by showing that if youre down you can still find a way toclimb the ladder

Google Tech Talks
May 6, 2008

ABSTRACT

When you look around, there are a lot of leaders recommended for software development. We have the functional manager and the project manager, the scrum master and the black belt, the product owner and the customer-on-site, the technical leader and the architect, the product manager and the chief engineer.

Clearly that’s too many leaders. So how many leaders should there be, what should they do, what shouldn’t they do, and what skills do they need?

This will be a presentation and discussion of leadership roles in software development — what works, what doesn’t and why.

Speaker: Mary Poppendieck
Mary Poppendieck started her career as a process control programmer, moved on to manage the IT department of a manufacturing plant, and then ended up in product development, where she was both a product champion and department manager.

Mary considered retirement 1998, but instead found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word “waterfall.” When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opinions about how to manage software projects, she decided the time had come for a new paradigm. She wrote the award-winning book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit in 2003 to explain how the lean principles from manufacturing offer a better approach to software development.

Over the past six years, Mary has found retirement elusive as she lectures and teaches classes with her husband Tom. Based on their on-going learning, they wrote a second book, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash in 2006. A popular writer and speaker, Mary continues to bring fresh perspectives to the world of software development.

Speaker: Tom Poppendieck
Tom Poppendieck has 25 years of experience in computing including eight years of work with object technology. His modeling and mentoring skills are rooted in his experience as a physics professor. His early work was in IT infrastructure, product development, and manufacturing support, and evolved to consulting project assignments in healthcare, logistics, mortgage banking, and travel services.

Tom led the development of a world-class product data management practice for a major commercial avionics manufacturer that reduced design to production transition efforts from 6 months to 6 weeks. He also led the technical architecture team for very large national and international Baan and SAP implementations.

Tom Poppendieck is an enterprise analyst and architect, and an agile process mentor. He focuses on identifying real business value and enabling product teams to realize that value. Tom specializes in understanding customer processes and in effective collaboration of customer, development and support specialists to maximize development efficiency, system flexibility, and business value.

Tom is co-author of the book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, published in 2003, and its sequel, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash, published in 2006.

Duration : 1:32:4

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Out of which sort of leadership styles? This sounds like a multi-choice question.

Transformational Leadership Series; Leadership Continuum.

Continuum theories or models explain variation as involving a gradual quantitative transition without abrupt changes or discontinuities. It can be contrasted with ‘categorical’ models which propose qualitatively different states.

In physics, for example, the space-time continuum model explains space and time as part of the same continuum rather than as separate entities. A spectrum in physics (e.g. of light) is often termed either a ‘continuous spectrum’ (energy at all wavelengths) or ‘discrete spectrum’ (energy at only certain wavelengths).

In psychology, theories of mental phenomena can propose discrete differences between individuals (e.g. everyone has certain personality traits and not others) or a continuum (e.g. everyone lies somewhere on a particular personality dimension). This can also apply to fields such as law or sociology or ethics in explaining or judging variation in human behavior.

In clinical psychology or psychiatry, categorical models seek to distinguish and define particular mental disorders or illnesses, whilst continuum or dimensional models propose that some people are more extreme than others on particular dimensions.

Leadership in organizations

[edit] Leadership in formal organizations
An organization that is established as an instrument or means for achieving defined objectives has been referred to as a formal organization. Its design specifies how goals are subdivided and reflected in subdivisions of the organization. Divisions, departments, sections, positions, jobs, and tasks make up this work structure. Thus, the formal organization is expected to behave impersonally in regard to relationships with clients or with its members. According to Weber’s definition, entry and subsequent advancement is by merit or seniority. Each employee receives a salary and enjoys a degree of tenure that safeguards him from the arbitrary influence of superiors or of powerful clients. The higher his position in the hierarchy, the greater his presumed expertise in adjudicating problems that may arise in the course of the work carried out at lower levels of the organization. It is this bureaucratic structure that forms the basis for the appointment of heads or chiefs of administrative subdivisions in the organization and endows them with the authority attached to their position. [3]

[edit] Leadership in informal organizations
In contrast to the appointed head or chief of an administrative unit, a leader emerges within the context of the informal organization that underlies the formal structure. The informal organization expresses the personal objectives and goals of the individual membership. Their objectives and goals may or may not coincide with those of the formal organization. The informal organization represents an extension of the social structures that generally characterize human life — the spontaneous emergence of groups and organizations as ends in themselves.[3]

In prehistoric times, man was preoccupied with his personal security, maintenance, protection, and survival. Now man spends a major portion of his waking hours working for organizations. His need to identify with a community that provides security, protection, maintenance, and a feeling of belonging continues unchanged from prehistoric times. This need is met by the informal organization and its emergent, or unofficial, leaders.[4]

Leaders emerge from within the structure of the informal organization. Their personal qualities, the demands of the situation, or a combination of these and other factors attract followers who accept their leadership within one or several overlay structures. Instead of the authority of position held by an appointed head or chief, the emergent leader wields influence or power. Influence is the ability of a person to gain co-operation from others by means of persuasion or control over rewards. Power is a stronger form of influence because it reflects a person’s ability to enforce action through the control of a means of punishment.[4]

Duration : 0:2:42

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I’m in highschool and am looking for different organizations to be able to find leadership roles and community service. This could be anything near or in the "Bay Area" (San Fransisco, California). Any suggestions on where I can find them?

Begin by going to your highschool guidance counsolor, they usually have job listings and will have tons of ideas for local oportunities. Next, look around your area in fields you may be interested in. Often hospitals or nursing homes take volunteers to visit the elderly or help host events. The local YMCA or children’s center usually takes volunteers to help with programs. A church will almost always have openings if you’d like to run a bible study or another program. They also often know of other openings in the community.

Good luck, I hope this helped!

This is relating to management.
If possible, in your answer could you please refer to management or business theorist e.g. F.W.Taylor or Hofstede etc.

Thank you for your help.

Dear Sir,
he is just like a pilot of the plane, no plane can flight without pilot as no organization can run without management.

regards,
Rajender Yadav, Adv,
rajallb@gmail.com
New Delhi

Chuck Harrington, Chairman and CEO, Parsons Corporation

Visit UCLA Anderson School of Management
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/

Click here for more Distinguished Speaker Videos from UCLA Anderson School
of Management
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x17389.xml

Duration : 0:52:55

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I ran into someone working with them the other day, and am meeting with him today. The thing is, I want to know if they are legit before I would do any buisness with them. Some things about the circumstances surrounding it (and the meeting with this individual) make me suspicious, but not the whole thing, and it could very well be a legitimate buisiness and a possible opportunity for myself. Or it could be a scam.

The company’s website is here: http://www.ltdteam.com/
More information can be found here: http://www.ltdteam.com/guest/icommerce.asp

Still, it isn’t very in depth. The man claimed that his buisiness worked with companies like Circuit City and Bass Pro (among others), but I don’t know whether these are local stores or the corperations as a whole.

This perticular individual is out of Kansas City. His card indicates his company to be Hook International. It is not copywritten.

Thanks in advance for any advice, analysis of the website, or info given. God bless!
By the way, see the Copyright sign down on the LTD sight, in the bottem right corner? I checked the official government database of copyrights- no sign of Leadership Team Development.

I don’t know much about this orginization, although I was approached last week and this lady went over a speil with me at Mc Donalds. I had asked questions pertaining to more information about this "business" and was given no real answer and invited to a seminar, which I attended this evening.

At this seminar, they went over the brochure, which in case you haven’t seen has the same information as the website you listed, with just a little more depth. All I really got out of the seminar was that if I pay them $200 they will help me recruit 6 more people to pay them $200 and they will help each of them recruit 4 people to pay them $200 and they will then help these 4 people recruit 2 more people to, you guessed it pay them $200.

They kept talking about these business that they work for, like Bass pro shop, circuit city, office depot, and such, but when I asked what it is that we do for this company I got no real answer, instead I got more information on how to recruit people to give them $200.

Then I had mentioned to this "sponsor" that I needed more information, and she gave me a folder filled with information about a corporation called Quixtar, and set up a time to meet with me at Mc Donalds again, how proffesional. Quixtar, I checked is a legit business, but as I search for information about LTD, I find nothing. The brochure and folder I recieved have no stamp of LTD, nor does it mention their name anywhere in the information, however it has a vast amount of informaion about Quixtar, even BBB reports. I am going to contact Quixtar tomorrow and see if they know anything about this LTD business.

If you find out anything more please let me know, I to am curious as to see if this is legit, or just another scam.

February is Black History Month in the United States. The national observance pays tribute to key figures and events in African-American history, notably the work of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As VOA’s Chris Simkins reports, an organization that Dr. King founded, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, has launched a new program to help young people in Memphis, Tennessee.

Duration : 0:3:28

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In your opinion, experience, why is leadership important to managing people and organizations

Often times people will come to their manager to resolve issues and give direction regarding which path to follow. A good manager listens and evaluates each option objectively and leads the "troops" down the chosen path. Wavering or uncertainty does not instill confidence and is not a good trait for a leader and the manager may lose respect.