivation was developed by Douglas McGregor and in it he put forward two theories of motivation that he asserts managers can choose between, what he called Theory X and Theory Y.
Maslow's Theory of Needs - Let's Discuss
Well, probably one of the most influential and widely regarded theories with regards to human relations is known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs which is among models, methods and artifacts in PMBOK. What he was trying to do is essentially assess if we had a series of different behaviors that we had the option to choose to engage in, what made it more likely for us to engage in one behavior over another? How do we prioritize these particular things? What predisposed us to choose one behavior over another? What were the set of conditions that had to exist? So, what he determined was that our behavior was driven by what our needs were at that particular point in time.
And so, how this worked is, he developed a hierarchy of five different needs and basically stated that these needs must be met in order for someone to progress up the hierarchy and pursue what were termed some of the higher-level needs. So, you can see these here, we have physiological needs, safety and security needs, social needs, esteem needs, as well as self-actualization needs. Now, in order to pursue or to progress up this hierarchy, you had to have a lower-level need met first. Let me explain the first of which is what we call the physiological needs.
Physiological needs, a physiological need is something that's necessary to sustain life, something like food or water or oxygen. Those are considered to be things that you probably couldn't live without, some you would need more quickly than others. Like oxygen, of course, you can probably go a little while without food, less without water, but oxygen, you'd be pretty hard-pressed to survive for any lengthy period of time.
So, if you had a physiological need, if you had a need for food or water, that tends to drive your behavior. Now, think about it, when you're thirsty, are you thinking about all the other things that you have to do, or is your need to quench your thirst paramount at that particular point in time? Well, according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it would take precedent. You wouldn't care about all the other things that you could or should be doing because that would be the most important need to you at that particular point in time.
Now, assuming that you had your physiological needs met, you would progress to the next particular area, and that is the safety and security need. Now, safety and security need, often when you think of that, you think automatically the physical safety and well-being, right? Kind of an idea that I'm going to be safe from any type of bodily harm, and it does encompass the physical sense, but we're also talking about emotional safety and security, maybe even financial safety as well.
So, let me give you an example. If you were working on the job, and somehow you found out that your company was beginning to downsize, according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, from a behavioral standpoint, if you found that out, you would now be concerned for your financial safety and security, and so your behavior would be driven by trying to fulfill or eliminate that particular need. So, you might start looking for other jobs, you might start networking a little bit, calling up old contacts, seeing if something else was available out there in the workforce, possibly because your behavior is being driven by your need for safety and security.
Now, assuming that you were able to obviously fulfill that particular need, then you may move on to the next area, which are called social needs. We all have a little bit of social need, some more than others, but a social need is a need to have a sense of belonging to someone or some particular group. We all have people that we want to associate with, family, friends, those types of individuals, and so a social need is a feeling to belong to someone or a particular group.
We all have social needs in different areas. Usually, in the workplace, we have maybe a handful of people that we usually communicate with and correspond with, and that has to be met essentially for us to be able to move on to a higher-level need. Think about it, when you first start on the actual job, for many of us, as we begin to get comfortable with our position, we start to kind of branch out and try to make friends at work and going out with co-workers after work to essentially build that particular friendship, and that's all out of a desire to belong to some particular group of people.
Now, assuming your social needs were met, you would move on to the esteem needs area. Esteem needs are essentially driven by our desire to feel not necessarily liked, but to feel good about ourselves, to look in the mirror at the end of the day and to think positive things about yourself. And there are a number of different ways that you can satisfy esteem needs. This is mainly kind of driven by a desire for prestige. So, you think about the things that might make people feel good about themselves, luxury vehicles, homes in the right zip code, the clothing that you wear, the size of the office that you have, the location of the office that you have, the company that you work for, the title that's behind or in front of your name. Those are types of things that are driven to gain esteem. So, in the workplace, if you typically have people who have been working at a particular job for some time, their behavior may be driven by their need for esteem. Maybe they want that very prestigious position, or they want to work hard so they can have that country club membership. Those are all things that help us tackle this need for esteem, our desire to feel good about ourselves and to feel like we are successful and all those other types of things.
So, assuming that we have the three lower-level needs met, then that might be something that could be driving our particular behavior. Now, next and last is the need for self-actualization. Self-actualization, and this is a need to feel like we are reaching our fullest potential, and we all have different levels of potential, of course, some higher than others. So, to think that we would all attain the same level is a little ridiculous, but we all have different levels of what that might be. And what someone's fullest potential is doesn't necessarily mean someone else's fullest potential as the same thing. So, things that help us reach our fullest potential are things like education, developing skills, and all those other types of things that help us become better versions of ourselves. And that is the last level of the pyramid so to speak, and for the most part, many people argue that that is a level that's not truly attainable because really, we could always be better versions of ourselves. How seldomly do we kind of arrive at a complete version, if you will? There are always things that we can learn and improve, but that tends to drive behavior. So, people that are in school, in part, are trying to fulfill this self-actualization need because they want to do better and to reach their fullest potential there.
A couple of things regarding Maslow's hierarchy of needs, why this is useful from a management perspective. You know, managing people is all about understanding what people's motivations are, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs could be something that can help you understand what people's motivations are and then how to design incentive plans in order to meet those particular motivations.
Obviously, if you identify someone as potentially pursuing behaviors that help meet or fulfill their esteem needs, then maybe you can design incentive programs that can help them accomplish those. Obviously, a win-win. So, by understanding what people's needs are, you can predict what their behavior is likely to be which is a very, very important piece of the puzzle there.
Now, a couple of criticisms of course, with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it does have its share of criticisms. First of which, and probably the primary one, is this idea that you cannot pursue more than one particular need at one point in time, when in reality, it's certainly possible that you can pursue maybe a multitude of different needs at one particular time. So, that is something that isn't necessarily covered in the actual hierarchy itself. It might be a little more simplistic, a little less complex, but I believe it does encompass a lot of the major components of how to assess somebody's true behavior, to basically drill down to the lower, more common general needs, if you will, to determine what it is that we would actually pursue. And that's essentially how Maslow's hierarchy of needs works.
Theory x, Theory Y and Theory Z
