Week 3 Mgt 513

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Week 3 Mgt 513

• Steve Walsh

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Out line Mgt. 513 Week 3 Randy Burge

• Porter chapter 5
• Linstone -Three eras of Technology Foresight
  (handout)
• Take home Quiz

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Chapter 5 Managing the Forecasting Project
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• Factors affecting forecasting project
• Forecasting perspective
• Extrapolative what the future may bring if
  trends remain as they are?
• Normative what actions, advances, or
  breakthroughs may be needed to shape the future?
• Information needs
• degree of specificity required
• Tolerance level of uncertainty allowed
• Benefits versus cost analysis
• Timing information has no value after the
  decision has been made
• Available financial and human resources

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Management Requirements of Forecasting Project

• Sound goals
• Objectives definition
• Constraints identification
• Careful scheduling and cost accounting
• Good communication and people skills
• People that deal good with uncertainty
• Individual with substantive knowledge in a
  variety of disciplines (science, engineering,
  economics, and social sciences)

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Information Requirements of Technology Forecasts
(Vanson 1985)

• Projections of technologies substitution rates
• important to determine the required resources for
  production and staffing
• Especially important for new technology producers
  to plan financial spending and develop strategies
  to speed substitution
• Expected growth or development rates of multiple
  existing technologies
• Evaluation of present value of technologies being
  developed by the company in different areas

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Technology Forecasts

• Identification and evaluation of new products and
  processes that may present opportunities and/or
  threats
• Analysis of new technologies that may change
  strategies and/or operations
• Probable responses of regulatory agencies and
  society to a new product, process, or operation

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Forecasting Project Scheduling

• Its important for many reasons
• Forecasts results must be available before the
  decision deadline to be of value
• Dynamics between forecasting project team members
  may be less time efficient than in most
  conventional projects
• Input frequently will be required from
  individuals and sources outside the company,
  which makes it difficult to exercise precise
  control
• Information demands are difficult to predict and
  iteration of the forecast usually will be required

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Forecasting Project Scheduling Tools

• Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
  it depicts the flow of the project and indicates
  the interdependence of tasks. The stages involved
  are
• List the tasks involved in the forecast
• Construct a chart to show the flow of
  tasks/actitivities
• Estimate the time required to complete each task
• Determine the longest path from project start to
  project finish, its called critical path. It
  determines the shortest time in which the project
  can be completed as planned

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Forecasting Project Scheduling Tools

• Gantt chart its a bar chart representation of
  information generated for the PERT. It adds
  direct visual representation of progress and
  timing
• Project Accountability Chart (PAC) it adds
  visual representation of task responsibility to
  scheduling aspects provided by PERT and Gantt
  charts

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Methods Used in Structuring Forecasting

• Common group learning the information product is
  generated by the group
• Stages
• The forecast is first bounded
• Tasks are divided among group members
• Preliminary analysis are generated by members and
  then critiqued and modified by the full group
• Each task is redone by different individual
• Disadvantage time consuming

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Methods in Forecasting

• Negotiation among experts
• Tasks are divided among members of the core group
  on the basis of expertise or unit responsibility
• Results are then integrated by negotiation
• Then tasks are redone to reflect the results of
  the negotiation
• Disadvantage it tends to preserve depth and
  expertise at the expense of full
  integration

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Methods in Forecasting

• Modeling consists of representing the reality
  into models, which provide focus and platform to
  the forecasts
• Disadvantage perspective can be narrowed as
  forecasters tend to undervalue factors
  that are difficult to quantify
• Integration by leader all tasks are assigned by
  the manager and he or she becomes the sole
  integrator of various components of the forecast
• Disadvantage the manager may not include
  details specific to different areas

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Communications Patterns within Forecasting
Project (Rossini and Porter 1981)

• All channel
• everyone communicates with everyone else
• Hub-and-spokes
• individuals communicate with the project manager
  but not with each other
• Any channel
• Individuals communicate with the manager and
  between each other. Its the most appropriate for
  the typical forecasting project

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Technological Description/Foresight

• Technology description is a subset of technology
  foresight
• Technology foresight involves predicting and
  preparing for the opportunities and challenges
  that new technologies offer
• Noted authors Dr. van Wyk Dr. Jonathan Litton

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Why Technology Description Process

• Does the lack of generalist knowledge on existing
  and emerging technologies matter?
• Only if technology is important to the future of
  your facility, organization, industry, or country
• Need to understand which advances are important
  to know where to invest and direct resources

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Why Technology Description Process

• Number of technological advances increasing and
  rate of advances increasing
• Advances all have different potential value
• If we are a community of specialists having deep
  knowledge in a few areas, how can we ensure that
  our specialized knowledge addresses the
  technologies that are important to the future

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It is sufficient that firms are interested

• Firms are gambling that the technical expertise
  and knowledge that they posses now and are
  currently developing will be useful in the
  future.
• If you are risk adverse, this is not a good
  strategy.
• The Process of Technological Description offer
  some thoughts on how to describe and value
  technologies.

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Difficulties of Technological Description Process

• It is possible to get someone to give a short
  generalist lecture on the economics, politics,
  culture, or infrastructure of a region
• It is difficult to find generalists who can
  discuss the state of technology in a country or
  industry

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Difficulties of Technological Description Process

• It is rarer still to find an individual who can
• give a brief description of technologies that
  are important to an industry
• describe whether these technologies are mature
• advise which technologies are likely to replace
  the mature technologies in the future

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Operationalizing Technology Description

• Technology description involves reducing a new
  technology to as few and as simple a set of words
  as possible
• The goal of technology description is to enable a
  competent individual to quickly grasp the form
  and value of a technology with which they are
  unfamiliar
• Is it as easy as it seems?

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Technology Description Process

• Involves series of standard set of questions
• Questions serve as a minimum guideline of what
  needs to be known to understand a technology
• By answering questions, become a competent
  non-specialist on the technology

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Technology Description Process

• Will then enable one to address the next level of
  questions
• What existing technology will it replace?
• What are the technologys competitive advantages
  over the existing technology?
• What barriers currently prevent the technology
  from being used?
• When are these barriers likely to be overcome?
• What are the physical limits of the technology?

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The Technology Description Framework

• (1) Function What does the entity do?
• (2) Performance How well does it do it?
• (3) Principle How does it do it?
• (4) Structure How is it configured?
• (5) Size How big is it?
• (6) Material What is it made of?

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Function What does the entity do?

• The function of any technology can be described
  by one of three verbs and one of three nouns
• The verbs are process, transport, and storage
• The nouns are matter, energy, and information

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Function What does the entity do?

• The function is based of the major intended
  output of the technology.
• For example, a conveyor belt, an airplane and a
  stage coach all transport matter.

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Performance How well does it do it?

• Describes how well a technology carries out its
  intended function.
• Some aspect of performance may threaten existing
  technological base in a company
• Capture important or unusual performance
  characteristics
• although may be just interesting, but of no
  practical use

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Performance How well does it do it?

• Four characteristics important in describing
  performance of technologies
• Efficiency
• Capacity
• Density
• Precision

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Performance How well does it do it?

• Efficiency
• Is the amount of output that is obtained from a
  specified quantity of input.
• Capacity
• The definition of capacity depends on type of
  activity one is referring to
• process - capacity refers to throughput
• transport - capacity refers to distance
  f(time)
• storage - capacity refers to amount stored per
  unit mass or volume

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Performance How well does it do it?

• Density
• Is a measure of output offered by the technology
  in relationship to the amount of space required
  by the technology
• Precision
• Is a measure of the clarity or exactness of the
  output

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Principle How does it do it?

• The principle of operation is a brief statement
  of what scientific principle(s) upon which the
  technology is based
• There are no guidelines for the format of such a
  statement

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Structure How is it configured?

• Structure is a description of the technology in
  terms of shape, size, and complexity
• Complexity has been suggested as the most
  important aspect of describing a technologys
  structure

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Structure How is it configured?

• Complexity can be described using the following
  terms
• material
• component
• product
• system

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Size How big is it?

• Size gives an indication of the physical
  dimensions of the technology
• Assists in forming mental picture of new
  technology
• Object sizes broadening
• electronics ? decreasing
• construction equipment ? increasing

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Material What is it made of?

• The general class of the material that the
  technology is made of is identified
• This is important since knowledge of the material
  implies certain properties and manufacturing
  techniques

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Material What is it made of?

• The recommended material classifications are
• metals
• polymers
• ceramics
• glasses
• composites

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Material What is it made of?

• In some cases, the technological advance maybe a
  material having a property that is not normally
  associated with it
• for example, plastics which conduct electricity
• In this case, the unusual property should be
  stated elsewhere, usually a part of performance
  characteristics

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Technical Description

• Additional notes about the technology can be
  included to complete the technical description.
  
• Notes should be kept brief and answer questions
  such as
• Why is this technology interesting?
• How is this technology a benefit or threat to us?

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Technical Description

• Notes continued
• What are the barriers preventing this technology
  from being used currently?
• When will this technology probably become
  competitive ? How many years
• Who are the proponents of the technology?
• What document or reference can be examined for
  further information?

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Potential Impact of New Technology

• List processes, capabilities, and investments of
  the organization
• capabilities are investments a firm has made into
  an ability
• processes are investments a firm has made in a
  physical asset
• Generally, investments involve some combination
  of all three

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Potential Impact of New Technology

• Each investment is considered
• Note is made of how the technology affects the
  firms current abilities and operations

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Potential Impact of New Technology

• The relationship can be
• Contingent One technology is intimately
  dependent on the other.
• Supplementary Changes in one technology affect
  the other in the same direction.
• Independent There is no link.
• Competitive One technology competes with the
  other and could replace it.

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Conclusion

• Technology description process helps to distill
  the essence of an emerging new technology into a
  few sentences that most people can understand
• Technology description is a powerful tool to
  allow one to simply express what a technology is
  about