MSP - Negotiations. That full stop tells us how important this is going to be for us in our coming future. Looks like we're going to be negotiating for better deals on all aspects of life, and so our prof thought it vital to be a part of our course. And what a way to handle it. The first session was the general gyaan about what are the different aspects to negotiations, what a BATNA(Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement) is and what are the different types of negotiations. The second session was a fully blown practical, hands-on approach. Our batch was split into three teams, and we were made to act out a negotiation with each other. So we had around 10-15 minutes to decide (within our sub-teams of course) about what we were willing to consider negotiating on, what we were unwilling to budge on, and what we could let go. Thanks to some information asymmetry, it was made a lot more fun, and sure as hell was an action-packed session! If this is something I'd have to do every once in a while, hell, management sure sounds like a lot of fun! Who said geeks don't know how to have fun? (For the record, PGSEM students are cool, in fact, they're the epitome of cool.)
LOC - This week, the first session was related to the formation of tribal groups (Me Manager, You secretary! Them all chimps! Grunt!). We're told that there are five different stages to this group-isms. The first is when people think that "Life sucks!". So they find each other, get together and tend to do whatever they can to get out of the pitiful existence they have, if need be, even resorting to anarchy. The second is when people think that "MY life sucks!". So they feel that some people in the org are getting to be successful, while they're not. Typically, these guys will find out more like them and wallow in self-pity. However, there is a nagging thought in their mind that "Things CAN change". So they're not really in as bad a situation as Stage 1. However, it's extremely simple for people to slip into that. The third stage is "I'm awesome, you all suck!". Here's where everyone's doing pretty decently, and the person tends to think that he's an irreplacable wheel in the organization, and that if he leaves, the whole company collapses. Standard ego traits that you might see or even have within you or your company. The fourth stage is "My team's awesome, the other teams suck!". Muccchhh better. More like what we all think. Here's a stage when people are not really insecure, and there is scope for betterment of life, and almost everyone seems to be satisfied, for the most part. There's a team based approach here because of which you tend to identify with your team as part of your identity. The fifth stage is "My company's awesome". This one's very interesting, because apparently, you can't stay in this stage for long. This is the stage you'd reach if the entire company's working together on a project that means a LOT to them, maybe it opens up a new market, maybe the company's last chance to avoid total breakdown. But ultimately, the people come together from various teams to ensure that the dream is converted to reality. And maybe due to the inherent nature of the transformation/co-ordination required, the teams just gel together. After the project is due, it's very much possible that the company goes back to stage 4. Pretty interesting session.
The next session, we had a speaker come from Deloitte, and talk to us about the issues of ethics and conformance that organizations face. He chose to take the recent sub-prime crisis as an example, where questionable decisions were made. He and a co-author (nice guy, at the start he kept mentioning My co-author and I together thought of this... My co-author and I together worked on this.. etc. Rare to see such people) came up with some sort of model that tried to penetrate beyond the layer that dealt with ethics. They were trying to see if there was something deeper to the entire issue of what led to such debacles in the industry. They had a triangle that covered three essential features that need to be handled together for decisions to take place effectively. I'd tell it to you, but it's hush-hush managementy stuff, which we paid a lot of money to hear. Naah, I'm just messing with you. I just dont remember it right now, and I'm too lazy to take ten steps to pull out my notes from my bag.
PM - This week was all about conjoint analysis. Before you go "Woaahhh!! Awesome management jargon!", let me clean this up for you. Even though we had done this in the Principles of Marketing course (Refer Quarter 3), either I was sleepy or something, because I didn't really get it when the guest lecturer taught us. But today, for some reason, I was wide awake (OMG! Surprise!) and I got a good understanding of the funda. So please, allow me to explain something that I seem to understand.
A conjoint analysis is typically used to find out how consumers respond to different attributes in a product. Take for example, a toothpaste. Now, you'd think "What's in a toothpaste? I dont really think too much when I take it.", and I'd say "Ahaah! You're wrong!". You might THINK that, but subconsciously, your mind's pretty much thinking it all through. Let's pick a few attributes - Brand, Quantity, Taste and Color. Brands - Colgate and Pepsodent. Quantity - 100g, 200g. Taste - Minty, Salty, Tasteless. Color - Red, Blue. Trust me on the math, there are 24 possible combinations here, like (Colgate 100g minty red paste, Pepsodent 200g salty blue paste), get it? Now, what we do is, we get a person to sit patiently (maybe by offering him a free movie ticket, or some free food etc.) and ask him to order them all up based on his preferences. Now he might not just be quantitatively figuring "this has x value, that has y value, add, subtract etc.", he might be making some qualitative judgements here as well. Which is what we want! So after doing this with quite a few people, you analyse the data to find out which attribute seems to mean more to people when compared to the others, and what could be the apparent sensitivity that a particular attribute brings to the table. Conjoint analysis tends to bring some sort of method to the madness by trying to quantify the perceptions, likes and dislikes of the consumer. So then you'll also know that if you were to knock 10g off your product, or change the flavour, what's the possible outcome. Maybe you'll find that "Brand" is a highly sensitive thing, and that changing it can majorly affect the uptake of your product.
I'm a little pleased with my intake this week. Maybe I'll prepare for the exams early after all! :)
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