Causes of Software Project Failure

Causes of Software Project Failure All successful software projects start with the premise that the end result will be successful. The owner of the project initial goal is to deliver on time and on budget. Although these are the primary focus when the project begins, yet is it not more important that the project deliver tangible business and consumer results? A project manager must take both the customer and the project into consideration when performing a software project. Time, thought and much consideration (focus) must be the aim of the project from beginning until completion of the software project. These are primary keys to a projects success. There are many keys that ensure the success of a project many will become familiar to the reader throughout the reading of this paper. Business drivers such as problems or opportunities that maybe encountered in the beginning and throughout the completion of the project are criteria used to measure the benefits of the project. These drivers should be the primary focus when scoping the project and setting the goals of the project. All projects begin with goals in the order of priority directly related to and supported by the business goals. Target goals are put into place to ensure the project meets the specified time and does not deviate more than those allowable in project plan. The customer and the project planner must be in complete agreement on the goal and anticipation of the project before the project begins. An understanding of what the customer expects the success of the project to look like and what measurements will be considered to determine the desired outcome of the project to the customers satisfactions are critical points when the project is started. These issues should be easily understood by all concerned. A successful project must first be defined. Question, how do we define the success of a software project? We could begin by looking at meeting desired cost, schedule, and scope objectives. Was the projects completion date met? Was it within budget guidelines and did it meet the desired specifications? Software project success has often been defined in ways that are measured the day the project was finished. This is not always the case. Some projects exceed the specified date originally set forth at the forefront of the project. This does not mean that the project was a failure because of the time constraints. Many projects require more testing than was originally set forth at the start of the project or more funds that are necessary to ensure the project is a success. One example is the Sydney Opera House (Duncan, W.R.), that cost sixteen times as much to build and took four times as long to complete as the original estimates. Although thought to be a project management disaster ending up producing an enduring and inspiring civic symbol. Would this constitute as a project failure? Project success depends on a combination of product success and project management success. Many project owners define the success of the project by the time of completion. If the project was completed in the specified time it was a success. Ask yourself this question; if the project was completed early or a day or two late with all specifications met did you have a success software project? Or if it was completed on time with continual adjustments after completion, is this a successful project? A project must follow a completion milestone that should allow for each step of the project to fall within specification. All software project should include modification allowances that provide for added research should the project require it. Literature Review Software failure can be defined as the occurrence of either deficient functionality, where the program fails to perform a required function, or deficient performance, where the program performs a required function too slow or in an insufficient manner. (Rutgers Computer Technology Law Journal. Perlman, Daniel T., 1998) We live in a society that depends extensively on computers to accomplish our everyday needs; everything from monitoring patients in hospitals to monitoring our national defense depends primarily on computer software not failing. Bearing in mind their fundamental need for computers to function properly, software project failure rates are among the highest across all industries, however the number of statistical reports analyzing those Failure are lesser then one would expect. This literature review provides an overview of general literature available on this subject, the main of objectives of the evaluation are to establish why software projects fail and the main reasons a project may fail along with what lessons can be learned   to improve software developments in order for them to success in the future. The subject of Software Project Failures is full of books, and papers that  stress Why Software Projects Fail, most of them share numerous characteristics ranging from failure due to incomplete requirements to failure due to an incompetent project manager.   Among the studies examining these failures is the 2009 Standish Group CHAOS Report. The report is a collection of data on project failures in the software industry. Its main goal is to make the industry effective and productive and to illustrate ways to improve its success rates and increase the value of the software investments. Their most recent results were published in April, 2009. The introductory statement in CHAOS Report reads: The Roman bridges of antiquity were very inefficient structures. By modern standards, they used too much stone, and as a result, far too much labor to build. Over the years we have learned to build bridges more efficiently, using few materials and less labor to perform the same task. Tom Clancy (The Sum of All Fears) (The Standish Group, 2009) With use of this quote the CHAOS Report suggests that software developers should adopt bridge builders approach of learning from past mistakes. The report explains that the difference between software failures and bridge failures is that when a bridge fails it is investigated and a report is written on the cause of the failure whereas when a software fails the failures are covered up, ignored, and/or rationalized. As a result, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. (The Standish Group, 2009) The Standish Group investigated the failure and success rates along with the reasons for success and failure. Their study surveyed four focus groups with IT executives of major companies. The attendees represented a wide variety of industries, including insurance, state and federal government, retail, banking, securities, manufacturing and service. Three distinct outcomes, called Resolutions, were what the subsequent report divides projects into. Project Resolution Types 1 (Success), 2 (Challenged), and 3 (Impaired). Resolution Type 1 was when a project was a success; it was completed on time and on budget, with all the functionalities and features intact.   The projects that fell in this category only amounted to 16.2%.  Resolution Type 2 was when a project was completed, however it was over budget or over time, and missing some or all of the functionalities and features that were originally requested.   52.7% of all studied projects fell into the Resolution Type 2 category. R esolution Type 3 were projects that were abandoned at some point during the development cycle, consequently becoming total losses.   A staggering 31.1% of all the projects studied fell into this category.   The Standish Group further divided these results by large, medium and small establishments. A large establishment was one with greater than $500 million dollars in revenue per year, a medium was defined as having $200 million to $500 million in yearly revenue, and a small was from $100 million to $200 million. However the statistics for failure were equally discouraging in companies of all sizes. The most important aspect of the research is discovering why projects fail. The report isolated that the top five factors found in successful projects were: user involvement, executive management support, clear statement of requirements, proper planning, and realistic expectations. These indicators were extracted from surveyed IT executive managers of their opinions about why projects succeed. Project Success Factors % of Responses 1. User Involvement 15.90% 2. Executive Management Support 13.90% 3. Clear Statement of Requirements 13.00% 4. Proper Planning 9.60% 5. Realistic Expectations 8.20% 6. Smaller Project Milestones 7.70% 7. Competent Staff 7.20% 8. Ownership 5.30% 9. Clear Vision Objectives 2.90% 10. Hard-Working, Focused Staff 2.40% Other 13.90% The top factors found in Challenged projects were: lack of user input, incomplete requirements and specifications, changing requirements and specifications, lack of executive support, and technical incompetence. The list of top indicators factors found in Failed projects were: incomplete requirements, lack of user involvement, lack of resources, unrealistic expectations, lace of executive support, changing requirements and specifications, lack of planning, didnt need it any longer, lack of IT management, and technical illiteracy. Project Challenged Factors % of Responses 1. Lack of User Input 12.80% 2. Incomplete Requirements Specifications 12.30% 3. Changing Requirements Specifications 11.80% 4. Lack of Executive Support 7.50% 5. Technology Incompetence 7.00% 6. Lack of Resources 6.40% 7. Unrealistic Expectations 5.90% 8. Unclear Objectives 5.30% 9. Unrealistic Time Frames 4.30% 10. New Technology 3.70% Other 23.00% The Standish group report conclude that projects succeed because of: executive support, user involvement, experience project manager, clear business objectives, minimized scope, standard software infrastructure, firm basic requirements, formal methodology, and reliable estimates. The main causes of IT project failure were: lack of clear link between the project and the organizations key strategic priorities, including agreed measures of success; lack of clear senior management and Official ownership and leadership; lack of sufficient data; lack of effective engagement with stakeholders; lack of skills and proven approach to project management and risk management; along with lack of effective project team integration between clients, the supplier team and the supply chain. Causes of failure could also be the result of the problem not being properly defined: they may have developed the right solution to the wrong problem. This is best addressed by trying to understand the reason for do ing the job. The CHAOS Report does have its own shortcomings. Its measures of success are relatively narrow; it only measures success by examining whether a project was completed on time and on budget. The Standish group does not include measures of quality, risk, and customer satisfaction. Nevertheless, the CHAOS Report endures as an important measure for the software despite limited standards of measurement and limiting sources to interviews with executives. There are several other studies on statistics over IT project failure rates which mainly concur with the overall picture of the IT industry that the CHAOS Report provides. In 1997, a study conducted by KPMG Canada, reviewed 176 projects. Their findings determined that over 60% of projects failed to meet their sponsors expectations. A staggering 75% missed their deadline by 30% or more, and over half substantially exceeded their budgets. The main causes for project failure that were identified were: poor project planning, specifically, inadequate risk management and a weak project plan; weak business case; and lack of top management involvement and support. In September 2000, the Gartner Group surveyed 1375 respondents through interviews. (Gardner, 2010) The study indicated that roughly 40 percent of all IT projects fail to meet business requirements. In a more recent survey, the Aberdeen Group claimed 90 percent of projects came in late, while 30 percent were simply cancelled before the deadline. (Booth, R., 2000) According to Tom Carlos in his article Reasons Why Projects Fail gather major reasons   ranging from simple to complex project, The most common reasons for failure   found in the list include :      Poorly managed    Inadequate or vague requirements    Undefined objectives and goals    Lack of management commitment    Poorly defined roles and responsibilities    Stakeholder conflict    Team weaknesses    Lack of user input    Scope creep No change control process Meeting end user expectations    Poor communication    Lack of a solid project plan    Lack of organisational support    Centralised proactive management    initiatives to combat project risk    Enterprise management of budget resources    Provides universal templates and documentation    Unrealistic timeframes and tasks    Competing priorities    Poor communication    Insufficient resources (funding and personnel) Business politics    Overruns of schedule and cost    Estimates for cost and schedule are erroneous    Lack of prioritisation and project portfolio management    Scope creep No change control process Meeting end user expectations    Ignoring project warning signs    Inadequate testing processes    Bad decisions The first 10 failure in the list focus strictly on software requirements where in the requirements are defined user input, stakeholders, communication. Data and Hypotheses When we look at the success or failure of a software project we must also analyze other areas that can have an impact on the project. A review of the Business Analysis Benchmark gives the project owner and the customer a clear understanding of the organizations maturity in requirements definition and with management expectation of the project outcome. (IAG Consulting. Ellis, E., 2009) Findings in this analysis showed that requirements maturity has a strong positive correlation to every major measure of development efficiency assessed. It can be a strong motivator in the success of the project. Based upon time performance, budget performance, function performance, each can be a fundamental point in project success when there is an increase in these areas. The project owner must have a clear vision/goal to prepare for success. Failure can become apparent in many ways, i.e. changing the vision in the middle of the project, disputes on the primary focus, expectations that are beyond proj ect scope, unreliable or not enough resources to maintain project direction and possibly the most valuable to the success of the project is good leadership. An article titled, If Software Quality is so Important, Why is it So Often Neglected? (Sassenburg, H., 2006), a great title for this literature review research. This article further explores the Standish Groups CHAOS Report with a great quote, Software Crisis has not yet reached the turning point. It gives the reader a good statistical percentage, Only 28% of software projects succeed these days, down from 34% a year or two ago. Outright failures [projects cancelled before completion] are up from 15% to 18%. The remaining 51% of software projects are seriously late, over budget and lacking features previously expected. As the study reviews this article a discovery is made based upon the research that includes how the cost is distributed. The designer allows certain percentages for each area of the project phase. In the analyze s egment of the project it is projected that 10% will be utilized. Design phase will encompass about 15% while the realization and testing will average the remaining percentage. Many projects exceed the budgeted percentage and allotted funds will be taken from one phase and move over to the phase in need. This can at times cause the project to slow in progress or be placed in a temporary state or even placed on hold. The end or mid-result can be the determinant of a number of factors that are evaluated to determine how to complete a software project. The CHAOS Report gives unique information regarding how much is spent on IT application development, $250 billion each year on IT application development which equates to approximately 175,000 projects. A large company can spend anywhere from $2,322,000 to develop a project. Medium companies can spend $1,331,000 and a small company can even spend $434,000 to develop a software project. It has also been determined that many of these projec ts regardless the cost will fail. Hence CHAOS, therefore no longer can one speak the three monkeys, hear no failure, see no failure, speak no failure. In the article, Project Management Practices: The Criteria for Success or Failure, (OW, S. H., Harzadeh, I.) list the top four factors that contribute to a projects success are, user involvement, executive management support, clear statement of requirements and proper planning. This article also explores how a project fails; the main reason for failure is listed as, the inabilities of project owners to plan and estimate correctly, or fail to implement the tasks according to plan or simply failure causes by human factor. The Standish Group has estimated that American companies spend at least $81 billion for cancelled software projects. Also, that another $59 million to complete a project that has exceeded budgeted plans. It has been estimated that only 16.2% of software projects were completed on time and on budget. Only 9% of this estimation is for larger companies that have a successful project finished on time and on budget. On occasion these are simply a fraction of the original requirements. Scary? On another scale, Smaller companies do much better. A total of 78.4% of their software projects will get deployed with at least 74.2% of their original features and functions. The study determined that the most projects, 37.1% were impaired and subsequently cancelled in medium companies, compared to 29.5% in large companies and 21.6% in small companies. Many software project failures are due to cost and time overruns which result in the restart of the project. These causes the project to go over budget and exceed time requirements set forth in the original software project plan. With the three major elements for a project in place, (user involvement, executive management support, and a clear statement of requirements), there is a much greater chance that the project will be a success. Without these three elements the chance for failure increases. In the project management scorecard there are several surveys in which to score whether the project is a success or a failure. A survey list reasons most people give, regardless the type of business for failed or poorly managed Projects. This score card also list the cost of a failed project when poorly managed. A n article in the datacenter journal, facing IT Project Failures, explains that the failure of an IT project as others discoveries disclose, can simply mean that the project has gone over budget by a certain percentage, that completion of the project was delayed beyond a certain point or that the business failed to reap a certain return on investment from its project. The CHAOS report indicates that project success rates have increased to 34 percent of all projects. This percent is 100% more from the success rate found in the first study in 1994. A decline in project failure to 15% of all projects is a great improvement over the 31% failure rate reported in 1994. In this current survey a total of 51% of all projects were over the specified time required, over budget or lacking features and requirements.

Discrimination and Liberty Essay -- Definition Essays Race Prejudice P

Discrimination and Liberty How much should we care if people discriminate? In answering this question, maybe it's a good idea to say what we mean by discrimination. The most internally consistent definition is that discrimination is the act of choice. Thus, discrimination is a necessary fact of life - people do and must choose. When one selects a university to attend, he must non-select other universities - in a word, he must discriminate. When a mate is chosen, there is discrimination against other possible contenders. In the first instance, we call it university discrimination and in the second case mate discrimination. Thus, when the term discrimination is modified by words such as race, sex, or university and mate, one merely states the criterion upon which choice is being made. Is there a moral distinction to be made when one makes a selection based on arbitrary distinctions when he chooses a university as opposed to making similar arbitrary distinctions when selecting a mate, employee or any other object of desire? In mate selection, people routinely discriminate by race. How does that act morally differ from choosing employees by race? We know that social sanction is granted when race is used in selecting a mate but not granted in the case of selecting employees. Some people might offer that when people select mates by race there is no private or social harm done whereas in the case of race discrimination in employment there is private and social harm done. On further thought, it can be easily shown that such a proposition clearly does not hold. At the private level, when a black male indulges his racial preferences by marrying a black female, that act reduces the opportunity set of white females that might ha... ...ence. Other ways are through taxes on profits, economic regulation and occupational licensure. In general, preference indulgence is subsidized whenever government dictates the terms and conditions of exchange. While many of us, including me, find some aspects of racial discrimination morally repulsive, we must at the same time recognize that freedom of association should be our overreaching value. Valuing freedom of association does not mean that we are helpless in registering revulsion to various forms of discrimination. There are private social sanctions that can be exercised similar to those exercised when people behave impolitely, use vulgar language, or disrespect elders. But the largest contribution to racial harmony is for us to keep government limited to its legitimate or moral functions; namely, preventing force, fraud, theft and initiation of violence.

Essay on Sin in Sophocles Oedipus the King and Ibsens Ghosts

The Impact of Sin in Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Ibsen's Ghosts      Ã‚  Ã‚   Sophocles' play Oedipus the King was written for a Greek audience as a religious right and lesson around two thousand years ago, while Ibsen's play Ghosts was written as a criticism of the Norwegian society during the 1890's. Although these plays were written for very different reasons and under different circumstances, the universal theme connecting them is mankind's liability to sin because the results affect a greater whole. One of the more specific themes of these plays is the negative effect that parents' sins have upon the generations to follow.    In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is born the son of Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes. However, when they hear Apollo's prophecy (that Oedipus will kill his father and sleep with his mother) they decide to destroy Oedipus. Apollo's prophecy made Oedipus an unwanted child. In this case, the parents' transgression of the law was that they attempted to defy the gods by evading Apollo's prophecy. Later Jocasta states that "no skill in the world, nothing human, can penetrate the future" (Sophocles 201). Oedipus, as a later response to her statement says, "...all those prophecies I feared - Polybus packs them off to sleep with him in hell! They're nothing, worthless" (Sophocles 214). In this way, Oedipus and Jocasta quit believing in the prophecies altogether. In Ghosts, Regine is the result of an affair that Captain Alving had with the housemaid, Johanna. Since Regine is a child born out of wedlock, she is unwanted by Captain Alving because she is the result of his sin, and if a nyone were to discover her true origins it could destroy the respect that society has for him. She is also unwant... ...ther sins and results that happened after that would never have occurred. In short, do not let your pride blind you to the knowledge of those who are wiser than you. In Ghosts, Ibsen's message is that the Norwegian society was hypocritical and unmoral. This is shown through Oswald's suffering because he is simply a victim who is paying for what a hypocritical society permits - men's immorality. The overall idea behind this play is that hypocrites should not criticize others; as Manders criticizes Oswald the companions that he chose during his stay in Paris. However, they are both combined by the intricate link of sin and its effects on the whole.    Works Cited Ibsen, Henrik. Four Major Plays. Trans. James McFarlane and Jens Arup. New York: Oxford UP, 1998 Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Classics, 1984

The Effects of Incarceration

The Effects of Incarceration Dionne Lee Nov. 19, 2012 Social Problems Incarceration can be devastating on everybody’s lives. Not only it affects the person that is actually in jail, but it affects his or her loved ones. First, it puts a strain on the family finances once a family member is incarcerated. Second, it causes problems in relationships, whether it is girlfriend or wife. Third, it causes emotional strain, especially if he or she has a long time to serve.According to Macionis, the incarceration rate in 2008 for the United States was 762 people for every 100,000 in the population and among all the nations of the world, this country has the highest share of its people in prison. Having a loved one incarcerated can be very strenuous on the family’s finances. Learning from personal experience, it can almost put one in bankruptcy. The cost of phone calls is very expensive. It can almost get up into the hundreds of dollars per month. The person that’s incarcer ated never considers the financial stain that it has on the family.The only thing that is considered is being in contact with his or her family, no matter what the cost maybe. The family is also expected to travel great distances in some cases, which can also become a problem. According to Families Left Behind article, the average distance for an incarcerated family member is 100 miles for men and 160 miles for women. With the cost of gas steadily rising, it would be almost impossible to constantly make regular visits. The single parent is also left to pay all the family bills that were once being paid by both parties.Having an incarcerated loved one also causes problems with his or her relationship. Trust issues begin to develop and this puts a strain on both parties involved. If one is married, this could possibly lead to divorce because eventually the stress will be so great that the one involved will no longer want to go through with this particular life and would want to move o n without the stress of having an incarcerated partner. Married men in prison reach the national 50% divorce rate much more quickly than do men in the general population.It is difficult to carry out intimate relationships from prison due to limited contact and communication. Lastly, emotions begin to come into play. If the loved one has been incarcerated for a long period of time, the emotional part of their relationship wears down. The â€Å"prison mask† is a common syndrome that develops; the mask is the emotional flatness men take on when they suppress emotions and withdraw from healthy social interactions. To survive in an often brutal environment, prisoners may develop hyper-masculinity, which glorifies force and domination in relations with others.Finally, many prisoners are plagued by feelings of low self-worth and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (Haney, 2001). All of these psychological changes, which may be necessary for survival in the prison environment, can impede intimate relationships. In conclusion, incarceration can be tough on anyone who’s involved. It puts a strain on finances, relationships, and emotions. It’s a very tough road to go through and some make it through it and others don’t. The one who really takes a hard hit from all this are the children that’s involved.They have to learn to deal with the fact that they have a parent that’s incarcerated. The parent that’s left behind has to deal with all of the emotional ups and downs of the children and the financial burdens of the household. He or she has to play both parenting roles, which causes a lot of emotional wear and tear on their psychological being. Therefore, this causes resentment towards the absent parent and once this happens the family that once was, no longer exists. Reference Page Bibliography (n. d. ). The Effects Of Incarceration on Intimate Relationships. Macionis, J. J. (2010).Social Problems. (October 2003). Fam ilies Left Behind: The Hidden Coat Of Incarceration and Reentry. ——————————————– [ 1 ]. , the incarceration rate in 2008 for the United States was 762 people for every 100,000 in the population and among all the nations of the world, this country has the highest share of its people in prison [ 2 ]. . Married men in prison reach the national 50% divorce rate much more quickly than do men in the general population. It is difficult to carry out intimate relationships from prison due to limited contact and communication. 3 ]. . The â€Å"prison mask† is a common syndrome that develops; the mask is the emotional flatness men take on when they suppress emotions and withdraw from healthy social interactions. To survive in an often brutal environment, prisoners may develop hyper-masculinity, which glorifies force and domination in relations with others. Finally, many prisoners are plagued by feelings of low self-worth and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (Haney, 2001). All of these psychological changes, which may be necessary for survival in the prison environment, can impede intimate relationships.

Hurricane Igor

When going to cnn. com I found that right away it had the link that I could click on to see all of the information about how Bermuda is bracing for hurricane Igor. Also, there are links that you can click on to view videos and live feed to see how bad it actually is. This site tells you everything you need to know such as sustained winds, the wind gust, and the latitude and longitude of the hurricane. The one thing I found interesting is it gives you a picture of the projected path that it is going. It also tells you what category, or size, the hurricane is. As of right now CNN is saying that hurricane Igor is going to affect the United States east coast over the weekend. CNN also gives you a link that you can recommend this website to people on your Facebook. This is a good thing on their part because with the Facebook link people can like it and see this article on your Facebook. They can see that you went to this site and they might look at it and like it too. This means more publicity for CNN and more people will view the top stories on there. CNN has a big article on how sever and damaging hurricane Igor is. CNN also tells you about any other hurricanes or tropical storms that were or are going to be dangerous to the east coast or Bermuda and what their projected paths are. When I went onto MSNBC. com I found the article right away, with big bold letters that say â€Å"Bermuda braces for ‘long and punishing’ Igor. † This right away attracted me to click on that headline so I can get more information on the weather and Igor. After clicking on the link there is a big picture of someone boarding their house up to keep it safe. Down at the bottom of the website it gives you three options that you can tell people about this story. You can email this story to a friend, you can share it on Facebook or you can share it on twitter. These are three main ways that people can spread this story to others so that they are aware of how sever the hurricane is. MSNBC. com also gives you a huge, well detailed article written by Elizabeth Roberts. She stated how sever the weather was in the beginning of the week. It was a category four in the beginning of the week and it has now gone down to a category two hurricane. The reporter talks about the sustained winds and the location of hurricane Igor. She tells you where it is headed and where it is going to impact. They also have this interactive tracker that shows you three different hurricanes and you can click on each one to find out how sever each one is and where it is headed. This gets updated every couple of minutes. You can also put in your address and it will give you the 5 day forecast. You can also click on a link that will give you archives of previous storms. FOXnews. com was one if the difficult websites for me. I went to their site and I didn’t see anything on hurricane Igor that caught my attention. I had to really look for this story, and I found it as I scrolled down and there is a little box that has the latest news, most read, and videos. The Bermuda story was far down the list and you had to click on the link to go to the story. When going into this article, there are no pictures of hurricane Igor, it is all words. This site gives you an article by Rick Leventhal, in which he writes about hurricane Igor. In this article he states that hurricane Igor is a category two hurricane and how it makes landfall with sustained winds near 110 miles per hour, gusting to 130. Fox news also tells you that the last major storm was back in 2003. So that is a paragraph that was interesting because it showed how they haven’t had one since then. It gives you how a hotel business has gone down by 50% since hurricane season started; this isn’t good for Bermudas economy. You cannot share this with anyone on face book or twitter but there is a place that you can leave comments and you can get follow up via email if anyone comments on this story. There is a link that you can click on that will take you to the author’s biography. It also gives you a list of all the articles he has written and there are someone other hurricanes on there. There are many similar things that all of these websites have such as telling everyone where the hurricane is located. It also describes in detail the wind gust and when it is suspected to hit the targeted area. Now when it comes to the difference there is a bunch of them. CNN from the beginning of the home page gives you a picture to look at, but also gives you a link to click on so you can view more. When you are looking on CNN you can see how they use bold writing when it comes to the sustained wind and wind gust, also the latitude and longitude. MSNBC on the other hand uses the hurricane interactive tracker to tell you all of that. I found that this is very detailed and very helpful. It is a different kind of tool that you can use to really see where hurricanes are going and who will be affected by them. MSNBC and CNN give you the option to send the information to someone by emailing, facebooking, or placing it on twitter. This helps them get more viewers and makes their rating go up for how many people view the website. Fox news on the other hand is not at all appealing for the weather. You have to really look for the article and when you find it, all it gives you is the article. The difference here is that there is not enough information for me about the hurricane, Igor.

Jumping to an Erroneous Conclusion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Jumping to an Erroneous Conclusion - Essay Example However, the recruiter was very persistent in encouraging me to join the military and entailed a lot of benefits that can be gained from joining the military. The recruiter said that when I join the military, I could get the chance to travel around the world, to be a rich person, etc. Because the recruiter is smart, polite, and convincing, I have made an erroneous decision that have changed my life completely. Back then, I was an innocent and a naive senior high school student. The offer of a good life after joining the military have made me trust the recruiter. After graduation, I never really intended to join the military but because the recruiter was so persistent that he came to my house almost every day, I was convinced. In addition, I really wanted to enter college instead of joining the military but since I could not afford college at that time, I decided to join the military. The words of my recruiter instilled in my mind that when a person joins the army, one may experience the benefits of good life such as prospects of becoming rich and being able to travel around the world. When I was in the military, realization eventually crept in: that all the good things in life the recruiter had told me were not true after all. I jumped into an erroneous conclusion simply because of persistent prodding from other people. I failed to conduct a survey or interview from family members, friends, or other people from various perspectives; and neither did I analyze the situation first before arriving at a decision. However, even though the recruiter told me things that did not happen, I still continue serving the country by being an active member of the military. I never regret that I joined the military because I found it challenging and full of discipline. If one would have based on fixed-response attitude surveys, previous experiences, perceptions from others, and one’s own perception, one would have jumped into an erroneous conclusion(Stephens, Leach, Taggart, & Jones, 94).In my case, perceptions from others being inculcated into my own perceptions have made me jumped easily to an erroneous conclusion that all men who joined military will become rich.The perception I have could have influenced also other people so it is essential that a person should be cautious of inculcating it to others without prior analysis. Learning to put a clear boundary between a factual and an erroneous conclusion is deemed necessary to avoid conflicts in the future.

Law & Criminology Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Law & Criminology - Case Study Example While the employers' range of freedom has been curtailed to some degree, they can benefit from proper documentation, following procedures which have now become quite strictly defined, and ensuring that they enforce the terms of the Employment Contracts in an evenhanded way. In either a criminal or a civil case, an employee has certain rights which are assured by law under ACAS or under the PACE laws of 1984, and as amended and clarified by subsequent court cases. A disciplinary process allows similar rules of interview, recording and evidence as required under PACE. Few employer actions against employees result in criminal proceedings; of those that do, the due processes outlined in the following pages are relatively the same. A potential criminal prosecution can be followed by an interview, but rules of evidence are required. As outlined in PACE (1984) 67(9), an individual representing a company or a government body can have the same rights and obligations as a police inspector. The obligations include informing the interviewee that his/her declarations can be used in a subsequent prosecution, that the interview minutes be noted in writing and shared with the interviewee, and that certain rules pertaining to recording (if present) are applicable. In the case of an interview for disciplinary purposes, there is also a procedure outlined by the Department of Labor that requires a set series of written documentation. This process refers to the Employment Contract, and to the Employment Policies of the employer, which must be given to the employee within 60 days of the commencement of his or her employment. The elements that must be put in the Employment Contract have grown over the past twenty years, as has the unenforceability of some of the clauses which had existed in Employment Contracts written at an earlier period. Employers should be particularly chary about imposing changes (real or implied) in the work contract without the explicit, and usually written, consent of those employed. Failure to garner the employees' agreement can result in a rupture of contract and a cause for action against the employer in the future. This paper will outline the procedures in both cases, and the differences. It will also present a way to decide which process should be pursued, i.e. whether an employee should be treated as a potential defendant in a criminal case, or whether the employer intends to keep the person in his/her employ, but would like to address certain deficiencies through a disciplinary process. The Disciplinary Process Employees who are not meeting the terms of their Employment Contract can be subject to disciplinary hearings. It should be noted that, by the time the formal procedure is followed, there may have been some previous conversations between the employee and his/her supervisor. The substance of these conversations should be noted by the supervisor, as these notes may become part of a subsequent disciplinary process. Although a conversation between the employ