Talking About Weather in Spanish

Talking About Weather in Spanish Everyone talks about the weather, so if you want to improve your ability to have casual conversations in Spanish, one way is to learn the language of weather. Talking about the weather is straightforward, although some sentence structures are used that arent used inEnglish. In English, it is very common to use it when discussing the weather, as in the sentence it is raining. In Spanish, it isnt necessary to translate the it, and you can talk in Spanish using any of the three methods below. Incidentally, the it in English weather sentences is called a dummy subject, meaning it doesnt have real meaning but it used only to make the sentence grammatically complete. As you use Spanish, you will become familiar with which methods is more common with particular types of weather. In many cases, any of the three methods can be used with little or no change in meaning. Using Weather-Specific Verbs The most direct way of talking about weather in Spanish is to uses one of the many weather verbs: Graniza en las montaà ±as. (Its snowing in the mountains.)Nevà ³ toda la noche. (It snowed all night.)Est lloviendo. (It is raining.)Diluvià ³ con duracià ³n de tres dà ­as. (It poured rain for three days.)Los esquiadores quieren que nieve. (The skiers want it to snow.) Most of weather-specific verbs are defective verbs, meaning that they dont exist in all conjugated forms. In this case, they exist only in the third-person singular. In other words, at least in standard Spanish, there is no verb form meaning something like I rain or I snow. Using Hacer With Weather The first thing you may notice if youre talking about or reading about the weather is that the verb hacer, which in other contexts usually is translated as to do or to make, is frequently used. In many cases, hacer can simply be followed by a weather condition. Hace sol. (Its sunny.)En la Luna no hace viento. (There is no wind on the moon.)Hace mucho calor en Las Vegas. (It is very hot in Las Vegas.)Estaba en medio del bosque y hacà ­a mucho frà ­o. (I was in the middle of the forest and it was very cold.)Hace mal tiempo. (The weather is awful.)Hace buen tiempo. (The weather is good.) Using Haber With Weather It is also possible to use the third-person singular form of haber, such as hay in the indicative present, also known as the existential haber, to talk about weather. These could be translated literally with sentences such as there is sun or there was rain, although youll usually to better to use something more idiomatic. No hay mucho sol. (it isnt very sunny.)Hay vendaval. (It is extremely windy.)Habà ­a truenos fuertes. (It was thundering loudly.)Temo que haya lluvia. (Im afraid it will rain.) Other Grammar Related to Weather When discussing how the weather feels, you can use tener, which usually is translated as to have but in this context is used to indicate how a person feels. Tengo frà ­o. (Im cold.)Tengo calor. (It feels hot.) You are best to avoid saying something like estoy caliente or estoy frà ­o for Im hot or Im cold. These sentences can have sexual overtones, just as can the English sentences Im hot or Im frigid. Most textbooks advise against using sentences such as es frà ­o to say its cold, and some say that such a usage of the verb ser is incorrect. However, such expressions are heard in informal speech in some areas. Weather Vocabulary Once you get beyond the basics, here is a vocabulary list that should cover most situations or help you understand the forecasts youll find in news and social media: altamente: highlyaviso: advisorycalor: hotcentà ­metro: centimeterchaparrà ³n: downpourchubasco: squall, downpourciclà ³n: cyclonedespejado: cloudlessdiluviar: to pour, to flooddisperso: scatteredeste: eastfresco: coolfrà ­o: coldgranizada: hailstormgranizo: hail, sleethumedad: humidityhuracn: hurricaneà ­ndice ultravioleta: ultraviolet indexkilà ³metro: kilometerleve: lightlluvia: rainluz solar, sol: sunshinemapa: mapmayormente: mostlymetro: metermilla: milemà ­nimo: minimumnevar: to snownieve: snownorte: northnublado: cloudynubosidad: cloud cover, cloudinessoccidente: westoeste: westoriente: eastparcialmente: partlypie: footponiente: westposibilidad: possibilityprecipitacià ³n: precipitationpresià ³n: air pressurepronà ³stico: forecastpulgada: inchrelmpago: lightningrocà ­o: dewsatà ©lite: satellitesur: southtemperatura: temperaturetiempo: weather, timetronar: to thundertrueno: thundervendaval: strong wind, windstormventisca: snowstormviento: windvientos helados: wind c hillvisibilidad: visibility Key Takeaways Spanish has three common ways of talking about weather: using verbs that refer to weather, using hacer followed by a weather term, and using the existential haber followed by a weather term.When translating to Spanish, the it in sentences such as it is raining is not translated directly.

Enterprise knowledge management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Enterprise knowledge management - Essay Example discussions on theories pertinent to the progress of a company or organization in the business realm (even lay persons think of business success in this way) is always equated to the continued accumulation of wealth or profit in terms of monetary returns or other similar concrete and measurable outputs. There is, indeed, nothing wrong with the old, traditional conception of business success. But what is made crystal-clear is the fact that such measure is not enough to gauge real capital of companies or organizations at play in our era – the era of knowledge. James Brian Quinn, Philip Anderson and Sydney Finkelstein in their article Managing Professional Intellect: Making the Most of the Best have explicitly stated that â€Å"intellectual assets, unlike physical increase in value and use. Properly stimulated knowledge and intellect grow exponentially when shared.†1 And this claim properly presents the notion that the call and demand of the time among and between companies and organizations is to continuously destroy all boundaries and hindrances of knowledge via sharing of knowledge from within and from without. But what does it entail? Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton in their article The Balance Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action have highlighted the stark reality that if companies in the contemporary period want to be competitive, aggressive and progressive they should learn to project not only within short term perspectives but that they should also be able to come up with a viable and workable long term plans. The idea of having long term plans and projections entail the presupposition of having human resources being thrust in the center as the main and focal point in business environment, in the connection and collaboration of organizational and structural systems moving towards the establishment of a harmonious and friendly yet very, very competitive ambiance in the business world. However, if one is going to be honest to one’s self one

Economic Role in Shaping Actions by the Government in 1930-1980 Essay

Economic Role in Shaping Actions by the Government in 1930-1980 - Essay Example The economic history of this period of 1930 to 1980 will be testimony to this fact. The depression set in 1930s created challenging tasks for the government to undertake in order to find solution of the problem concerning economy and finance. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 and he followed the principle propounded by Keynes, the British economist who believed that deficit spending during recessions and depressions could revive national economies. His theories became the basis of Roosevelt's New Deal approach. During first hundred days Congress and Roosevelt established many New Deal agencies, including CCC, FERA, CWA, AAA, TVA, and PWA to deal with the crisis.. In 1934 Congress created Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) The president; immediately set to work creating New Deal policies to end Great Depression.In1933 immediately after taking the oath of office, He set out to provide relief, recovery, and reform in his programs known as the New Deal. In 1933 Roosevelt declared a five-day national bank holiday to close banks temporarily with the hope that a short break would give the surviving banks time to reopen with strong new breathe.. Congress also passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act, which gave the president the power to regulate banking transactions and foreign exchange. Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act to protect savings deposits. The act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insured an individual's savings of up to $5,000. The act was aimed to regulate lending policies and did not allow banks for investing in the stock market.Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), with a view to hire unemployed young men to work on environmental conservation projects throughout the country. Young and unemployed young men worked for small wage of thirty dollars a month, on projects in flood control and reforestation projects, national parks, and built many public roads. A lmost 3 million people worked in CCC camps. The program exited for 9 years during the crisis period to solve the problem of unemployment.Congress also created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), to dole out roughly $500 million to the states. Half of this money was meant to bail out bankrupt state and local governments. The other half was distributed to people directly. FERA also created the Civil Works Administration (CWA) that helped generate temporary labor for others in need. The Social Security Act in 1935 was passed to help promote growth in employment. This law provided payments as "unemployment compensation" to workers who lost their jobs. The Act gave public aid to the aged, the needy, the handicapped, and to certain minors. These programs were financed by a 2 percent tax, one half of which was subtracted directly from an employee's paycheck and one half collected from employers on the employee's behalf. The tax was levied on the first $3,000 of the employee 's salary or wage. The government encouraged the creation of the Agricultural Adjustment

Internationalization

Internationalization 1. Preface This paper has been written for the course Societal Developments Institutions. The topic of this paper, knowledge sharing in virtual teams, is primarily focused on the Internationalization aspect of this course. But also aspects from other courses of the Master of Organizational Sciences (Msc OS), like Complexity within Organizations and Organizational Dynamics, are represented in this paper. Virtual teams and especially the knowledge sharing within such a team seemed very interesting to me. The broad link of this topic with the different courses of Msc OS was attractive to me, but also the growth in popularity of using this kind of the teams in nowadays business motivated me into doing this research. I hope this inquiry about knowledge sharing in virtual teams can facilitate virtual teams in knowing the challenges ahead, and help virtual team managers and -designers in benefit better from the advantages of virtual teams. Furthermore, after reading this paper I hope you, as reader, are (even more) inspired about the possibilities of working with virtual teams in ‘the collaboration economy. Key concepts: Internationalization, globalization, virtual teams, knowledge sharing. 2. Introduction In todays society people have adopted media technologies, such as e-mail, chat, and videoconferencing, that enable them to ‘go virtual and communicate with other individuals from all over the world. Currently, there are 1,733,993,741 internet users around the world (Internet world Stats, 2009). Because of those technological innovations it is possible to collaborate with other people regardless there geographical position. The last couple of years, next to those technological developments, two other mechanisms developed in a historical way globalization and demography. Tapscott and Williams argued in their book Wikinomics (2006): The three mechanisms: technology, globalization and demography are influencing the world towards a new economy, the collaboration economy. Emerging globalization demands and facilitates new forms of economic collaboration and provides all businesses who are seeking for unique talents to fix their problems with talented employees from over the whole world. And demographically there is also a shift. A new generation, bigger than the babyboom generation, the internet generation will dominate the 21ste century because of her demographical presence. This generation has grown up with internet and will utilize this technology in an efficient way and will change the status-quo in a radical way. Doing business and the way of collaborating in business will also change. Old monolithic multinationals which creates added value in a closed hieratically structure is quickly outdated. Successful businesses nowadays need open and porous bo rders and should compete using knowledge, resources and capacities outside the organization. Even heavy, capital intensive production industries will not be an exception. Also Ilinitch, DAveni Lewin (1996) addressed those changes; by opening their special issue on new organizational forms and hyper-competitive environments by nothing that, organizations are facing strong forces of change: globalization, demographic shifts, advances in technology, and the demassification of society. In response to those changes and shifts organizational forms are proliferating. One such new organizational form is found in virtual teams, sometimes called distributed teams (Saunders Ahuja, 2006). Virtual teams are, in summary, technology mediated groups of people in various places around the world that work together on common tasks (Hardin, Fuller, and Davidson, 2007). Currently those virtual teams are widely embraced by modern businesses. A motive of this popularity is that they can help organizations adapt better. They may provide firms with advantages such as increased utilization of employee-time, round-the-clock workforce availability, and the opportunity to leverage knowledge and expertise around the world (Paul, Seetharaman, Samarah Mykytyn, 2004). Virtual teams bring organizations also some other advantage: reduced travel expenses, Co2 emissions, and less working time wasted on traveling (Lu, Watson-Manheim, House, Matzkevich, 2005). This increasing use of virtual teams is also noted by the Wall Street Journal. It reports that more than half of companies with more than 5000 employees use virtual teams (de Lisser, 1999) Also, a survey by the Gartner group found that more than 60% of professional employees work in virtual teams (Kanawattanachai Yoo, 2002). The growth in popularity of virtual teams inquires a summary of how to manage such a team in an efficient an effective way. Questions about what are important factors in managing successful global virtual teams needed to be answered. In this inquiry I will address those success factors in case of knowledge sharing in global virtual teams by answering the question: â€Å"What are success factors of knowledge sharing in virtual teams, with team members across the whole globe?†. This enquiry is focused on knowledge sharing in virtual teams because those dispersed teams in particular need to share knowledge, experience and insights in order to function successfully (Rosen, Furst, Blackburn, 2007). The aim of this paper is to facilitate virtual team managers and -designers with a summary of virtual team success factors in knowledge sharing by which they can benefit better from the advantages of virtual teams. Firstly I will address the theoretical background of virtual teams. In this theoretical background I will explain the organizational need for virtual teams, give a definition of virtual teams, deal with the key feature of virtual teams; the absence of face-to-face contact and I will give an insight in the knowledge sharing mechanism. In the second part of this paper I will focus on answering the research question based on earlier researches and literature references. This will be followed by a brief conclusion and recommendations of those success factors in knowledge sharing to facilitate virtual team managers and -designers with a practical summary. 3. Literature References Allen, T., (1977). Managing the flow of technology. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. Armstrong,D.L., Cole, P. (1995). Managing distances and differences in geographically distributed work groups. In Jackson, S. Runderman, M. (Eds) Diversity in Work Teams: Research Paradigms for a Changing Workplace, p. 497-529. Bailey, D.E., Kurland, N.B., (2002). A review of telework research: findings, new directions an lessons for the study of modern work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol. 23, p. 383-400. Bell, B.S., Kozlowski, S.W.J., (2002). A typology of virtual teams: Implications for effective leadership. Group Organization Management, 27, p. 14-49. Boutellier, R., Gassmann, O., Macho, H., Roux, M., (1998). Management of dispersed product development teams: the role of information technologies. RD Management, 28(1), p. 13-25. Conrath, D., (1973). Communication environment and its relationship to organizational structure. Manage Science ,20, p. 586-603. Cummings, L.L., Bromiley, P., (1996). The organizational trust inventory (OTI): Development and validation. Trust in organizations: frontiers of theory and research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. de Lisser, E. (1999). Update on small business: Firms with virtual environments appeal to workers. Wall Street Journal, B2 Devine, D.J., clayton, L.D., Philips, J.L., Dunford, B.B., Melner,S.B. (1999). Team in organizations: Prevalence, charecteristics, and effectiveness. Small Group Research, 30, p. 678-711. Duarte, D.L. Snyder, N.T. (2006). Mastering Virtual Teams: Strategies, Tools and Techniques That Succeed. John Wiley and Sons, New York. Fiol, C.M., OConner, E.J. (2005). Identification in Face-to-Face, Hybrid, and Pure Virtual Teams: Untangling the Contradictions. Organizational Science, vol. 16, p. 19-32. Gibson C.B., Cohen, S.G. (2003). Virtual teams that work: Creating conditions for virtual team effectiveness. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Griffith, T.L., Neale, M.A. (2001). Information processing in traditional, hybrid, and virtual teams: from nascent knowledge to transactive memory. Research in organizational behaviour, vol. 23, p. 379-421. Griffith, T.L., Sawyer, J.E., Neale, M.A. (2003). Virtualness and knowledge in teams: managing the love triangle of organizations, individuals, and information technology. MIS Quarterly, vol. 27, p. 265-287. Gudykunst, W.B., (1997). Cultural variability in communication. Communication Research, 24, p. 327-348. Gullahorn, J., (1952). Distance and friendship as factors in the gross interaction matrix. Sociometry, 15, p. 123- 34. Hardin, A.M., Fuller, M.A., Davidson, R.M. (2007). I know I can, but can we?: Culture and efficacy beliefs in global virtual teams. Small Group Research, 38, 130-155. Hertel, G., Geiser, S., Konradt, U. (2005). Managing virtual teams: A review of current emperical research. Human Resource Management Review, 15, 69-95. Hertel, G., Konradt, U., Lehman, K., (2004). Staffing virtual teams: Development and validation of a web-based tool for selection and placement of virtual team members. Manuscript in preparation. Hollingshead, A.B., (1998). Retrieval processes in transactive memory systems. Journal of personality and social psychology, 74, p. 659-671. Ilinitch, A.Y., DAveni, R.A., Lewin A.y. (1996). New Organizational Forms and Strategies for managing in Hypercompetitive Environments. Organization Science, vol.7, p. 211-220. Internet World Stats (2009). Top 20 countries with highest number of internet users. Retrieved November 25th, 2009 from: http://www.internetworldstats.com/ Jarvenpaa, S., Leidner, D., (1999). Communication and trust in global virtual teams. Organization Science, 10, p. 791-15. Jehn, K.A., (1995). A multimethode examination of the benefits and determents of intragroup conflict. Administrative science quarterly, 40, p. 256-282. Kristof, A.L., Brown, K.G., Sims, H.P.Jr., Smith, K.A. (1995). The virtual team: A case study and inductive model. Advances in interdisciplinary studies of work teams, 2, 229-253. Lu, M., Watson-Manheim, M.,B., House, C.H., Matzkevich, T. (2005). Does distance matter? Bridging the discontinuities in distributed organizations. HICSS 2005. Levitt, B., March, J., (1988). Organizational Learning. Annual review of sociology, 14, p. 319-340 Kanawattanachai P., Yoo, Y. (2002). Dynamic nature of trust in virtual teams. Journal of strategic Infromation Systems, 11, 187-213. Kaywoth, T., Leidner, D., (2000). The global virtual manager: a prescription for success. European management journal, 18, p. 183-194. Kiesler, S., Sproull, L. (1992). Group decision making and communication technology. Organizational Behavior Human Decision Processes, 52, 96-123. Konradt, U., Schmook, R., Mà ¤lecke, M., (2000). Impacts of telework on individuals, organizations and families: a critical review. In C.L. Cooper and I.T. Robertson (Ed), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, vol. 15, p. 63-99, Wiley, Chichester. Kozlowski, S.W.J., Ilgen, D.R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work group and teams. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77-124 Lipnack, J., Stamps, J., (1997). Virtual teams. Reaching across space, time and organizations with technology. John Wiley and Sons, New York. Majchrzak, a., Rice, R., King, n., Malhotra, A., Ba, S., (2000). Computer-mediated inter-organizational knowledge-sharing: insights from a virtual team innovating using a collaborative tool. Information Resource Management Journal, 13, p. 44-53. Martins, L.L., Gilson, L.L. Maynard M.T., (2004). Virtual Teams: What do we know and where do we go from here? Journal of Management, vol. 30, p. 805-835. Maznevski, M., Chudoba, K., (2001). Bridging space over time: global virtual team dynamics and effectiveness. Organizational Science, 13, p. 473-492. McDonough E., Kahn, K., Barczak, G. (2001). An investigation of the use of global virtual, and collocated new product development teams. The journal of product innovation management, 18, p. 110-120. Monge, P., Kirste, K., (1980). Measuring proximity in human organization. Social psychology quarterly, 43, p. 110- 5. Meyerson, D., Weick, K.E., Kramer, R.M., (1996). Swift trust and temporary groups. Trust in organizations: frontiers of theory and research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, p. 166-195. Owens, D., Mannix, E.A., Neale, M.A., (1998). Strategic formation of groups: Issues in task performance and team member selection. Research on managing groups and teams: composition, 1, p. 1419-165. Powell, A., Piccoli, G., Ives, B., (2004). Virtual teams: a review of current literature and directions for future research. The data base for advances in information systems, 35, p.6-36. Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A., (2007). Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NY: Prentice Hall. Rosen, B., Furst, S., Blackburn, R., (2007). Overcoming barriers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams. Organizational Dynamics, 36, p. 259-273. Sanders, C.S., Ahuja, M.K., (2006). Are all distributed teams the same? Differentiating Between Temporary And Ongoing Distributed Teams. Small Group Research, vol. 37, p.662-700. Sarker, S., Lau, F., and Sahay, S., (2001). Using an adapted grounded theory approach for inductive theory building about virtual team development. Database for advances in information systems, 32, 38-56. Scott, W.R. (1981). Organizations: Rational, natural and open systems, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Sproull, L., Kiesler, S., (1986). Reducing social context cues: electronic mail in organizational communication. Manage Science, 32, p.1492- 512. Stasser, G., Titus, W., (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 48, p. 1467-1478. Suchan, J., Hayzak, G., (2001). The communication characteristics of virtual teams: a case study. IEEE transactions on professional communication, 44, p. 174-186. Townsend, A.M., DeMarie, S.M. Hendrickson, A.R. (1998). Virtual teams: Technology and the workplace of the future. Academy of Management Executive, vol. 12, p. 17-29 Tapscott, D. Williams, A.D. (2006). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Penguin Group, New York. Thompson, L.L. (2004). Making the team: A Guide for managers. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Warkentin, M.E., Beranek, P.M., (1999). Training to improve virtual team communication. Information system journal, vol. 9. Wegner, D.M., (1987). Transactive Memory: A contemporary analysis of the group mind. Theories of group behavior, New York: Springer-Verlag.

McDonalds Essay -- essays research papers

McDonald's is the world's leading food service retailer with more than 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries serving 47 million customers each day. It is one of the worlds most well-known brands and holds a leading share in the globally branded quick service restaurant segment of the informal eating-out market in every country they do business. McDonald’s marketing strategy is having friendly people serving the right product with affordable prices. McDonalds’s showcase their restaurants as clean, comfortable and welcoming, and create promotions that resonate with key consumer groups. They want to stay in tune with customer’s lifestyle. Suzanne Drolet is manager of a McDonald’s restaurant in a city with many seniors. To attract seniors to McDonalds’s Suzanne has a $1.99 breakfast special every fourth Monday. This was a resounding success. Between 100-150 seniors were attracted initially by that monthly breakfast special for people aged 55 and older. Now that many seniors come for breakfast daily and surely revenue has increased. Most are gone before the lunch crowds at 11:30, however, some stay until at 3 p.m. McDonald’s strengths are an established fast food restaurant with a friendly caring staff. Suzanne’s employees embrace that philosophy by being friendly and caring to the seniors. Another plus is the seniors are friendly and neat and someone that isn’t a regular would perceive the place as a friendly place. Further they are neater than most customers and clean up their...

Prioritizing Projects at Dd Williamson

Introduction Case Analysis D. D. Williamson created a list of 78 projects which needed to be prioritized, organized, and selected. The company used a four step method to rate each project: 1) Establish criteria for prioritizing projects. 2) Weigh each criterion. 3) Refine the list of projects. 4) Rate each project on each criterion and total ratings. To give team members control over the ranking of projects, each member was asked to write three different criteria on three Post-it Notes. These Post-it Notes were divided into similar item groups and each group was named. This process established the important criteria for selection. The criteria were used to determine how well each project would fit into the strategy of the company (Kloppenborg, 2009, p. 35). To weigh each criteria group, the team members assigned each group a score. More important groups were given a score of 10, less important groups a score of 6 to 9, the least important groups a score of 5 or less. Criteria that were scored at 6 or higher were used to assess each project and criteria of 5 or lower were reserved for further ranking later in the process. Criteria are weighted in order to help place the projects in order of importance as they are aligned with the goals of the company (Kloppenborg, 2009, p. 36). After the criteria were established and weighted, the list of projects was refined. Projects that were listed out as individual projects but were really one project happening concurrently in different locations were discovered and the list was changed to reflect this, reducing the number of projects on the list. There were also projects added to the list that had not been formally identified as projects earlier. The criteria helped to determine which projects could initially be considered projects and which projects could be removed from the list. The projects on the list were reviewed to discover which were considered most important and rank the rest. The projects considered most important were immediately placed on the top of the importance list, and the rest went through the scoring process to be ranked in order from most to least important. The projects were than rated according to the criteria that had been established earlier. Each project was rated to see how well it fit into each individual criterion, one at a time. All team members participated in the scoring, and agreement needed to be reached on how to score each project before scores were recorded. If project scoring required a lengthy decision, that was set aside for a different time so that team members could get through this process fairly quickly (Kloppenborg, 2009, p. 36-37). This entire process was recorded into a spreadsheet. How the projects were ranked, how each project was scored on each criterion and the calculation of the weighted scores were all recorded on the spreadsheet. The team had prioritized 62 projects total throughout this process. Since the projects had already been ranked in order of importance, it would be easy for the team to hold a future meeting to assign resources and timelines to the projects at the top of the list (Kloppenborg, 2009. P. 44-45). The prioritization of the projects was a very important task for D. D. Williamson’s global operating team to complete. Although the task seems time consuming, it will save the team time in the long run because projects are rated in importance long before they are scheduled to begin. The weighting process allowed the team to discover where each project would fit into the SWOT analysis, and how each project would further the strategic objectives or otherwise benefit the company. The company uses a database to identify their potential projects. The database is used to keep track of daily work and project work. This tracking helps to highlight things that need to be improved during daily processes. The very large list of 62 potential projects gives the company a wide range of choices in selecting which projects to complete. This helps to ensure that the most important issues that need to be worked on will be addressed in the timeliest fashion (Kloppenborg, 2009, p. 32-33). D. D. Williamson chooses to use a scoring model in project selection. This seems to be the most efficient way for the company to prioritize and select projects. Major problems arising with this process would be the potential for lengthy discussions revolving around project selection and prioritization. The rating process helps to eliminate much of the discussion, but there may be some sticking points where additional criteria will have to be used to decide on issues. Recommended Actions In addition to the continuing use of the database and prioritization and selection process, it is recommended that D. D. Williamson use the lower weighted criteria to help make decisions when a stalemate has been reached when discussing potential projects. The additional criteria can help team members to quickly address concerns about potential projects. If the potential projects are ranked well in the highly weighted criteria, the lower weighted criteria can be used to further break down the project and determine if it is a good fit. The last recommendation is creating mandatory criteria. In addition to moving the most highly scored projects to the top of the list, mandatory criteria can ensure that necessary projects are not overlooked. These mandatory criteria can include issues like government regulation, safety issues, and security issues (Kloppenborg, 2009, p. 36). The mandatory criteria will fast-track projects that must be completed. Conclusion D. D. Williamson has a great project selection process in place. While many other companies use personal preference or whims to make project decisions, D. D. Williamson carefully considers which projects fit best into the company’s strategies and which will best help further the interests of the company. With a few minor additions to the process, D. D. Williamson can continue to make great project selections and maintain a competitive advantage in their market. References Kloppenborg, T. J. (2009). Contemporary project management (pp. 27-45). Mason: South- Western Cengage Learning.

Definition and Examples of the Master Tropes