CyberCriminals: Identify and Prosecute?

By now, nearly everyone knows the conduct of a hacker. There are nine steps to hacking a system and they have gotten good at it by exploiting all kinds of system and software vulnerabilities.  The hacker is a person of various genres who break into computer systems for the thrill of the hack and to some extent for criminal purposes.  While hacking is a crime itself, cybercriminals are far more deviant.  It is important to identify a cybercriminal early and monitor in order to head off any issues.

Profiling and categorizing cybercriminals Article Summary

Knowing who cybercriminals are can aid in protecting the digital systems and intellectual property.  According to Deb Shinder, author of the book Scene of the Cybercrime,  traditional criminals have a cyber counterpart. For example, con artists can talk people out of money or establish elaborate cyber schemes using email and websites. Even with uniquely digital seedy endeavors, the criminal motives are the same.  Therefore,  Shinder  considers  a psychological assessment of an unknown person also known as a criminal profile as important.  She stresses ‘fitting the profile’ does not mean a person is a cybercriminal.  Shinder points to the profile as narrowing the field of possible suspects.   In a Sherlock Holmes sort of manner, investigators use inductive and deductive methods to formulate the profiles.  Shinder claims the cybercriminal has most of these characteristics:

·         Some measure of technical knowledge.

·         A disregard for the law or rationalizations about why particular laws are invalid or should not apply to them.

·         High tolerance for risk or need for “thrill factor.”

·         “Control freak” nature, enjoyment in manipulating or “outsmarting” others.

·         A motive: monetary gain, strong emotions, political or religious beliefs, sexual impulses, or even just boredom.

Shinder remarks that a large number of criminals use their employers email and digital equipment to commit cybercrimes posing a situation in which IT professionals may stumble across evidence of a crime that are not company systems related.  According to Shinder, indicators of a cybercriminal are:

·         Refusal to take time off from work or let anyone else help with his/her job, lest they uncover what’s been going on.

·         Attempts to avoid formal audits

·         A lifestyle far above what would be expected on the person’s salary with no good explanation for the extra income.

·         Large cash transactions

·         Multiple bank accounts in different banks, especially banks in different cities or counties

Shinder points readers to this article for further details on white collar crime.

CyberCriminals Go Unpunished Article Summary

John Connell, author of Companies choose to leave cybercriminals unpunished, comments that companies who track down and prosecute those who commit cybercrimes are going against the grain of how most companies handle cybercrimes.  Most companies, despite tough talk rarely prosecute today. The reasons vary for this.  One of the principle reasons according to Connell is that the assault on the company systems comes from abroad and is too legally complicated to prosecute.  He also points out that the legal process can expose company secrets.   Another reason Connell brings up is that exposing company vulnerabilities can erode confidence and keeping quiet is better than risking a bad impression.  The big question is when will companies risk prosecuting cybercrimes? 

Artisan Comments:

Cybercrimes and cybercriminals have been on the rise. Identifying these crimes and tracking the perpetrators is a chore. Chances are that a vast majority of the system administrators and support come across evidence of a cybercrime and fail to recognize it.  More importantly, vulnerabilities, which are often doorways to cybercrimes, are often overlooked.  Routine training and awareness of tale-tale signs is necessary to thwarting cybercrimes.  However, there is a risk that workplace interpersonal dynamics may point to someone for more political reasons than criminal reasons.  So these cases also need to be vetted closely and carefully.   Since companies and organizations are generally reluctant to prosecute people, it is better to identify the behavior and address it internally before a serious legal issue arises. Some of the better approaches are to counsel or train and reassign the individual when the indicators begins to emerge in order to avoid the legal mess. However, the organization must bear in mind that fitting the profile is not a sure indicator of cybercriminal. A degree of prudent judgment must be exercised in order to avoid false accusations and disrupting legitimate work.  The closing remark is to be on a BOLO for cybercriminals and use prudent judgment to avoid serious issues.

References:

Connell, J. (2001) Companies choose to leave cybercriminals unpunished. Techrepublic. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/companies-choose-to-leave-cybercriminals-unpunished/5033678

Shinder, D. (2010). Profiling and categorizing cybercriminals, techrepublic. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/profiling-and-categorizing-cybercriminals/4069

Focused Disciplines in Operations Management:

Comment: This is the fifth post is a series on operations management. In this post I want to discuss a few focused areas.. In the future, I may write on more indepth briefs on these topics. But for now, I want to just skim them.

Supply Chain / Logistical Operations

The world is globalizing and populations are decentralizing or sprawling. On a Sunday drive through the countryside it is not uncommon to find manufacturing plants in the middle of nowhere.  Companies, in a capital market, naturally seek the Low Cost Business Design Profit and Experience Curve Profit models spawning the sprawl and off shoring phenomenon. This creates a unique set of business problems. Logistical lines become lengthened and access to persistent and integrated information becomes more important. More critically, the ability of the organization to respond to emergent conditions through strategic, operational, and even tactical business projects attests to the need for an organization's low latency and responsiveness. The combination of project management, IT, and supply chain management is a unique specialty that has the unique skill sets to respond to this need.

Nearly all operations today involve supply chains and/or logistical operations of various sorts.  Some supply operations have a full range from supplier to producer to the customer.  Other operations create intellectual products such as software, reports, or other intellectual products. These operations are mostly the producer to the customer. Everyone seems to have a need to send and recieve goods or services. In fact, the logistical networks are considered by many futurists to be one of the underpinnings of the new economy on the horizon.  Hence, supply chain management is a growing field. As such this deserves focused attention.

The Society for Operations Management, APICS, cites the basic supply chain model as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Supply Chain Basics

There are numerous dynamics that play out with variations of this model.  However, we will remain focused at a high level in this discussion.  As raw materials from suppliers are transformed by the producer for the final customer money, information, and goods/materials flow.  Value is added and ultimately purchased using various forms of money. The money flows in the opposite direction of the product flow as payments. Reverse product flow occurs due to but not limited to warranty, recycling, and buy back programs. Information operates in both directions and is essential to the effective and efficient supply chain process.

One important point to understand is that supply chains involve everyone and cut across entire enterprises. There are also external entities to the supply chain process that have significant impacts on the process such as governments, public utilities, and the educational systems. These external entities affect transportation infrastructures, communications, market forces, the money supply, and the body of knowledge.

Operation managers must understand key processes of the supply chain in order to effectively manage the activities. These processes connect the actors in the chain, involve information flows, and cash flows. One APICS view centers on the supply chain as a series of linked processes detailed in the Supply Chain Operations Reference model (SCOR).  This model is limited to supply operations that extend two tiers in both directions from the principle producer.

I'll discuss the supply chain in more detail in a future series of posts. The take away from this discussion is that supply chain managers must have an end-to-end view of the process as well as all the external influencing factors and technologies in order to effectively manage the process. Issues involving misinformation, mis-interpreted information, or disinformation can grind an operation to a halt, cost money, cause legal issues, and  ultimately loose business.

Agile / SCRUM



Agile is truly a operations management spin off that utilizes operation line manager paradigms of cross-functional training, managing the tempo of operations, clearing backlogs, gut thinking, and production meetings.  Line operations tend to center on the U-Shaped cell concept which is one of self-managing and self-organizing production unit. The line manager is concerned with managing the inputs and outputs of the cell and the flow between cells having metrics, buffers, and having an enterprise view of the operation.  SCRUM is more or less a cooperative effort between self-managing functional areas; Development, Product Owners, and the SCRUM Master / PM. A line operations manager and SCRUM master are very similar yet have a few distinct differences.

Agile's SCRUM Master does the same on-the-fly management as would be expected of a line operations manager.  In manufacturing, work in process goes into work as materials arrive associated with the work in process. This production effort is called a production run.  In SCRUM the production run is the iteration period which is called a sprint.  The primary difference is that most operations, like manufacturing, tend to be linear in nature producing a finished good at the end of the line. Much of the line managers activities are focused in that manner. Whereas, SCRUM's operations tend to be non-linear or iterative. However, a single iteration is linear having several phases along the way. The product undergoes a continuous improvement process having version releases. Perhaps the SCRUM Master could be tagnamed a spiral or spin manager versus line manager. Anyhow, general operations and SCRUM tends to be of  the same character or genere with similiar duties.

• Managers act as the guardian of the production process.
• Both Line managers and SCRUM masters understand the quality, schedules, objectives, and methods promoting the process and controlling digression and changes away from the path towards the endstate. 
• Steer and coach artisans / team members towards production goals
• This is leadership and managerial skills of providing vision, direction, and coaching. Most line managers aspire to Dale Carnegie approaches. However, line positions are typically filled by Type A personalities which usually have an abrasive edge as they drive expectations to the endstate. In SCRUM the manager tends to be more of a facilitator  / coach rather than a driver.
• Minimumizes outside influences keeping the production effort focused.
• In AGILE outside influences tend to be changes and good ideas that if not managed can affect scope and objectives.  In line operations these can be a variety of types of influences from sales volatlity to material shortages to legal issues that can have a direct impact on the operations. For example, OSHA or the EPA making demands on the operations that require an immediate response. While changing legal requirements affect AGILE efforts, they tend to be removed from the AGILE process and viewed in terms of risk rather than an immediate external influence.
• Track work-in-process removing hurdles and bottlenecks
• Classic line manager duties are to delegate work to the experts and clear the way ahead for them. The same is true of SCRUM master activities.
• Develops lessons learned to improve process performance
• This is a practice for nearly every undertaking. Even war fighters return to battle site often as part of a lessons learned conducting battle walks.

Like SCRUM, line operations are often involved in lean processes and continuous improvement. Operational risk management techniques are employed to reduce risk on-the-fly in line operations as required by the line manager. In SCRUM risk is thought of differently though. Risk is more focused and is regularly reviewed  during the sprint.

In conclusion, line operations and SCRUM having many similarities and a few differences. AGILE SCRUM is more focused than line operations and is organized around a functional paradigm for iterative development in lieu of linear operations. 

Comment:  The next post will  explore that a scenario of the adaptive organization. Please stay tuned.

References:

Pham, A., Pham P.V. (2012). Scrum in action: agile software project management and development. Course Technology, USA.

(2011). APICS certified supply chain professional learning system. version 2.2. 2011 ED. APICS. Chicago.

Core Operations Management: Money

Comment: This is the fourth in a series of posts on operation management. The series focuses on the ends of project management taking an operational view of environmental conditions into account and focuses on sustainability through adaptability. We are currently looking the basics; methods, materials and machiney, manpower, and money. This post centers on money. This topic always amazes me, how much tension and consternation arise from this topic.

Operations Management Basics

Business operations come down to manpower, methods, materials/machinery, and money also known as the 4M's. In modern capital economies, the traditional capitalistic business model exchanges work in return for its monetary value. Work may be characterized as service labor or as the productive effort that went into a finished good. All work results in a monetary valuation or price. Wrapped up in the valuation or price are the cost to add value (the cost-of-work or the cost-to-manufacture), risk, overhead, and the markup associated with the demand. The fundamental formula that applies is:

Profit = Revenue - Costs

Efforts are underway to change the accounting process to an consistent international standard that accounts for social and corporate governance concerns while attempting to change the fundamental capitalistic ideology. The fundamental formula still remains the driving force regardless of the socio-political rhetoric around this topic.

Money

Operations management is focused principally on efficient and effective work and its associated cost. Hence, money becomes a concern and focus. However, money is a singularity point and polarizing factor. Dollarizing everything is not always the best measure as there are efficiencies and effectiveness that are more difficult to capture in terms of money. Ratios tend to be a little stronger measure but perforrmance indexing is a better approach.

Performance indexing removes all dimensionality and relates options to one another or to a baseline standard. Typically, the baseline standard is the status quo but can also be a ideal condition or standard the organization aspires towards.

In the Figure 1 example, there is a need to live somewhere and work somewhere else. You find work but need to optimize the use of your limited capital and time resources in a down economy. You have two options; move closer to work or remain in place. Rent is lower where you currently live but the drive consumes a lot of time and money. Equal living conditions are closer to work but the costs add up. You need to realistically vet which option is the best use of your resources; time and money in this case.

Figure 1: Option Matrix

In this scenario, the performance index (CP) and the cost per month totals are very different. Moving closer is the stronger performing option when comparing all factors non-dimensionally but the costs are lower to remain in place given option characteristics. When time is taken into account, the determining factor in the example, the cost or money focus can be misleading when relational performance is considered. While the options involve money in the decision making, money is not the single decisive factor in this case. Efficient use of time is important despite being monetized as 120 hours annually spent sitting in traffic in order to save $600.00 a year? That 120 hours cost $4800.00 annually and would be compared to other uses to determine its best use. Some Financial accounting methods may take into account the cost of sitting in traffic. However, the non-dimensionalized option matrix got to it faster without the extra math. The sooner a reasonable decision can be made the higher tempo the operations become.

On a side note, there are a variety of tools such as this non-dimensionality method, operational risk management methods, Just-in-Time, and other operational tempo methods which may be known today as agile methods that aide in rapid decision making.

Other Than Money

Cash representing the associated values always has the most flexibility. Nonetheless, despite money being a singularity and a polarizing factor, value can be gained not only through the money but also knowledge, time, and through barter of things. Knowledge, also known as intellectual capital, can create circumstances of value that are often intangible. Time can be applied in various ways to create value. Interest is the most common. In some cases, bartering is better than exchanging cash. Bartering is common in circumstances where a monetary transaction may be more expensive, complex, or impossible than simply providing a thing in its place. International economies often operate on bartered values. For example, the United States overproduces corn. The Government buys the corn from farmers at prices that support the farmers efforts rather than allowing the corn prices to drop because of the excess supply. The corn is then provided to another nation to feed their population as payment of debts and/or to adjust trade deficits. Industry may conduct business in a similar manner. Especially, where money is not effective because there is no complex economy that could utilize the money as the case in some areas of Africa and Asia where providing housing, food, and other essentials is valued over cash payments.

Another other than money method is the use of collateral. In projects, it is not uncommon to use letters of credit as collateral. This approach is not a loan but instead a form of insurance that collateralizes future ability to pay. Other forms of collateral include but not limited to equity, assets, and accounts receivables. 

In Closing

Money is a driving factor and a singularity point in operations. Sometimes to the extreme. Some accountants may see the business operation wholly in terms of monetary value. So much so that they may develop pro-forma financial statements and think its a matter of adapting the business to the pro-forma statements. For example, they may cite a "Product A" on the income statement with all it's desire financial performance. In this kind of thinking, it is a matter of product development and marketing's job to find a product or service that meets the desired performance. Then its operations purpose to fine tune it and meet the expectations. More realistically, accounting may provide a financial resource forecast which places limits on the product or market development. Leaders and managers then juggle the operations to work within the means available and may utilize other than money apporachs. This often results in work around solutions in which the same results or outcomes are sought by varying and finding alternatives paths to the same end.

The primal equation of profit equal to revenue less cost remains the driving factor. Operations managers, as well as project managers, have a variety of options available to them when juggling funding issues. These options range in style and type from low cost sources of capital to work around solutions. When considering options characteristic performance may show a stronger option quicker than dollarizing options. Knowledge, time, barter, and collateral are alternatives means to cash at hand. However, cash or cash-in-hand is considered to be the most flexible and most desireable.

This concludes the operations management basics. The next several sessions will focus on some interesting topics and move into discissions on sustainability and adaptability. 

Core Operations Management: Materials and Machinery

Commentary: This is the third post in a series on operations management. The series takes an operational view of environmental conditions into account and focuses on sustainability through adaptability. We are currently reviewing core operations management with the focus on the 4M's; methods, manpower, materials and machinery, and money. In this post we are looking at materials and machinery.

Operations Management Basics: Materials and Machinery

Business operations come down to manpower, methods, materials/machinery, and money also known as the 4M's.  I have grouped materials and machines together since they have many commonalities; capital expenses, carrying costs, depreciation, and other like qualities. Materials and machines are at the center of an operation. Materials are generally worked into finished goods by machinery that can be operated by code and ultimately human manpower. The sophistication of the code is increasing as emergent technologies make certain kinds of intelligent code methods possible.  Hollywood movies have taken the notion of intelligent code and machines to extremes. In the movie A.I. Artifical Intelligence, human misconduct led to their extinction leaving intelligent and sentient machines that evolved. These machines discover David, a prototype machine that knew humans, and viewed him as unique for his experiences. David wished to become human but could not. Star Trek: The Next Generation had an android, Data, who also wished to become human and through experience evolved closer to becoming human. Ultimately, Data sacrificed himself for humanity in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis. Finally, in the movie Bicentennial Man, a robot, Andrew, becomes sentient then desired to be declared human. After evolving and inventing organic systems that made him closer to being human, Andrew acquired the uniquely human experience of death. Upon Andrew's death he was declared human. Much of this entertainment arose from a ground breaking book by Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines and projects such as human centric computing or H21.

Intelligent and sentient machines may be possible on the horizon as biological computing, robotic, human sensory,  genetic engineering, and other technologies converge. One frightening exploitation of this technological convergence is Transhumanism in which humans and machines are capable of exchanging the human essence or soul.. Back to being grounded in the meantime, technological convergences will have implication today and in the future for business operations since machines work and rework materials at best with human supervised intelligence currently. Long standing methods will remain in place and, most likely, will be enhanced as the technological wrapper around the process improves. We will look at some of the material management methods and the machinery today. However, I would like to keep live the futurist notions of artificial intelligent systems to be discussed in later posts as a means of adaptability.

Materials

There are three general categories of materials; consumables, repairables, and controllables. Consumables are generally low cost materials that once used become waste or a loss, consumed. Although, attempts have been made to make items such as the automobile consumables. The original intent of the Saturn car concept was a disposable vehicle which was never achieved due to a shift in focus. Operations should never be halted due to the unavailability of a consumable. Repairables are generally expensive assemblies having many components and parts. By replacing parts or machining components, the higher order assembly becomes reusable or repaired. Another attempt at vehicle design componentized the automobile into three major interchangeable components; the chasis, power plant, and body.  Consumers could, based on the chasis in use, swap out power plants and body designs if failed, damaged, or for upgrades. Repairs to the components were to be made without affecting the consumer's use of the vehicle as the defective component (a carcass) was swapped out with a ready for issue (RFI) component. In effect, the consumer would lease the three major components. This design concept never emerged for various reasons but a good idea. Controllables can be repairable or consumable parts, components, or assemblies that are  highly pilferable, costly components susceptible to catastrophic damage while in inventory or transport, or proprietary in nature. Thus, the need to manage access and usage closely. In some cases, controllables will have a custody trail maintained. Given these three categories there arose a need to manage materials more closely due to availability, cost, and control requirements.

Material management was a priority focus before the 1970's since they were the most costly aspects of most operations. Many people speculate as to the cause of the flip when labor became more expensive. Some of the contributing events included the advent of minimum wage; increases in labor regulation and heightened focus on socio-political programs that demanded costly management programs and legal support. Anyhow, prior to this flip material management was the focus.  During this time efforts were undertaken to improve management of materials and equipment that have persisted due to their success. Material management methodologies that work include:

1. Just-in-Time (JIT). Henry Ford detailed the Just-in-time philosophy in his book My Life and Work circa 1922. However, in the 1950's Toyota perfected the concept and tagged named the method as Just-in-Time. The essential point is that materials sitting around cost money. The concept is to minimize the amount of material sitting around in order to free up capital for other purposes by reducing inventory carrying cost, spoilage, and theft. This is accomplished by accelerating the flow of inventory having production buffers sized to expected delays due to unscheduled maintenance and events. The concept has been taken beyond classic JIT to the point of leaning production cells, a U shaped cell, in a way that optimizes the movement of unfinished goods with input and output points that are managed. Thus, an operation, any operation, can be designed in a way that views the operational tempo in terms of a velocity such as dollars earned or spent per unit of time. I'll return to this concept in future posts. 
2. Lean Manufacturing: This is a group of methodologies and techniques that contribute towards reducing costs by optimizing flow and preserving value with less work. Techniques may be as simple as reducing the number of times material or unfinished goods are handled.  Methods could be as complex as Six Sigma that wraps up comprehensive OM tooling sets such as statistical process controls (SPC), total quality managment (TQM), and other tooling involving the labor force in a continuous improvement efforts.
3. Material Resource Planning (MRP). Joseph Orlicky, during the 1960's, studied Toyota's system and originated the MRP process that has led towards more expansive management systems of MRP II, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Distribution Resource Planning (DRP). The concept is to identify when materials will be needed, predict when shortfalls may occur, and to determine the 'critical path' back to the starting point. MRP is based on a Bill of Materials in which materials are time phased into time buckets. ERP attemps to bring the entire organization into a single focus and even couples suppliers and distributors to the production process. I'll also return to the ERP concept later.

Machinery

Machinery cost have increased since 1970 as robotics and computerization began to take hold with the objective of a labor multiplier effect. Companies often conduct cost-benefit analysis to determine to best use of their capital when considering machinery resulting in either a operating lease or a capital lease. Operating leases are expensed 100% off the books and are leveraged when purchasing the machine does not make sense. In effect, the machine is 'rented' for a specified term then returned to its owner. Capital leases result in ownership of the machine and may have significant tax implications. Thus, operations and project managers alike carefully weigh these decisions to buy or rent machines.

Since the 1970's, numeric control machines quickly became computer numeric control machines (CNC). Manufacturing began to move into the realm of Computer Integrated Manufacturing  (CIM) systems that link innovation, design, process planning, manufacturing, distribution, and demand seamlessly. These systems range from desktop manufacturing to large scale mass production plants. For example, one of the most advanced auto manufacturing plant is Ford's Brazil facility. These facilities required higher skilled artisans who not only perform the work but also program, load, and maintain the computer controlled machines.  The attraction of CIM facilities is flexible or adaptive manufacturing, higher quality of work conditions, and improved quality and flow.  In CIM's ideal implementation, a customer could request specific details that are immediately applied to work-in-process. Eddie Bauer has approached this using the digital profit model. Customers order a blue shirt online for example. In the next batch run a white shirt of the proper design is picked then routed to the blue dye tanks, dried, wrapped, then loaded in awaiting mail trucks immediately. The process is so rapid that customers have been known to recieve damp warm shirts in the mail!  Anheuser-Busch also has an automated brewing and bottling process. Computers load and steep the urns of beer in a continuous brewing method which is then drawn off bottled, palletized, and loaded into semi-truck vans fully automated. Even the delivery of the product is automated as the van sidewalls release the grip on the product and a conveyor belt on the bed moves the cargo to the door then out onto the dock.

In time, the manufacturing processes will become increasingly automated with intelligent machines administering the work. Even the common kitchen is moving in that direction. Food preparation processes have become standardized resulting in both commercial and retail grade appliances that prepare and sense the food's preparation state. For example, retail appliances such as bread machines have emerged that perform a variety of processes such as mixing, needing, rising, baking, and cooling. The ready made bread mix products are available for numerous bread types.  The breadmakers have sensors and programs that determine the ideal conditions and adjust for perfect loafs of bread. While these machines are still supervised, intelligent machines that converse with the baker are on the horizon. Speculating on their use, I suspect the baker will verbally state the desired preferences, recipes will be retrieved over the Internet,  and work-in-progress status will be a conversation with the baker yielding to a new style of Ratatouille. Instead of a mouse and man combination this will result in a machine and man combination.  Manufacturing systems may head in this same direction advising of worn tooling, maintenance, or quality issues. Instructions may be given orally to correct the situation by the manufacturing supervisor. Machines will fix machines.

Even maritime, aviation, and automobile machines are being affected by technological advances. Ships handling has advanced dramatically from as many as 12 sailors on the bridge to 1 ship's pilot as the bridge has transformed to be somewhat like the cockpit of an aircraft. Information is sent throughout the ship where sensors and computers manage ballast, stability, engine performance, fuel economy, and deploy stabilizers when necessary. Aircraft controls are becoming increasingly intelligent as newer air traffic control systems communicate among airframes and airfields determining the best approaches, altitudes, fuel economies, and collision avoidance. Intelligent traffic systems are using water flow models to control the flow of automobile traffic. All massive machines and complex systems are evolving to become more life like in their character.  The loading and unloading the vehicles and their movements impact logistical networks involving suppliers, producers, and customers.  This results in a systems-of-systems perspective of machines and operations.

Thoughts and Conclusions

Business operations have been looked at in terms of materials and machinery in order to improve process flows reducing cost and time-to-market while improving and/or stabilizing quality. Manufacturers have been seeking flexible or adaptable manufacturing strategies in order to respond to market changes given thier large captial investments in machinery. By focusing of process and adaptable code, the CIM environment may offer a solution.  Many of the manufacturing approaches to managing the operations have cross bled into other industries and there may be a solution similiar ti CIM for other than manufacturing operations. For example, agile software develop has taken on a manufacturing styled approach with the business metrics and continuous improvement methods employed in order to produce 'widgets', web parts or other coded objects. I want to return to a CIM-like concept in later posts.  

Material and machine management focus is perhaps returning to be just as critical to manage as manpower has become in recent decades. Traditional thinking remarks that manpower is willing to work if properly nutured. In the emerging era of operations management, machines may be looked at similar to the manpower approach - with care and feeding.

References:

Kurzweil, R. (1999). The age of spiritual machines. Pengiun Books. NY.

Core Operations Management: ManPower

Commentary: This is the second in a series of posts on operation management. The series takes an operational view of environmental conditions into account and focuses on sustainability through adaptability.  Right now, we are looking at the basics; methods, manpower, materials/machinery, and money.

Core Operations Management: ManPower

Manpower is a expansive topic involving leadership and management, governmental regulations, proficiencies, extracting instutitional knowledge, leveraging intellectual capital for profit, and so much more. Manpower can be either expensed or capitialized. The tendency is to expense manpower leading to a generalized thought that manpower or labor is 'expendable' and readily replacable with another abled body. However, many companies realize that manpower is not so readily replacable as experience, training, and tradecraft knowledge are not easily resourced without inherent risk. Some organizations have attempted to develop Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in an attempt to quantify success or what it would take for success.  The bottom line is that leveraging manpower is risky business. We will focus on training and skill for this post since that seems to be, in part, at the heart of the issue of developing or resourcing quality staff.

Strategy

Duties in the work place have become increasingly more skilled as technology permeates all aspects of business operations. The unskilled manpower used to dig a ditch has now become a licensed and skilled backhoe operator for example. Another example is one of the most advanced manufacturing plants in the world. Ford's Auto Manufacturing plant in Brazil requires highly skilled manpower not to build the vehicles but instead maintain the automation equipment.  Thus, a persistent issue that many companies struggle with is that manpower is expensive to recruit and retain quality skilled members. Manpower is so expensive that companies use strategies that involve a combination of layoffs and other reductions in labor expenditures to free capital for other operations and projects. Thus, labor becomes a low cost source of capital as compared to bank loans, corporate bonds, and other capital resources. Usually, there is a financial analysis that compares risk in terms of the return on investment, ROI, and interest rates in order to select the lowest cost source of capital. The apparent paradox is that operations and projects require labor. Hence, the need for a strategy rather than just layoffs.

Companies may reduce the cost of manpower by seeking less expensive candidates. This also frees capital and maintains a ready workforce. One approach is to seek people with certifications and to promote from within, training their staff in lieu of seeking fully degreed professionals external to the organization. In operations management, this training/acquisition push tends to focus on certifications such as Six Sigma, TQM, CPIM, CSCP, SCRUM, PMP, and other like certifications that incorporate OM methods and processes. The benefit to certifications are that they are focused, require currency, and can be easily expensed off the books than more comprehensive long term training programs that career industry professionals would typically possess. Certifications tend towards a journeymen's approach to the tradecraft and are often cross-functionally proficient influencing multiple areas of a business. The degree of cross-functional focus varies based on the level of skill required in certain functional areas. People acquiring the certifications often enjoy increases in pay and the companies generally saved money in the short term over hiring fully degreed professional as well as have employees with heightened levels of loyalty and dedication.   

Another strategy is to offload some task burdens to a new career field. Cetain career fields created technician career paths such as medical assistants or public safety officers. Other fields simply certified people in the ranks as in the case of information technology with mostly vendor certifications. The justification is usually at a cost savings, at least, in the beginning with an increase in a focused workforce. Hence, another strategy of creating alternate lower cost career paths. 

Recruiting certified people in lieu of certifying internal employees can be veiwed the same as recruiting a fully degreed professional by the employer. Typically, the employer determines what he is willing to pay and places the mark on the wall. Candidates are reviewed above and below that mark. The employer then seeks the best candidate in relation to the mark on the wall. Candidates above the mark can be percieved as overqualified and candidates under the mark are typically percieved as not drawing top dollar. In short, there are a lot of perceptions and challenges to overcome when recruiting externally for both the employer and the candidate.

Degree Versus Certification

This brings to light the age old dilemma of degree versus certification. The general logic is that companies do not always require a fully degreed professional to perform some tasks and want to give opportunities to other people in their organizations. Therefore, they promote and train from within. However, this is not without risk. Organizations that promote almost wholly from within risk becoming stagnant and stovepiped. They often are inflexible and unresponsive to changing marketplace conditions. The thought in the organization often becomes polarized and resistant to change as is the stereotype for government work. One example is that several years ago a pharmaceutical company attempted to encourage senior citizens to take thier medication on schedule. This was a business issue as well as a human issue. Taking pills on time meant increases in sales for the company. The solutions the staff developed were emails, text messages, and timers on the bottles. However, seniors did not use email or texting that much and timers were ineffective if the senior was not checking the bottle. The problem was not resolved until fresh thinking was recruited. The solution that worked was to install electronic gambling caps on the bottles. The bottle would release a new number or letter as part of a lottery when the medication was to be taken. The senior would obtain this release, place it in a website, then see if they won prizes, money, or refills. The idea was generated by recruiting externally for a cross-functional professional in social behavior and marketing.  Thus, the conundrum is to determine the best mix centering on a balance between a high degree of risk versus a high degree of stagnation. This is a uniquely organizational decision with some organizations using the 80-20 rule; 80% internal promotions and 20% external recruits. Many of the new recruits in larger organizations fail to recognize that they are actually being hired based on a succession plan in which they must show potential for a position that may be two or three promotions away.  In the current economy, as of November 2011, most employers seem to focus on the immediate than succession plans. 

Compounding Issues

A more recent complication is the consolidation of job duties. In the last several years, layoffs released scores of people; yet the duties remained in place often being consolidated into one or more other positions. Later these other positions became vacant for various reasons. Companies found themselves searching for candidates to fill these newly condensed positions only to discover that in the market place people had not developed the cross-functional skills in the manner which they consolidated duties. There was a gap between the talent pool and positions available with little to no discernible standard. This was often seen as employers interviewing people for positions they could not fully define in a way that the market could fill. This created a problem of high unemployment and unable to find skilled people to fill the cross-functional positions. Operations managers had to make choices between risk of hiring and training candidates versus not filling the position that further exasperates the issue when those duties are consolidated into other positions. There are  alternatives to looking for cross-functional professionals. One apporach is to seek someone who is a generalist and accustomed to a variety of duties. Generalist usually do not have tremendous depth in any one field but they do have a breadth of experience across most aspects of the organization making them good candidates to be applied in many ways. Another approach is to define a common position, recruit for it, then slowly add the cross-functional duties based on assessed abilitiy to handle them.

Conclusion

All these issues discussed point to a growing need for stronger manpower strategies that involve cross-functional skill sets, upward mobility, and creativity. Organizational design should include expanding and contracting labor requirements based on common marketplace skillsets. Varitability should be handled by internal staff who possess the corporate knowledge and loyalty to execute properly.  Hiring external professionals either degreed or certified or someone who has both should be considered not as overhead but an investment. In doing so, the position should be dollarized in terms of cost savings, increases in profitability or revenue, and/or in terms of organizational value. Sometimes these metrics are difficult to determine but if possible are excellent indicators of a contributing member. KPIs were one attempt at defining metrics.

If measuring the performance of a position by dollarizing or in other organizational value terms, the member must  be given control of the factors influencing those metrics. This is often difficult for closely held business owners to permit as they generally like to retain control of the details. Nonetheless, this is determined by the kind of leadership in the organization.  Inspirational and charismatic leaders coach their staff to success often aspiring to principles and goals.

Comment: I have brushed the surface on this topic as there is much more to manpower. The next post will deal with materials and machinery as we move through some of the basics. I will return to manpower later to discuss intellectual capital and organizational knowledge.

Core Operations Management: Methods

Comment: This Operations Management series takes an operational view of environmental conditions into account and focuses on sustainability through adaptability. 

All business operations come down to manpower, methods, materials/machinery, and money also known as the 4M's or in some circles the 5M's. Many disciplines have a narrow focus supporting one or more of these underpinnings. For example, human resources focuses on principally manpower. Accounting focuses mostly on historical capital performance or the money. They do attempt to forecast performance but the historical reporting affects performance for various present (predictive) and future (applied) models. Unlike other disciplines, OM affects every aspect of the business in practical and purposeful ways by establishing the framework under which the operations become effective and efficient. In short, operations management balances all aspects, the 4M's, of the business operations. This series will organize around the 4M underpinnings which are often the primary sprigs in the Ishacawa diagram which is better known as the fishbone or cause and effect diagram. This post focuses on methods.

Methods

There has been a breadth of studies into operational methodologies and many methods persist. The studies range from detailed time standards (highly discrete, quantitative) to generalized frameworks (highly applied, qualitative). Given such a broad range in methods, leaders and managers can be overwhelmed in discerning which methods best apply. In most cases, they make decisions as best they are able. Having a grasp on the basics helps make better decisions.

First, we need to understand the elements of OM methods. OM methods usually involve some level of security, productive work, quality, sustainment, and information. Security in most operations centers on proprietary information, physical security, and protecting Personal Identifiable Information (PII) of clientele. Productive work is the purpose for the method and the mainstay of the business. Quality is an economic and/or legal discretionary decision relating to the fitness or grade of excellence of the productive work. Sustainment is the process of creating the framework or structure that affords durability to an operation. Information is the pertinent and collective volume of data and knowledge associated to the OM method at hand.  With these elements, sustainable OM methods arise to serve a purpose with effectiveness and efficiencies.

Looking further into methods, most follow an innate structure that are categorized as either discrete or continuous. Most methods are discrete characterized by distinct individual parts that are discontinuous and connected in various manners such as linear or non-linear. Non-linearity is known as complexity which I will address in a later post. A continuous process is uniform, uninterrupted in time, and once initiated does not stop until the result is achieved. OM professionals tend to look at methods in terms of phases seeking breakpoints and fluidity such as linear or spiral (a form of non-linear).  For non-OM professionals, this process has been made easy for recurring processes by creating the models many know. For example, activities like software development and democratic reform processes where democratization of design is prevalent there are a host of stable models to draw upon. However, rarely do any of the models apply perfectly and end up being modified or combined with other models. This was discussed in the post; Software Model Bashing.

Comparing Operations to Projects

In engineered-to-order, job-shop, batch, and mass manufacturing methods are repetitive operations performed in a series of steps that result in the production of work-in-process and ultimately a finished good.  Project management has a work breakdown structure (WBS) that details the parent-child work relationships to be completed. Likewise, the Bill of Materials (BOM) in manufacturing serves a similar function. Instead of focusing on the work itself, the BOM focuses on the parent-child material relationship requirements to perform the work. The Material Resource Planning (MRP) method time phases the arrival of materials when the work is to be performed. Work packages in the MRP process occur in the time buckets in which materials arrive for work-in-process on a job follower (a work package) to begin.

The reverse methology to MRP is Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) method.  MRP begins with the end date in mind and works backward to the start date. In MRO, a repairable component known as the carcass arrives usually unnannounced because it was an unscheduled failure. Repair crews must perform a engineering and repair evaluation to determine what is wrong and what parts are required for the repair. The BOM in MRO is known as an Illustrated Parts Breakdown, IPB, which list all the parts and shows how they are assembled. Often there is a deliberate work stoppage in MRO while waiting for the parts to arrive before work can begin. To minimize the stoppage requires storage of inventory and the associated management.  Once the essential parts arrive the carcass is returned to work-in-process. During this interval, an MRP-like process with job followers and parts arriving as compnents enter work may begin since the repair process is generally well known. In shop floor control, maintenance action forms (MAFs) detail the work perform. Today, the MAF is computerized but in old school, the MAF was placed in a visual information display (VIDs) board. As the work progressed, the MAF was slid back and forth between columns; Awaiting Maintenance (AW), Awaiting Parts (AWP), and Work in Progress (WIP). 

Methods are simply broken down into steps, phases, and checkpoints then applied to a form of fluidity such as linear or spiral. Some highly complex non-linear operations have little fluidity as complex relationships between components require progressive elaboration. This is more often observed in operations like engineered-to-order and job shop which tends to be project driven. For example, the construction of a stadium or a spacecraft. Software development operations are typically fluid and spiral processes having multiple phases and stages based on the operational design of the organization producing repetitive software products regardless of the uniqueness of product. The goal is to properly design and select the right methods that maximize effectiveness and optimize efficiencies. This is best achieved by understanding the generalized process and principles that underpins any operation whether manufacturing, software development, or knowledge production.

Methods and Sustainability

In the book Collapse, Nords had settled Greenland but fostered a hostile relationship with the Inuit people. The Nords had a fixed European lifestyle that they attempted to force fit into the Greenland environment having thier livestock and crops. Meanwhile, the indigenous Inuits were skilled fishermen who had adapted to the environment with warm waterproof kayaks resulting in an near endless supply of food from the sea. They utilized nearly all the sea creatures they hunted or fished with marginal waste, feeding that waste back to the remaining stock.  The Nords could have learned from the Inuits. Because of the Nord's unwillingness to adapt and who continued to foster animosity against the Inuits, they starved to death amidst some of the most bountiful food sources in the world. Likewise, some companies refuse to adapt to thier environment. They possess a high degree of market place arrrogance or insist on processes that are not effective or efficient due to some sense of posterity. The outcome results in a non-sustainable condition and a collapse of the business.

Sustainable methods center on adaptability designed into the methods. An automated and robotic equipment manufacturer located in Carlsbad, CA that I toured once had taken this concept to the maximum. They had designed a series of automated equipment that performed a set of standard operations on pliable materials such as plastics, soft metals and composites, and composite fabrics. The machines were mounted on wheels and had standard transfer mechanisms for material handling. The idea was that shop floor setup could occur in less than one day by simply unlocking the machines and rolling them into new arrangements or adding in new machines then interlocking them in their new positions. The idea was to maintain an array of machines they could quickly assemble into a new manufacturing process.  In this method, adaptable manufacturing operations had a low setup latency such that they could lease shop floors throughout the year by quickly organizing and manufacturing an array of finished goods otherwise not possible.

In practice, another manufacturing plant, I also toured,  using the same kind of equipment combined manual labor with the automated processes to manufacture several different products throughout the year.  They made the squirt guns found on cleaning products, golf clubs, gym equipment, As Seen On TV products, and a host of other products in addition to their principle product line. The squirt gun manufacturing process was fully automated and no human hands touched the WIP. Plactic parts and raw materials were loaded, in most cases, by automated material handling equipment. Plastic pellets were poured into a vibrating hopper for sorting and some parts arrived in pick-and-place styled bins that rolled up then attached to the machines. Production runs made squirt guns for the entire year in about 6 to 8 weeks. The golf club manufacturing was a hybrid process with production runs for about 12 weeks. Gym equipment manufacturing was 100% manual labor with production runs for about about 12 weeks as well. Other product runs were as seen on TV products that fit their processes and typically had production runs less than 30 days. The point is that the shop floor was adaptable throughout the year for production runs not associated with the primary product line creating a sustainable operation despite varitability in the market, products, economy, and the manufacturing processes.

Sustainability, thus, takes into account down economies, obsolesence, disruptive technologies, and other factors that impact sustained operations. The idea is to back away from becoming too specialized or focused. In doing so, the organization refocuses on the grander processes and methods that lead to a product or service. For example, the classic triangular kitchen design, Figure 1, supports inumerable processes with some minor adjustments to tooling and materials passing through the shop floor.  Nonetheless, the preparation and cooking processes remain consistent and involve washing, heating, or chilling the work in progress. Cutting, mixing, and other processes are possible too by varying the tooling and methods in prep areas. The kitchen can also be adapted to first aide and cleansing operations. The refrigerator can provide ice packs and store medicines. The sink can flush wounds and assist in removing heat from burns. Hence, the kitchen can adapt to a variety of operations without making major changes. 

Figure 1: General Kitchen Design

Likewise business operations can adapt their methods and processes by not becoming too specialized and designing in capacity and capability to evolve as environmental conditions emerge.  I'll be taking these concepts to a higher order in later posts.

The Big Push

In recent decades, an incredible number of certifiable methodologies have spawned for nearly every aspect of a company's operations. These methodologies encompass OM approaches and processes either wholistically or in part when cross-functional. This has been a profitable boon for most professional organizations and other consultancies marketing the methodologies with requisite certifications either for the company or the professional staff.  As a result, the OM discipline has spread to a wide swath of the labor force specializing in specific crossfunctional areas as the case with software development, logistics, and many other disciplines.

Comment: Methods is an expansive subject having methods stratified many ways.  I focused on some common methods and general concepts in this post. In following posts I will be expanding on methods combining them with organizational design.  In the next post, I will look at manpower and manpower issues such as certifications. 

References:

Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, 1st ED. Viking Adult, United States.

Operations Management Series Post

Operation Management Series

Comment: I am going to begin this series on operations management by focusing on operations that are continuous and sustainable.  Later, I will return to this series to add a project management focus. Let us begin.

As of November 2011, a series of articles and books on education, labor, and the economy was not good  news and the outlook even worse. The consensus among most economist and scholars was that the world is looking at a double dip economic slump within the following 48 months and many national economies were on the brink of utter collapse which was to send shockwaves throughout the global economy. In a unique view, according to the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, most societies failed to adequately identify and manage their sustainable environment resulting in a collapse. By environment that is inclusive of the natural and economic resources.  In some cases, the societies attempted lifestyles not compatible with the resources at hand and others depleted thier resources. In a few cases the environment could not support the society at all in the first place. Environmental conditions were essentially the underpinning of the economies by providing energy, supporting food production and materials for housing, as well as other economic activities. The author looks to numerous environmental metrics to determine 'carrying capacity and capability' of a given environment. Taking this operationalized view of environmental conditions into account, the one term I saw that determined sustainability is adaptability.

Adaptability is a term that when parsed into component elements considers adjustments, effectiveness, and efficiencies that contribute towards long term sustainability. I want to avoid using the term survivability as that suggest reactionary efforts to sudden hostile conditions that require immediate and provocative countermeasures. Nonetheless, I'll draw on some of my military training in aircraft survivability and apply them to operations management in this series.  Returning to the focus, adaptability is the pivotal interest in order to adjust an organization to transitioning environmental conditions. It is a long term design strategy that must be embraced through rotating management teams.

In this series, I am going to simply speak a lot from the heart and not from some overstated  program ideologies such as Agile, TQM, or Win-Win.  Although, I may refer to some salient points in these packaged programs as a common reference.  There are also socio-political concerns that center on corporate governance. In this post series we will focus on the business importance of operations management (OM) and sustainability rather than other socio-political concerns under corporate governance. I desire to get back to OM basics, the focus on the framework under which the business operations become sustainable, effective, and efficient. I will begin by posting some previous posts here in support of this OM series. Some the of concepts I will present have been explored in earlier posts. As I develop other posts, I will add them here too. My hope is that these thoughts and ideas stir critical and creative thinking even if the specific thoughts I am presenting are not embraced. 

Operations Management Posts:

1. Core Operations Management: Methods
2. Core Operations Management: ManPower
3. Core Operations Management: Materials and Machines
4. Core Operations Management: Money
5. Focus Areas of Interest: Operations Management
6. Designing an Operation Part 1
7. Designing an Operation Part 2
8. Complex Adaptive Culture Implementation
9. Complex Adaptive Management

Supporting Briefs:

• The Art of Profitability Brief
• Innovation Shatters Paradigms
• Virtualizating Computational Workloads
• The Non-Dimensionalized Methodology Brief
• ITIL Affects Measurable Organizational Value
• Operational Risk Management Military Style versus Industry Approach

Please feel free to email JT Bogden with any comments you may have.


References:

Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, 1st ED. Viking Adult, United States.

Friedman, T.L. (2005) World is flat. 1st ED. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York.

Argumentations Series Summary

Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning

Commentary: This has been a series on effective reasoning as it applies to project management. Using proper argumentation in a project while vetting risk, options, objectives, strategies, and workaround solutions can strengthen a project's performance, improve communications, and develop a sense of unity. Effective argumentations comes down to building the strongest case for a claim. In this series I will be summarizing points made by David Zarefsky in his Teaching Company coursework as well as drawing on other resources.   This series of posts may be reviewed at the Argumentation Series Posts link. I have been compressing several sessions into a single post. The same is true with this post. I have compressed several sessions into one in order to complete the series and move on to other topics.

This post is a combination of a light review and summary with some thoughts about argumentation. While I did not comment on every post in the series, I'll try to clarify some points in this post and return to some ideas in earlier posts.  

Through the posts there was considerable argumentation jargon was presented as in most disciplines.  I want to summarize some of the more pertinent terms here:

Circular Reasoning: The act of presenting evidence that supports a claim, then repeating that claim as evidence resulting in no progression in the argument.

Claim: A statement of fact, definition, value, policy, or occurence that an audience is asked to accept.

Credibility: The believability of a source, the product of competence, trustworthiness, good will, and dynamism as those are understood by the audience.

Deduction: Reasoning in which the evidence supports the claim with certainty. No new information is present in the claim, at least implicitly, than what is in the evidence.

Epistemic: Modal logic that deals with the formalization of or relating to knowledge concepts, such as the origin, range, nature, certainty, and limits of knowledge as well as ignorance.
Evidence: Statements offered in support of a claim. The character of the evidence is affected by the range of its truths; correlation to fact and/or epistemic assertations.

Formal Reasoning: Lines of logic that follows from evidence purely as a matter of form equated to mathematical reasoning, deduction, and symbolic logic with certainty. Context and content are not important.

Induction:  Reasoning that makes inferences based on probability of the evidence supporting the claim. Often the claim contain information not present in the evidence.

Inference: A mental move or quantum leap from evidence to a claim in such a manner as to support and accept the claim based on the evidence.

Informal Reasoning: Reasoning that is not a matter of form in which context and content are important.
Issue: A question that arises during an argument and vital is the arguments performance and/or success. Thus, the issue must be resolved.

Resolution: The ultimate claim an advocate seeks to prove or disprove and the substance of the controversy.

Stasis:  The 'point of rest' or the focal point at which the force of assertation meets the force of denial. It is the point around which the argument hoovers.

Arguments Between Friends And Experts

This session moves beyond strategies and apprasials to the practice of argumentation. Spheres of the argument are distinctive sets of expectations that provide contexts for arguing. Dialogues are the mode of discourse and participants seek to resolve any disagreements with critical discussion and coalescent argumentation as the way ahead.

In pluralistic and multi-cultural societies, argumentation becomes decentralized due to the abscence of universal standards for argument evaluation. Thus, a dependence on context that center on personal, technical, and public spheres.  Migrating between spheres during an argument is not uncommon. Personal concerns can be cast as public matters such as child abuse or abortion.

The personal sphere of argumentation has several dominant characterisitics such as focusing on resolving disagreements that affect themselves; naturally occurring speech with overt opposition apparent; dialogue is dominant mode of discourse; and there is little preparation as evidence and materials are what comes to mind.  Ideally, the argument would be a critical discusion modelled after cooperative problem solving reflecting normaitve standards. Typically, this involves coalescent argumentation having goals for all parties in which the discussion seeks to find ways to meet them. In short, typical of the democratic process.   

Unfortunately, arguementation within the personal sphere falls way short of the ideal standard. Interactions are often devoted to ending but not resolving disagreements. ie Let's agree to disagree. There is often a heavy investment in the outcome generating a passionate tenor. Often baggage and beliefs are brought into the discourse that adds no value to the agrument but affects it.  Rationales are often incomplete and require reading between the lines. There are inequalities in skill, social influence, and resources available to the proponents.  Nonetheless, argumentation in the personal sphere should strive towards the norm of critical discussion in order to resolve interpersonal disputes.

Argument among experts takes place in specialized fields with specific patterns of inference and appraisal. These fields are defined by the subject matter, worldview, or orientation. sometimes the dispute is across fields and become interdisciplinary disputes. Thus, we will explore resolutions and processes for these arguments which most often occur in the technical sphere.

Each field has its own norms and conventions that define the context for argumentation among its membership that is frequently not available outside the membership. Legal argumentation is such an example that reasons with rules applying relevant rules to the facts. Often the illusion of a objective and deductive conclusion is made in order to sway the resolution in their favor. There are compications to legal argumentation such as facts are subject to perceptions and judgments; there can be numerous relevant rules or none; numerous interpretations may emerge; and the model is normative from which practice may diverge. Strong patterns persist such as standards for evidence; literal analogy establishes thelink between rules and the case; authority defends warrants; and the stasis in place determines where the case belongs in the legal system. Specialized knowledge is required inlegal argumentation to handle relevant rules, burden of proof, and inferential procedures.

Scientific argumentation is more concise. The goal is to account for some phenomenon either by predictive outcomes or by descriptive explanation. This is achieved by developing a theory then 'normal science' applies and refines it. Claims are factual about the phenomenon and evidence is factual about the theory.  'Revolutionary science' calls into question fundamental paradigms.this shifts to a discussion of theories rather than the phenomenon. Paradigm disputes are settled by means other than facts. Ultimately, specialized knowledge is required as one must be familiar with the knowledge field and understand the scientific method.

Managerial arguments are another specialized field.  There are choices and decisions made under austere constraints on information and time. managers use simplifying instruments to guide decision making such as ratios, incrementalism, and satisficing. Arguments are about the means to achieve the objectives and values; ie measurable organizational value.

Other specialized argument include ethical and religious debates that focus on determining what is right.

Finally, there are times when it is not apparent what field the controversy belongs. This raises questions about how to proceed and who is the most qualified to argue.  Often this results in an interfield dispute that requires a means of translation. Interfield borrowing is one option and transferring the argument to the public sphere is another option.

Ends of Argumentation

Through the series we looked at how controveries begin and were conducted. The focus now shifts to how controversies end.  Ideally, the parties to an anagreement ending the discourse. However, there ae other outcomes such as time runs out and a judgment is rendered unilaterally; the discourse is overcome by events; conceptual breakthroughs result in a paradigm shift; and an undesirable outcome is a perpetual controversy in which new evidence or concerns increase the divide. These are more practical ends.

The most obvious end of argumentation is more academic serving collective judgment and decision making. Human affairs tend to be  uncertain and contingent, but require decisions. Argumentation is the instrument for making decisions under the condition of uncertainty.  

Argumentation serves a purpose of knowing or gaining intellectual perspective. Charles Pierce, a pragmatrist philosopher, identified four ways of knowing; tenacity, authority, self-evidence, and verification. Verification, specifically, is open to inspection, replication, and outcomes arise from design and not chance. However, verification is not the only acceptable path to knowledge. Topics that involve qualities like values, probabilities, predictions, and recommendations are known through thealternative analogues of which argumentation embraces. This view supports the realm of the uncertain as truth is relative to the argument that advances it and the resultant interactions.

In final conclusion, the culture of argumentation is an activity to be embraced and practiced rather than depised.

Commentary: This concludes the argumentation series. There are many excellent points that are made regarding argumentation that apply well to project management. Project managers should have a strong grasp of the argumentation process, learn to divest emotional pleas, and focus on that which moves a project forward. 

One final note on truth and argumentation. The matter is not about winning a personal argument but instead arriving at the truth having a well justified position. Argumentation is really about friendly collaborative problem solving, in this case a dispute.  The coursework tended towards a relativistic truth based on audiences that are pluralistic and multi-cultural. This brings the challenge of worldviews into the argumentation discipline. Thus, not only is the range of truth from correspondant to epistemic, truth is also relative to the worldview.  Fortunately, all humans aspire to a common set of moral and to some extent ethical principles. However, there are some conditional stipulations some worldviews place on ethics such as lying. For instance, one worldview forbids lying among thier own membership and actually makes it a moral imperative to lie to those outside the worldview. Project managers working in pluralistic cultures should appeal to the common moral and ethical principles knowing the limitation they may be confronted with during argumentation processes.  In the end, for the project manager knowing the people involved and thier effects and impact on a project is most important towards properly positioning the argument.  

References:

Spence, G (1995) How to argue and win everytime. 1st Ed. St Martin's Griffin, NY.

Zarefsky, D. (2005) Argumentation: the study of effective reasoning. 2nd Ed. the Teaching Company. Chantilly, VA

Argumentation: Validity and Fallacy I & II

Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning

Commentary: This is a series on effective reasoning as it applies to project management. Using proper argumentation in a project while vetting risk, options, objectives, strategies, and workaround solutions can strengthen a project's performance, improve communications, and develop a sense of unity. Effective argumentations comes down to building the strongest case for a claim. In this series I will be summarizing points made by David Zarefsky in his Teaching Company coursework as well as drawing on other resources.   This series of posts may be reviewed at the Argumentation Series Posts link.

I have been compressing the several sessions in order to move through the content more quickly. This  post is two sessions on Validity and Fallacies. Informal argumentation is dramatically different than formal argumetnation. Informal is more about expediency than properly structuring an argument. In the interest of expediency, arguers often make errors that can defeat thier efforts. This post speaks to those errors.

Validity and Fallacy I

What Makes a Good Argument?

In conventional thinking, a good argument is founded upon validity. In formal reasoning validity is independent of the argument and a matter of structure. Informally, validity is a matter of patterns and experience that leads to good results while avoiding fallacies. In short, the valid argument does not goes astray.

Formal Logic

Validity is a concept that is derived from formal logic constructs as a matter of form. The content and truth of an argument are independent of the validity. A valid argument is then one in which the claim is directly supported by the evidence. The form for investigating validity is the syllogism which is a form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. An argument will also be invalid if it fails specific rules for the inference patterns. The inference patterns are:

1. Categorical syllogisms will be invalid if the middle terms are not distributed and the end terms are distributed more than once. No more than one premise may be negative.
2. Conditional syllogisms will be invalid if it affirms the consequent or denies the antecedent.
3. Disjunctive syllogisms will be invalid if the exclusive and no exclusive senses of or are confused.

Invalidity is also called fallacious indicating that something is wrong with the argument. More precisely, a fallacy is a deficiency in form and may not be immediately apparent.

Applying the concept of validity beyond formal logic is more of a challenge. The problem is that the inference between the claim and evidence is not certain. Informal reasoning attempts to conduct a content free check on the process by focusing on experience rather than form.

Informal Reasoning

Experience rather than form matters to informal reasoning based on standards for each pattern of inference that are present. These patterns follow:

1. Inferences from example. Valid arguments avoid key pitfalls such as hasty generalizations, unrepresentative samples, fallacy of compositions, and fallacy of division.
2. Inferences from analogy or reasoning from parallel cases. Valid arguments have more essential similarities than differences.
3. Inferences from sign. Valid argument meet specific conditions.
4. Inferences from cause. Valid arguments avoid several errors such as confusing sign with cause, failure to find a common cause, confusing the temporary with causality, and confusing cause with effect. Additionally, valid arguments will account for multiple causes and/or effects as well as will not ignore intervening and counteracting causes.
5. Inferences from commonplaces or any bit of knowledge that is commonly shared among a given audience or a community. Valid arguments using commonplaces show that the commonplace has greater application than competing commonplaces.
6. Inferences from form. Valid arguments differentiate between deductive form and probabilistic form.

Fallacies are also deficiencies in clarity and vacuity. Clarity faults result from inexactness in language. Whereas, vacuity is the outcome of missing proof or holes in the argument. Use of language concerns center equivocation, ambiguity, vagueness, heaps and slippery slopes, and amphiboles. Vacuity concerns are outcroppings from circular reasoning, begging the question, ignoring the question, non-sequitur, straw man, and self-sealing.

Validity and Fallacy II

Deficiencies in relevance that involve inferences from factors that have nothing to do with the relationship between the evidence and claims were looked at in the last session. In this session we will look at the context that casts an argument as valid or fallacious. Fallacies, in this case, are viewed as errors in procedure rather form.

When information, factors, or evidence is introduced that has nothing to do with the relationship between the claim and the evidence, this is a deficiency in relevance. For example, an ad hominem argument shifts the attack from the argument to a person in order to redirect the conversation. Appeals to authority may also be fallacies if they become a substitute for the argument, the authority is outside the area of expertise, or has no basis for the conclusion. Appeals to popularity or the bandwagon effect replace the argument with popular support. Appeals to ignorance assume that a claim must be true or false if opposite cannot be proven. Appeals to tradition can e used to block consideration of change. Appeals to inappropriate emotion prevent an argument through emotion disruption. Finally, threats coerce conclusions in avoidance of force.

Although the patterns discussed are described as fallacies, they can also be perfectly valid. For example, the appeal from ignorance can demonstrate this quality. They are fallacies if the decisions are made based on ignorance. However, they are circumstances when decisions are made without complete information. For instance, Colin Powell argued that since we had no information whether or not Iraq had destroyed it's weapons of mass destruction, the prudent assumption is that they still exist.

Another example is the ad hominem argument is always fallacious. There are several types of these arguments such as the bad character, circumstantial type, or the bias asserts. All make the claim that there is some defect with the person redirecting the argument to the person rather than the topic. Each of these could be appropriate for a given circumstance. If the claim depends on the sound judgement of the authority source, then questioning it is appropriate. Likewise, if the person making the claim is inconsistent then challenging the confidence in them should occur.

Another approach is to reconsider the fallacies function and not structure. Arguments occur in discourse to resolve a dispute. Violations in this argument, fallacies, seek to undermine efforts to resolve the disagreement. This is procedural rather than a formal violation. There are not rules that test for this condition. Instead, there are principles that may be used to identify these fallacies.

• Declaring a position as sacrosanct removes the necessity to defend it.
• Placing pressure on the opponent, may stifle any demands on a defensive response.
• Introducing irrelevant matters causes the discussion to loose focus.
• Falsely presenting a premise as self-evident makes it appear not open to challenge
• Exposing a prejudice of the opponent resists the discussion
• Obfuscation violates the concept to be clear.

In general, an argument is fallacious not because of structure but because it violates one of these principles. In the end, arguments are appraised by impartial analyst and arguers alike. The impartial analyst can assess the arguments in relation to the principles. Meanwhile, the Arguers can present their arguments with a greater likelihood of validity by exploiting the circumstances in favor of their position.

References:

Spence, G (1995) How to argue and win everytime. 1st Ed. St Martin's Griffin, NY.

Zarefsky, D. (2005) Argumentation: the study of effective reasoning. 2nd Ed. the Teaching Company. Chantilly, VA