Monday, August 31, 2009

Description of Hasty Generalization

This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough. It has the following form:

  1. Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.
  2. Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S.

The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization, Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:

  1. X% of all observed A's are B''s.
  2. Therefore X% of all A's are Bs.

The fallacy is committed when not enough A's are observed to warrant the conclusion. If enough A's are observed then the reasoning is not fallacious.

Small samples will tend to be unrepresentative. As a blatant case, asking one person what she thinks about gun control would clearly not provide an adequate sized sample for determing what Canadians in general think about the issue. The general idea is that small samples are less likely to contain numbers proportional to the whole population. For example, if a bucket contains blue, red, green and orange marbles, then a sample of three marbles cannot possible be representative of the whole population of marbles. As the sample size of marbles increases the more likely it becomes that marbles of each color will be selected in proprtion to their numbers in the whole population. The same holds true for things others than marbles, such as people and their political views.

Since Hasty Generalization is committed when the sample (the observed instances) is too small, it is important to have samples that are large enough when making a generalization. The most reliable way to do this is to take as large a sample as is practical. There are no fixed numbers as to what counts as being large enough. If the population in question is not very diverse (a population of cloned mice, for example) then a very small sample would suffice. If the population is very diverse (people, for example) then a fairly large sample would be needed. The size of the sample also depends on the size of thepopulation. Obviously, a very small population will not support a huge sample. Finally, the required size will depend on the purpose of the sample. If Bill wants to know what Joe and Jane think about gun control, then a sample consisting of Bill and Jane would (obviously) be large enough. If Bill wants to know what most Australians think about gun control, then a sample consisting of Bill and Jane would be far too small.

People often commit Hasty Generalizations because of bias or prejudice. For example, someone who is a sexist might conclude that all women are unfit to fly jet fighters because one woman crashed one. People also commonly commit Hasty Generalizations because of laziness or sloppiness. It is very easy to simply leap to a conclusion and much harder to gather an adequate sample and draw a justifiedconclusion. Thus, avoiding this fallacy requires minimizing the influence of bias and taking care to select a sample that is large enough.

One final point: a Hasty Generalization, like any fallacy, might have a true conclusion. However, as long as the reasoning is fallacious there is no reason to accept the conclusion based on that reasoning.


What is the role of the project manager?

What is the role of the project manager? Why is leadership so important for project managers?
The role of the project manager is one of leadership and to oversee planning, scope, personnel, budget, safety, execution and implementation of the project in an effective and efficient manner to deliver the project on time and within budget and scope. Managing these constraints is the primary objective to project management.
For example when I was part of a 30 million dollar store construction project the project manager was there to provide leadership and vision and to inform the execution team what was to be expected during the project. He provided daily briefing to the progress of the project in relation to the expected completion time of the entire project. When an area of the project was encountering difficulties or delays, he would provide extra support to ensure that the area would not fall behind. The project was managed without the safety (Goldratt) built-in to projects and with and awareness of the student syndrome phenomenon.
The manager would also constantly be updating the whole team on our successes as well as the problem areas throughout the duration of the project. Based on our progress through the timeline, we would adjust our schedules to work longer days in order to stay on time. We had to aggressively monitor out teams progress and be aware of the next possible constraint and make contingent plans to work around the constraint. The leadership provided was not afraid to make difficult and unpopular decisions to keep the project on track.
Keeping all the employees focused was another critical success factor. Daily goals were presented and the team would meet at the end of the day to follow through on our progress. In the end we finished two days early and under budget. Without the leadership provided this project would have easily fell behind due to the many delays encountered.
In summery, the role of the project manager is keeping the team focused on the constraints of scope, time and budget and executing the plan with strong leadership and organization.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Demographic Winter

This term may be unfamiliar to some of you but this is the real crisis of our time. It is the explanation for the collapsing birth rates in the mainly Western countries and the resulting effects on these societies as the demographic collapse accelerates.

The birth rates in the West have been shrinking in some cases to below replacement levels and our way of life, the good and the bad, will disappear as well.

Our economies are based on consumption and growth. Since we have adopted a eugenics approach to children and rejected the organic natural law, the only way for growth to continue inorganically is to embrace an increasingly materialistic lifestyle. However, the recent recession has brought to light the shortcomings of our economic system, and I believe it is only a beginning to the harsh realities currently unaddressed by our educational, political, and sociatal systems.

Indeed, the embers continue to smolder and gather strength under contemporary Rome. Some day the embers will catch fire and make the current economic situation seem like an afterthought. The old order is dead, but the marketing department didn't get the memo.

First Semester Faculty

Leonard Branson, Ph.D, CPA and CMA, professor of accountancy and chair of the accountancy department, was a management accountant and a manager for the Holiday Inn Corporation. He received a B.A degree from St. Louis Christian College, an M.A. degree from Lincoln Christian Seminary, an M.B.A. from Illinois State University, and a Ph.D. in business administration from St. Louis University. Branson has served as an instructor of accounting, finance, and management science at McKendree College.

Ranjan Karri, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Management in the College of Business and Management at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Dr. Karri teaches Strategic Management and Leadership and Organization Theory.
Ranjan Karri, Associate Professor of Management, received his Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the Washington State University in 2001. Prior to joining the faculty of UIS, Dr. Karri was a faculty member at Bryant University since 2000, where he received tenure and promotion to associate professor.
His research interests are in the area of entrepreneurship, business ethics, and strategic management. Dr. Karri's research has been published in top tier journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and Journal of Business Ethics, as well as practitioner journals such as Business Horizons, Organizational Dynamics and Journal of Academic Ethics.

Nathan Steele, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business and Management at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Dr. Steele teaches Power and Negotiation and Managing Organizational Behavior.
He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Indiana University in 2004. At Indiana University he primarily studied negotiation and bargaining with Dr. Jerome M. Chertkoff, and completed a minor in quantitative analysis.
Following the completion of his degree, he was awarded a postdoctoral position in the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah as part of their Organizational Behavior group. At the Eccles school, Nathan continued a line of research begun with his dissertation on perceptions of equity or fairness in negotiation scenarios.
His other research interests include a fascination with game theory, especially concepts related to coalition games and concepts of equity and utility within games. Nathan's research primarily centers on using game theoretic paradigms to investigate organizational situations in their simplest form.
He also conducts research along the lines of group processes and has consulted for non-profit attorney's organizations on these topics including team building and intergroup dynamics. His research has been published in refereed professional journals and presented at various refereed national and international conferences.
Nathan's teaching interests include negotiation, group processes, the fundamentals of organizational behavior, and teamwork. Prior to his academic career, Nathan worked as a business analyst for Healthcare Recoveries, Inc., an insurance subrogation firm, and he completed a B.S. at Murray State University.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Congratulations, Bankers -- You're Rich Again

This great piece from Stein is for everyone that likes to complain about single mothers on welfare and food stamp families. Granted I understand your frustration with the system. However, just remember the suited robbers that can take more government welfare in the name of economic progress in a matter of minutes than any group of poor people can do in their lifetime. I know the poor momma with her benefit card buying chips and soda pisses you off, but leave her alone and get mad at the real crooks stealing your money. Also, don't forget the thieves that find it so easy to give your money away.




Just in case your blood pressure is not high enough today, here are a few
news bulletins on how the world works. Generally, these bulletins all come under
the heading of, "The Golden Rule: He Who Has the Gold, Makes the Rules."You will
recall that a few years ago the banks and investment banks of this great land
were making money hand over fist by making loans that, even at the time, gave
off the powerful aroma of danger and recklessness. The fees for those loans were
immense though, and so the banks made them -- for mortgages, for private equity
deals, for mergers, for refinancings, for anything where they could employ the
vast pools of liquidity Uncle Sugar was throwing onto their laps.As bank profits
skyrocketed, the pay of bankers reached unbelievably high levels, with immense
percentages of the national wealth being paid to a few thousand bankers in New
York City.Then, as happens with Towers of Babel, it got so high it simply fell
down with a resounding crash. Since the major banks had borrowed many times
their equity capital, pretty much all of them -- with a few exceptions -- were
in danger of failing. The government allowed one of them, Lehman Brothers, to
fail, and the results were catastrophic in terms of lending and consumer and
business confidence.So, the government decided to take heroic measures to keep
any other big banks from failing. The government bought immense amounts of stock
in the banks. That raised their levels of equity capital. The government
guaranteed the banks' borrowings. That allowed the banks to stay afloat. The
government greatly lowered the banks' cost of borrowing by lending directly to
the banks at levels far less than normal, levels approaching zero percent.All of
this was done in the name of creating a far sounder national banking system and
one that would resume lending, especially to consumers and home buyers, to "hit
the reset button" as President Obama likes to say, on previous obscenely selfish
behavior by bankers. The bankers promised they would be a whole new kind of
banker and would act in the unselfish public interest.The government completed
the circle of bank rescue by not only letting the banks borrow at almost zero,
but then by allowing the banks to invest the money they borrowed in totally risk
free Treasuries at roughly 3.6 percent. It was shooting fish in a barrel for the
banks and for the investment banks, which were allowed to call themselves
banks.The very predictable result: The banks started making staggering profits
again. With free money furnished to them by the Federal Reserve, and the
taxpayers paying them hefty interest on the money they got for free, how could
the banks lose?

Daniel H. Burnham

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans. Aim high in hope and work. Remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.