Management

"My watchword, if I were in office at this moment, would be summed up in one single word—the word "efficiency." (Cheers.) If we have not learned from this war that we have greatly lagged behind in efficiency we have learned nothing, and our treasure and our lives are thrown away unless we learn the lesson which the war has given us. (Hear, hear.) ... There is another branch of national efficiency in which I think an energetic Government might take a great part, in the way of stimulation and inquiry—I mean our commerce and our industry. (Hear, hear.) ... I believe that in that branch of our national efficiency there is much to be done by an energetic Government. But last, and, perhaps, greatest of all, there comes a question that underlies the efficiency of our nation—not of our services, not of any particular branch of our nation, but of the nation as a whole—I mean education (loud cheers), in which we are lagging sadly, and with which we shall have peacefully to fight other nations with weapons like the bow and arrow if we do not progress."

"According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the global average caloric intake is 2,800 kcal per day, translating to an average continuous power of about 135 W. The mineral requirements to accomplish this constitute just over 3% of body mass, or 2 kg for the global average body mass of 62 kg. Thus, a human achieves roughly 70 W per kilogram of minerals. Note that even though the human body is only 20–25% efficient at converting metabolic energy into external mechanical work, the rest is not waste to us: it provides crucial thermal energy to keep body temperature up, and thus counts as a critical contribution. Let’s look at solar panels. Typical 60-cell panels produce 300 W in full sun, and have a mass around 20 kg. Straight away we compute 15 W/kg—a factor of five lower than human performance. But to be fair, we must account for the fact that the sun is not always directly in front of the panel, producing a typical capacity factor of 20%, or an average power delivery of 60 W. Now the deployed panel delivers 3 W/kg: less than 5% as “efficient” as a human, in mineral terms. Massive wind turbines at 20% capacity factor (typical global average) score even worse, at 0.4–0.6 W/kg. Without the mass-dominant concrete pad, a wind turbine would pump out 1.6–2.4 W/kg, for the short time it remained standing. Just as a wind turbine needs a mounting base, a realistic utility-scale solar deployment has a material mass far in excess of the bare panels: support structures, interconnect wiring, inverters, storage (if truly replacing fossil fuels). I would not be surprised if a whole-system figure dropped to 1 or 2 W/kg, while humans stay smugly perched at 70. The score for wind would erode as well once other necessary components are considered—especially storage. Moreover, the minerals needed by humans are in wide circulation within the community of life at the surface: no mining (and associated tailings, energy, processing, pollution) necessary. Thus, biology has far exceeded technology in capturing the inexhaustible flow from the sun using a minimum of minerals—and those being extracted from and re-deposited to the soil in a continuous, self-sustaining cycle, importantly. Biology and evolution really figured things out! Modernity looks like a bumbling idiot by comparison—like R2D2 in a stair-climbing competition against an athlete."

"Efficiency, competence: Black students know the deadly, neutral definition of these words. There seldom has been a more efficient system for profiteering, through human debasement, than the plantations, of a while ago. Today, the whole world sits, as quietly scared as it can sit, afraid that, tomorrow, America may direct its efficiency and competence toward another forest for defoliation, or clean-cut laser-beam extermination."

"In randori we learn to employ the principle of maximum efficiency even when we could easily overpower an opponent. Indeed, it is much more impressive to beat an opponent with proper technique than with brute force. This lesson is equally applicable in daily life: the student realized persuasion backed up by sound logic is ultimately more effective than coercion."

"The merits of nationalization do not stand or fall with the efficiency or inefficiency of existing state departments as administrators of industry."

"The ultimate measurement is effectiveness, not efficiency."

"The efficiency of a group working together is directly related to the homogeneity of the work they are performing."

"In the science of administration, whether public or private, the basic "good" is efficiency. The fundamental objective of the science of administration is the accomplishment of the work in hand with the least expenditure of man-power and materials. Efficiency is thus axiom number one in the value scale of administration."

"The increase of this efficiency is essentially the problem of the manager, and the amount to which it can be increased by proper study is, in most cases, so great as to be almost incredible."

"Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner possible. Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe."

"The aim of our efficiency has not been to produce goods, but to harvest dollars... The production of goods was always secondary to the securing of dollars."

"It is fundamentally the confusion between effectiveness and efficiency that stands between doing the right things and doing things right. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."

"Those who are in poverty may be able to get a bare sustenance but they are not able to obtain those necessaries which will permit them to maintain a state of physical efficiency."

"National politics have from the start aimed primarily at efficiency — that is, at the successful use of the force resident in the state to accomplish the purposes desired by the Sovereign authority."

"Much is said about scientific management of work. It is a narrow view which restricts the science which secures efficiency of operation to movements of the muscles. The chief opportunity for science is the discovery of the relations of a man to his work — including his relations to others who take part — which will enlist his intelligent interest in what he is doing. Efficiency in production often demands division of labor. But it is reduced to mechanical routine unless workers see the technical, intellectual, and social relationships involved in what they do, and engage in their work because of the motivation furnished by such perceptions. The tendency to reduce such things as efficiency of activity and scientific management to purely technical externals is evidence of the one-sided stimulation of thought given to those in control of industry — those who supply its aims. Because of their lack of all-round and well-balanced social interest, there is not sufficient stimulus for attention to the human factors and relationships in industry. Intelligence is narrowed to the factors concerned with technical production and marketing of goods. No doubt, a very acute and intense intelligence in these narrow lines can be developed, but the failure to take into account the significant social factors means none the less an absence of mind, and a corresponding distortion of emotional life."

"There is an efficiency case for an institutional welfare state."

"First, the welfare state is not a subject apart, but fits naturally into the framework of economic analysis. Secondly,the theoretical arguments support the existence of the welfare state not only for well known equity reasons but also - and powerfully - in efficiency terms."

"Modern institutions are transparently purposive and that we are in the midst of an evolutionary progression toward more efficient forms."

"The practice of first developing a clear and precise definition of a process without regard for efficiency, and then using it as a guide and a test in exploring equivalent processes possessing other characteristics, such as greater efficiency, is very common in mathematics. It is a very fruitful practice which should not be blighted by premature emphasis on efficiency in computer execution."

"Scientific management is not any efficiency device, not a device of any kind for securing efficiency; nor is it may bunch or group of efficiency devices. It is not a new system of figuring costs; it is not a new scheme of paying men; it is not a piece work system; it is not a bonus system; it is not a premium system; it is no scheme for paying men; it is not holding a stop watch on a man and writing things down about him; it is not time study; it is not motion study, not an analysis of the movements of men; it is not the printing and loading & unloading of a ton or two of blanks on a set of men and saying "Here's your system; go and use it". It is not divided foremanship or functional foremanship; it is not any of the devices which the average man calls to mind when scientific management is spoken of."

"Man is an agent... a center of unfolding impulsive activity—"teleological" activity... seeking... some concrete, objective, impersonal end. ...he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort. He has a sense of the merit of serviceability or efficiency and of the demerit of futility, waste, or incapacity. This aptitude or propensity may be called the instinct of workmanship."

"More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including blind stupidity."

"Don't misunderstand what we administrators mean when we use the shorthand of efficiency and economy. When we say efficiency we think of homes saved from disease, of boys and girls in school prepared for life, of ships and mines protected against disaster... We do not think in terms of gadgets and paper clips alone. And when we talk of economy, we fight waste of all human resources, still much too scanty to meet human needs."

"To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers."

"Question: How does a large software project get to be one year late? Answer: One day at a time!"

"Basic to successful project management is recognizing when the project is needed — in other words, when to form a project, as opposed to when to use the regular functional organization to do the job. At what point in time do the changes in."

"If a project has not achieved a system architecture, including its rationale, the project should not proceed to full-scale system development. Specifying the architecture as a deliverable enables its use throughout the development and maintenance process."

"The present is not a potential past; it is the moment of choice and action; we can not avoid living it through a project; and there is no project which is purely contemplative since one always projects himself toward something, toward the future; to put oneself "outside" is still a way of living the inescapable fact that one is inside."

"Every thought willingly contemplated, every word meaningly spoken, every action freely done consolidates itself in the character, and will project; itself onward continually."

"Et le chemin est long du projet à la chose."

"Project management is becoming more important as equipment, systems, and projects become more complex."

"In the last decade most of the large industrialized economies have been shifting from a heavy manufacturing base to an information management base. Along with this shift has been stiff competition resulting from globalization."

"[The] company’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) should guide the rationale behind the development of EA models. In particular, distribution of IT related information and knowledge throughout the organization is emphasized as an important concern uncared for. Secondly, the lack of architectural theory is recognized..."

"The role of information management is a key enabler for demand chain management. It means capturing the market and end user demand information accurately, timely and in a relevant manner: capturing at all times the point of sales through all channels of inventory information."

"The Information age is well upon us in seven major fields — learning, diagnostics, management, physical planning, finance, entertainment and communication."

"The role of information management is to assist in collecting, organizing, validating, storing, and retrieving data and in preparing reports. An effective information management system is essential to any monitoring program..."

"Information management is itself a field whose definition is unsettled. There is a broad field called information management that has some subsidiary elements, including IRM. Whether the information studies interest is with the whole or the part is unclear."

"Thomas Davenport proposes a revolutionary new way to look at information management, one that takes into account the total information environment within an organization. Arguing that the information that comes from computer systems may be considerably less valuable to managers than information that flows in from a variety of other sources, the author describes an approach that encompasses the company's entire information environment, the management of which he calls information ecology."

"It was to do with information management. The intention was to dramatise it."

"Information management is the direct progney of information technology. No wonder, some critics have identified it with information economics. The world of information management is a world of inputs and outputs, in which value additions are the ultimate criteria.""

"MIS plans compete with many other potential business investments and business problems for the attention of senior management. Consequently, a strategic planning methodology should not only produce a plan linked to business planning but also should create a persuasive case for its support. This article examines the state of the art in strategic planning in terms of enterprisewide information management (EwIM), which is a set of concepts and tools that enable MIS managers to plan, organize, implement, and control information resources to meet current and future strategic goals."

"In 1980 a law was passed called the . It could have been called the Information Management Act of 1980."

"There will always be a large number of information management systems - we get a lot of added usefulness from being able to crosslink them. However, we will lose out if we try to constrain them, as we will exclude systems and hamper the evolution of hypertext in general."

"Information management is a term which is being used increasingly to express the changing nature of library and information work. Based conceptually in information science it represents a convergence of the role claimed for the information scientist with that of the librarian who is rapidly embracing new techniques in order to cope with the information explosion."

"Information management is a term used by many to describe the myriad issues associated with managing an organisation's information resource."

"For many companies and people who really ought to know better, information management is a term synonomous with data processing."

"Enterprise architecture [is] the Holy Grail of all systems people. Advanced systems textbooks tell you that every organization must have one. Several CIM program directors attempted to come up with this abstraction, only to fail. Only someone with a depth of understanding about how the Pentagon really works could come up with anything of use."

"The role of information management is to mediate between information technology and information institutions to facilitate their effective planning, organization, control, and operation."

"Information management is a term which is only now starting to gain a place in common usage. IM is still confused with IT, probably as a result of the similarity of the terms. However, IM is much broader and includes all aspects of handling information. This includes the procedural and clerical aspects as well as any kind of technology that might be involved, not forgetting the most important aspect - the human element. IM includes the management of information in any form,"

"What is involved in information management is ordinarily not the "management" of substantial information per se — in the way that a censor or an Orwellian dictator would "manage" it — but the management of the information process from organization to ultimate use."