POM learning and experience

Theory X Versus Theory Y

Introduction

                                               

Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational communication and organizational development. They describe two contrasting models of workforce motivation.

Theory X and Theory Y have to do with the perceptions managers hold on their employees, not the way they generally behave. It is attitude not attributes.

So, it basically deals with the mind-set of different kinds of managers with regard to their employees and does not state anything about the actual behavior of the employees themselves.

                                             

Theory X 

This theory can at best be termed  as a pessimistic outlook of the managers towards their employees and makes an assumption that it is a basic nature of the workers/employees to avoid work whenever given a chance to do so. It assumes that employees are inherently lazy and dislike work and complete their work only out of compulsion or threat. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can. Employees think of only themselves and just come to the workplace to pass their time and get the salary at the end of the day/month. They don't have set goals for themselves aligned in terms of the betterment of the organisation on the whole. Usually these managers feel the sole purpose of the employee's interest in the job is money. They will blame the person first in most situations, without questioning whether it may be the system, policy, or lack of training that deserves the blame. This kind of management practice may work in the small businesses but when it comes to the case of large organisations this kind of management style is rather unlikely to produce satisfactory results. The reason being that when we are dealing with large businesses then the only way the business would succeed would be through aligning the goals of the employees with the organisation's goals. The employees need to be self motivated.

Theory Y

Theory Y says that the managers are optimistic of their employees and think that they are self-motivated and have their personal goals aligned with the organisation's goals. In this theory, management assumes employees may be ambitious and self motivated and exercise self control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. Theory Y managers repose faith in their employees and believe that if given proper chance they can excel and can achieve terrific results. The employees don't need monetary motivation to complete their task. This theory would include managers communicating openly with subordinates, minimizing the difference between superior-subordinate relationships, creating a comfortable environment in which subordinates can develop and use their abilities. Employees have equal say in the process and proper feedback process is followed in order to achieve the results.

The two theories can be explained with the help of the following diagram which is very self-explanatory :

                                                 

Now there can be two situations which can happen in a workplace and the likely consequences are as follows :

1) Employee is Lazy : 

In this case the theory X manager is likely to work better than the theory Y manager because he would be able to interpret the employee in a better way and may be able to motivate his employee through compulsion or through incentives whereas the theory Y manager might fail to get the work done by the employee.

2) Employee is self motivated : 

In this case theory Y manager would be able to best utilize the productivity of the employee and may be able to set goals which are commensurate with the ability of the employee and even stretch a bit. 

Where as the theory X manager might temper the morale of the employee and lead to dis satisfactions all around.

As can be inferred that we should try to bring theory Y in our workplaces as it works under most circumstances.

Theory X managers can cause long term harm to the company culture and in turn can be a road-block to the success of the company.

Ankit Tyagi

IM-19

Section A

My Experiences with TCS

My first stint with TCS

I still remember the day when I was in the fourth year of my engineering and the companies had just started to come to the campus for recruitment. TCS was the first one to visit our campus. TCS, as it is one of the TATA group's most successful companies, was one of the most sought after in the campus. TCS evoked a sense of trustworthiness, excellence and  respect in our minds. As expected, almost the entire batch went to the selection procedure and got selected. I remember how joyful I was after getting an offer letter from the TCS on the first day of the campus placements itself.
TATA Consultancy Services Ltd. is the company which gave me the first, much needed opportunity to work with them and progress in my career.
I had been with TCS for five long years and these five years had been a roller-coaster ride for me. And trust me the ride had mostly been an upward ride.

Those were the TCS days

I can vouch for and as every TCS-er can, who joined as a fresher,  the best part and the most joyfulness time with TCS was the one when we were send to undergo an initial training program of 2 months. Those were the days when we lived our lives to the fullest. We were made to do innumerable tasks, innumerable lectures(very interactive), so-many case studies, group tasks, plays etc. We were made to do outbound training which facilitated knowing each member of the batch. We did Japanese language course, most of which was done through video and group practices. And the ultimate joy of getting our first salary, was indeed amazing. Fresh out of college, we got a stint of corporate life in those two months.
After the training program, each one of us was allocated a base location and a project to work on. We were not expected to just go and complete the tasks at the beginning itself but were given enough time to settle down and get proper guidance and knowledge transfers from the senior members of the project. Entire learning process was facilitated by the team leads through proper knowledge transfers and internal grooming.
We could see many kinds of people there in our work place - from those who used to work for hours and were really dedicated in their work to those who took life a bit easy and just used to complete their tasks and chill around the rest of the time. Some days, we would really stretch and on others just enjoyed our free time.
There are times when you are made to sit on bench(idle time when you are not allocated to any project) and the times when you are made to work like machines. I must say both these times had their own piece of fun.
The best part of being in TCS is the opportunity to work on the client location i.e. Onsite. You get tremendous amount of exposure and get to work closely with the client. You get to learn in and out of the project. You get to meet big people of your project. You get to earn huge amount of money as compared to what you get when you are offshore. You get to see places which probably you might not have been to before. In short, you get the life time experience which you cherish for your entire life and most importantly write it proudly on your CV.
I had been in TCS for 5 long years. I worked on three big projects. I saw myself changing roles from a team member to project leader to business analyst. Some times I even tasted the joy of being idle and having nothing to do and still having salary being credited to my account(on Bench days). I have seen myself grown from a systems engineer to senior business analyst.
I must say that those 5 years were the most gratifying and fulfilling in terms of my personal and professional growth.

TCS in the Market

TCS has been consistently growing through the years and is able to sustain itself even in the recession period. Since beginning, it has maintained its hegemony in IT industry and still continues to do so.
According to Reuters,

TCS Q1 profit up 38 pct, beats f'casts. 

According to Hindustan times, TCS surges ahead of Infosys, thanks to new markets.

The key lies in constantly looking to expand in new markets and innovate and move ahead with times. TCS places very high value on its employees and treats them very well. In turn, employees get motivated and give their best in whatever they do.

This growth is also aided by the weakening Rupee in comparison to Dollar as most of the business comes from the US and European clients. In a way, it can cause damage in the coming time if the majority of business comes from western countries as they are themselves grappling with tough times.

Some Suggestions

Now, time for some critical analysis and thus some suggestions as an ex-employee which I am sure many TCS-res would relate to. I am sure they would want the TCS management to work upon these issues.

I must say that due to the size of the the company and employee count, there are times when some employees have to sit idle due to non availability of right projects for him according to his skills. At such times, there is just nothing to do and you cant do anything till the time resource management group get the project matching your skill-sets. In such case, if  proper training programs are conducted to improve the skill sets of the employee according to the availability of the project and location, then I am sure the employee would be able to better utilize his/her time. Although, I am sure TCS has provisions for this but still these things are not strictly adhered to.

Secondly, I feel there is a need to modify the Appraisal process which happens every half yearly. The reason being that in evaluating an employee, sometimes, in addition to the performance of the employee there are other factors involved too. An employee doing great job, working hard may get lesser appraisal band than the one who is not working as hard but playing smart and has good terms with supervisor. I have seen some such instances. 

I feel that instead of just down stream appraisal (supervisor doing for employee), there must be some percentage of upstream  appraisal  as well (some percentage of appraisal points for supervisor done by his subordinates) or may be feedback from employees.

I would conclude by saying a few words I feel for my first company...........

I strongly feel that TCS would continue to shine through the years and surge ahead inspite of hardships on the way.

All the best Mr.  N Chandrasekaran !

Company Details - Deloitte Consulting

Introduction

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, commonly referred to as Deloitte, is one of the Big Four professional services firms along with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ernst & Young and KPMG.

Deloitte is the second largest professional services network in the world by revenue and has 182,000 employees in more than 150 countries providing audit, tax, consulting, enterprise risk and financial advisory services.   In FY 2011, Deloitte earned a record $28.8 billion USD in revenues, ranking second behind PwC's record $29.2 billion. In 2012, it is reported that in the U.K. Deloitte has the largest number of clients among st FTSE 250 companies.

Its global headquarters is located in New York City, United States.

                                                                                                                       

Type	UK private company, limited by guarantee
Industry	Professional services
Founded	London, England, U.K. (1845)
Founder(s)	William Welch Deloitte
Headquarters	Paramount Plaza, New York City, New York,U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Stephen Almond (Chairman) Barry Salzberg (CEO)
Services	Audit Consulting Financial advisory Tax Enterprise Risk
Revenue	US$28.8 billion (2011)
Employees	182,000 (September 2011)
Website	Deloitte.com/global

Origin

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu began when an adventurer, William Welch Deloitte, began working as an assistant to the Official Assignee of the Bankruptcy Court in London. In 1845, when he was just 25 years old, he opened his office in the city and just four years later he became the first independent auditor ever appointed. He built his reputation through the exposure of fraud in the railway industry, and in 1893 opened an office in the United States. It was then called "Deloitte's".

George Touch was an Edinburgh accountant. Touch had a flair for saving doomed businesses from disaster and in 1900 he formed the firm "Touch, Niven & Co." in New York. He later became an Member of Parliament and was knighted in 1917.

The third founder of the global Deloitte firm is Tohmatsu, who as Admiral Nobuzo Tohmatsu was the Japanese Naval Attache in London. In 1952 Tohmatsu  became a public accountant at the age of 57 and was promoted to become a director in a private corporation. A visionary man who realized the worth of sending his staff overseas to gain experience, it was Tohmatsu who gave the firm the international focus it enjoys today. 

History

In 1845 William Welch Deloitte opened an office in Basing hall Street in London. Deloitte was the first person to be appointed an independent auditor of a public company. He went on to open an office in New York in 1880.

In 1896 Charles Waldo Haskins and Elijah Watt Sells formed Haskins & Sells in New York.

In 1898 George Touche established an office in London and then in 1900 joined John Ballantine Niven in establishing the firm of Touche Niven in the Johnston Building at 30 Broad Street in New York. At the time, there were fewer than 500 CPAs practicing in the United States, but the new era of income taxes was soon to generate enormous demand for accounting professionals.

In 1952 Deloitte merged with Haskins & Sells to form Deloitte, Haskins & Sells. In 1968 Nobuzo Tohmatsu formed Tohmatsu Awoki & Co, a firm based in Japan that was to become part of the Touche Ross network in 1975. In 1972 Robert Trueblood, Chairman of Touche Ross, led the committee responsible for recommending the establishment of the Financial Accounting Standards Board. He led the expansion of Touche Ross in that era.

In 1982, David Moxley and W. Grant Gregory became the leaders at Touche Ross. In 1985, Edward A. Kangas, a management consultant, was appointed managing partner of Touche Ross. In 1984, J. Michael Cook became managing partner of Deloitte, Haskins & Sells.

In 1989 Deloitte Haskins & Sells in the USA merged with Touche Ross in the USA to form Deloitte & Touche

Some recent happenings in the company are as under in the chronological order

In 1995, the partners of Deloitte & Touche decided to create Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group (now known as Deloitte Consulting).

In 2000, Deloitte acquired Eclipse to add Internet design based solutions to its consulting capabilities. Eclipse was later separated into Deloitte Online and Deloitte Digital.

In 2002, Arthur Andersen's UK practice, the firm's largest practice outside the U.S., agreed to merge with Deloitte's UK practice. Andersen's practices in Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil and Canada also agreed to merge with Deloitte. The spin off of Deloitte France's consulting division led to the creation of Ineum Consulting.

In 2009, Deloitte purchased the North American Public Service practice of BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting) after it filed for bankruptcy protection. The firm also took over the UK property consultants Drivers Jonas in January 2010.

In 2011, Deloitte acquired DOMANI Sustainability Consulting and ClearCarbon Consulting in order to expand its sustainability service offerings.

In 2012, Deloitte announced the acquisition of Übermind, Inc., an innovative mobile agency. The aquistion is Deloitte's first entrance into the mobile application field.

Vision and Mission Statements

Vision

         To be recognised as the best professional services firm.

         Mission 

         To help our clients and our people excel.

         Values 

         Outstanding value to clients.

         Commitment to each other.

         Integrity.

         Strength from cultural diversity.

Plants/Offices

Deloitte member firms offer services in the following functions, with country-specific variations on their legal implementation i.e. all operating within a single company or through separate legal entities operating as subsidiaries of an umbrella legal entity for the country.

Financial Advisory: Provides corporate finance services to clients, including dispute, personal and commercial bankruptcy, forensics, e-discovery, document review, advisory and valuation services.

Tax: Helps clients increase their net asset value, undertake the transfer pricing and international tax activities of multinational companies, minimize their tax liabilities, implement tax computer systems, and provides advisory of tax implications of various business decisions.

Other Services: provides specialized services to clients in the fields of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), clients with interest in China and Japan, and others

Audit and Enterprise Risk Services: Provides the organization's traditional accounting and audit services, as well as offerings in enterprise risk management, information security and privacy, data quality and integrity, project risk, business continuity management, internal auditing and IT control assurance.

Consulting: Assists clients by providing services in the areas of enterprise applications, technology integration, strategy & operations, human capital, and short-term outsourcing.

Financial Performance

 The record results that the Deloitte member firm network achieved in fiscal year 2011 illustrate the strength aresilience of Deloitte’s diversified portfolio of businesses, and are a testament to the network’s focus on the success of its key stakeholders.  The 2011 fiscal year aggregate member firm revenues of US$28.8 billion mark the highest revenue ever recorded by the network, and the aggregate growth rate of 8.4 percent is the network’s highest in the last three years. 

Corporate Social Responsibility

For any enlightened business, having a clearly defined approach to the impact of climate change, involvement with local communities, responsible business practices and the creation of a quality workplace environment must be a core part of business strategy.  

The top executives are very motivated for giving back to the society and have well defined events and processes to doing their bit for the welfare of society.

The following are the words of the top leadership of Deloitte regarding their CSR activities.

At Deloitte we all share a desire to give something back to society. Our volunteering and giving programmes provide opportunities to do just that by getting involved in the community.
Volunteering
By pursuing your career with us, you have the opportunity to take care of more than just your own future.
Impacting under-privileged youths
IMPACT Day is a Deloitte worldwide initiative where our people volunteer to devote one working day to a project that has a direct and positive impact on society. Projects include painting, decorating, gardening and organizing day trips for a variety of charitable organisations. We also support a number of individuals in their volunteering efforts.
Our theme for our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities in Southeast Asia is Youth and Education and our activities on IMPACT Day around the region will focus on supporting helping young people get better education and opportunities, as well as supporting charity organizations which focus on orphans and the handicapped.
Supporters
In Vietnam, we have raised donations throughout the offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to help people overcome their difficult situations.
Helping our neighbors
Continuing with the As ONE spirit and working together with Deloitte SEA, Deloitte Vietnam employees contributed to a fund for the flood victims in Thailand. By doing this, we hope that our helping hands can help to lift our colleagues as well as the Thai people up.
Running for passion
In November 2011, employees of Deloitte Vietnam took part in the Terry Fox Run held in Ho Chi Minh City. The Terry Fox Fun is an annual non-competitive charity event in commemoration of Canadian cancer activist Terry Fox, and his Marathon of Hope, and to raise money for cancer research. Deloitte Vietnam is proud to be part of this worthy cause raising funds for cancer research.

Some Observations/Suggestions

After going through some of the blogs of ex-employees of Deloitte, I have got some things which they have to say about the company they have worked for.

Pros
 Strong learning opportunities
 Interaction with industry specialists
 Organised and structured growth
 Great Infrastructure
 Adds that feel good factor with involvement in community service

Cons
Lesser onsite opportunities for fresher
Poor work life balance
Lots of travelling

         Flexibility in work culture

         Self developmental opportunities

Suggestions to Senior Management

         Much guidance needs to be given to the fresher on business prospective of projects and they also should be given a chance to involve in client engagements.

It can be seen from the blogs and feedback of the employees and ex-employees of Deloitte that it is an amazing place to be in.
Of course, there are some negative perceptions too, but overall, Deloitte remains the dream company for many of us.






Ankit Tyagi


IM-19 Section - A

Story of three Monks in the Monastery

                                                           

Description

In the class of Principles of Management, we were showed a video which depicted three monks living in a monastry. The video was showed in many parts. Each part taught us some concepts about Productivity, Work Culture and Innovation.

First Part :  Work Methods                                         

In the first part, there was only one monk, who used to live in the monastery. While he was alone in the house, he was in need of water as he wanted to put some water in the flower pot and also he himself was thirsty. He made an effort to go down to the river and get water from there. It was a very difficult task as the monastery was situated at the top of the hill. Overcoming the initial inertia, he went down the hill and got water in the tubs carrying them over a rod and holding the rod from the middle. He came to his house and put some water in the flower pot and drank some of it and thus felt very satisfied. As a symbolic part of the story, the Buddha was also shown to be happy with him over his deed. While he was cooking some food in the evening, he felt tired and fell asleep. This part indicated that although he was able to complete some tasks himself properly, he was still not able to carry on for long as he got exhausted later on.

My Experiences and Learning

I can relate to this part to happenings in my work-place. In the company where I had worked previously, the task was always divided among team members equally. It never used to happen that some one who had higher capacity would be assigned greater portion of work. If it were the case that only one person had been doing all the work, howsoever amount of money we may pay him, the work would never have been completed effectively.

Second Part :  Productivity                                 

In the second part, the monk was accompanied by the second monk. They both seemed quite friendly at first. The second monk wanted to have some water and this lead to some disagreement among them. They had some argument over who would go down and bring water. None of them wanted to go alone and get water from the river. Then they decided to go together. They hold the rod from either end and tried to place the tub in between. sometimes it would shift to one side sometimes to other side. They again seemed to have a disagreement and finally came out with a solution and marked the rod in the center and placed the tub in center. They happily moved to the monastery and both were fresh and did not get tired due to the work.
This particular part of the video taught us about the importance of team work and to have a strategy in order to get the work done most effectively and efficiently.
There are times in our work places when some person tends to get more amount of work in some project and some others maybe free at that time. There is a tendency that the person might have a grouse and not give his 100 percent effort in his task. Alternatively, if everyone works simultaneously, we tend to work in a better way and wholeheartedly.
There was also some discussion in the class regarding which effort of getting the water from river was better- first part or second part.

Conclusion :

We all came to this conclusion that the work done in the second part was more efficient than what was done in the first part. The reason being that in the first part, although the monk got water from the river but he later fell asleep as he was very tired and could not continue with other day-to-day chores. In the second part of the video, although they had to go two times to the river to get the water, they were still fresh and could complete the work together.

Effective Work done by First Monk alone = 2 Tubs of water   (He got tired after that and was unable to accomplish any other task)

Effective Work Done by Two Monks together = 1 Tub of water (Both still fresh and continue to carry out other tasks)

Total Energy lost in Ist case = K + 2P   (K is kinetic energy of distance traveled, P is potential energy of 1 tub)

Total Energy lost in 2nd case = 2k + P

Energy lost per monk in 2nd case = k+P/2

Considering K to be much smaller than P as considering the energy utilized as mostly by the virtue of gaining height of the tub.

In Ist case : Work done = 2 units, Energy consumed = 2P    , Productivity = 2/2 = 1 unit
In 2nd case : Work done = 1 unit, Energy consumed = p/2   , Productivity = 1/0.5 = 2 units

Hence 2nd scenario comes out to be more productive.

Third part :   Work Methods                                                 

Third part showed the entry of third monk. He was a mischief maker and drank all the water existing in the tub. The two monks got angry over him and made him go down and get water for the house. He went went down and got water but as he got so much tired of all the walking, he drank every single drop of water what he brought from the river. Now no one was ready to go down and instead chose to sleep without water.
The first monk, in the meanwhile, tried to have some fruit secretly and got it stuck in this throat. In order to save his life, he went ahead and drank water from the pot. This made the buddha upset over him; again the symbolic part shown very well in the video. As if this were not enough, there was this fire which spread so fast into the house that all three monks were caught unawares. They ran for their lives and struggle hard to get some water to douse the fire. Now in this situation of emergency, everyone ran down and got water to save their house. They finally did so and looked happy at last.

Conclusion and Learning

What can we make out of it is that, we always have the tendency to avoid the work and try to impose it on others. In normal circumstances, even if we impose the work over others, most often than not the person would not do the work properly. We try to avoid the work till the last and wait till the point has come when we can no longer avoid to work and then start running here and there to complete it. That is when our real efficiency come out. In most of the situations, we are on the verge of getting failure in our tasks if we avoid the work.
This part of the story teaches us that we should always complete our tasks in time and not sleep over it if we want to get the things going properly for us. We should try to find creative solutions if we want to avoid such situations. The next part of the video depicted just that!

                                                             

Final part : -- Innovation

This part of the video showed that the three monks had installed a pulley from their monastery and thus avoided the need to go down and get water for themselves.
This part shows us that sometimes it is not only useful but very necessary for us to find a solution to a problem if we want to survive. The old solutions maybe just good but may not be enough for the problem to resolve completely.

My Experiences and Learning

In the software industry, where I have worked, there are times when we try to fix the problems using existing software frameworks and tools in order to avoid costs. These solutions do work for most of the times. But, at times, we are forced to migrate to newer versions and latest technologies in order to compete in the market and avoid the shortcomings of the legacy systems.
Thus, we do innovate and replace the existing systems with the newer, more efficient ones not by choice but by compulsion.




Ankit Tyagi


IM-19 section-A


Roll number - 224

Creative Thinking - Ring Toy

 Creative Thinking - Ring Toy


"Imagination is the beginning of creation."
                                                                        --- George Bernard Shaw

                                                                         



In the class of Principles of Management, we were given a Ring Toy puzzle to solve as a part of creative thinking exercise. At first we had no clue as to what was being expected of us and what is to be solved and how? We had no idea of the problem itself. We were just presented with the jumbled up Ring Toy and asked to do something out of it. We played with it for sometime, juggled with it in some way or the other in order to unravel the mystery hidden inside the Ring Toy.
The Ring Toy consisted of a wooden piece, two wooden circular pieces, two wooden square pieces, two balls on either side of the wooden piece. The space between the wooden piece was wide enough to let the circular and square pieces to pass through. Apart from that the balls and wooden pieces were entangled through the rope in such a way that the whole thing was appearing like a confused mess.
We applied various permutations and combinations and tried every bit and finally were able to untangle the square and rings apart. We used following steps to solve this riddle.

1. Push the ring up above the slit in the toy.
2. Hold the ring and take one of the hanging wooden blocks and pass it through the slit onto the other side of the toy.
3. Pull the block which pushed onto the other side down, the ball for the same would be near the slit.
4. Pull the ring down below the ball.
5. Hold the ring up and pass it through the slit from the direction opposite to the side having the ball. The ring can be removed from the other side.

At this point I could only remember one very famous saying by Mr Winston Churchill :

"No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time steady eye".

 I must say that we applied our creativity in solving this Ring Toy puzzle as it was an unconventional activity which we had never encountered before and we had to find the problem as well as the solution both by ourselves.




What can we make out of this activity with regards the Management Concepts

A manager more often than not is encountered with such problems in his professional life which are so convoluted that far from solving it for a solution, he needs to understand the problem first or maybe problems. He is often caught up in such situations where he is unsure of what to do, how to do, and where to proceed at the first place. There would be times when such problems would be thrown up at him and he would be expected to give the solution. He needs to apply his past experiences, his present situation and context and creativity in knowing the problem at hand. He needs to be a lateral thinker and not just go by the books.
Once the problem or rather problems are evident, he has to find the solution systematically, dealing with the problems one by one. Even if he is not able to proceed and finds himself in a difficult situation where he is not able to understand the problem, he needs to go in some direction at least doing something to take him to the problem at hand.
One must not give up easily, keep on trying, apply one's prior experience, be creative, understand present context and go ahead with the problem at hand.




My Experience

Although I was not a manager in my company, I would like to cite an example how I can relate myself with the case at hand.
I was working with TCS as a Business Analyst, I was involved with the business analysis process with the Citigroup client. It was a banking application which we were working upon. We would sometimes get calls/mails from the client for some business requirements to be implemented into the application. Client had no clear idea of what he exactly wants. Most often than not we were forced to take decisions on our own and try to interpret what functionality clients actually wants or requires as a part of his business. Sometimes we were right, sometimes wrong, but yes we had to apply our past knowledge and creativity to understand as to what business requirements client actually want us to implement. One part of the problem solving was to understand the problem at first before even having to find the solution for that problem.





Ankit Tyagi
roll number - 224
IM-19 section A

Valley Crossing

 Valley Crossing Exercise

INTRODUCTION

Valley Crossing is a case study in which three people tied with poles try to cross a valley and encounter some space ahead. They would not be able to cross the space individually. They would have to arrange themselves in the aforesaid mentioned way and cross the valley as a Team.

This is a classic example of how sometimes we need  team work to succeed in certain situations and would feel helpless in case we venture out alone.
Valley crossing is an excellent way to study the team building exercise and teaches us how certain tasks which are impossible to carry out alone can be done with ease if we form teams and work effectively and creatively.


ANALYSIS


There would be many steps in which this valley crossing task would be accomplished. All three people will have to take coordinated steps and walk in unison. Everyone must place his left leg forward in unison and then right and so on.
The single most important point to be kept in mind is to trust each other and follow each other. There should not be a single leader and the whole activity demands that every person acts as a leader in himself and exhibits good team player skills.
There would be a time during this exercise when one of the person would be hanging and would feel helpless, so a lot of courage and trust is required on the part of people.

The Space Between the Valley


There was a lot of discussion in class regarding the maximum space between the valley which can be allowed for this exercise to be completed successfully.
According to my analysis, the space between the valley would depend as much on the length of the steps of people as on the space between two people tied to the pole.

Space between the valley should not be more than the distance between two persons and the length of the step of the person hanging. In the equation terms, it can be expressed as below-
Space between the valley <= distance between two people + length of a step of the hanging person.


CONCLUSION


Conclusively, it can be said that this activity given to us by Prasad Sir was very effective in giving us a real life example of the importance of working in teams and having trust on each other in order to succeed in difficult situations.