Jackson 1 Essays - Identity Politics, Politics, Black Power

Jackson 1 Bennie Jackson African American Studies 2210 Professor Eboe Hutchful April 26, 2017 Your Week 13 Discussion Board specifically flagged the issue of gender in the Black Freedom struggle for the first time. Yet, as we already know from the readings, the voices of Black Women have resounded from the very early days of the struggle. How have Black Women activists themselves conceptualized or visualized their particular situation and their role in the struggle? Answer by reviewing the ideas of the following: A. J. Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, Anne Dunbar-Nelson, Amy Jacques Garvey, Claudia Jones, the Combahee River Collective and Angela Davis. How should each of these activists be classified: as integrationist, Black Nationalist, or Transformationalist? Although black women played a huge role in the Black Power Struggle , they rarely received recognition for their dedicated participation. From the movement's inception, black women were at the forefront, organizing communities, church congregations, and Civil Rights organizations. However, despite such committed involvement to improving the conditions of black Americans, black female movement participants encountered sexist treatment from their black male counterparts and mainstream society. All of the women that were inv olved in the Black Freedom Struggle was motivated by accepting values of integrationalism , transformationalism, and/or Black Nationalism. Even though black women encountered sexism within organizations prior to 1966, the sexism was not as blatant and combative a s it was during the Black Freedom Movement. Mary Church Terrell, whose ideologies leaned more to integrationalism , was one of the most profound activists leading up to the Black Freedo m Struggle . Her scholarly articles, poems, and Jackson 2 short stories about race and gender appea red in numerous journals and magazines. Terrell began her professional career as a writer, educator, and activist, co-founded the National Association of Colored Women and served as the organization's first president . Terrell joined the passionate efforts to end legal segregat ion in Washington, D.C. In 1940 she wrote her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, which details her own battles with gender and race discrimination in t he United States. In 19 09, she was made a charter member of the NAAC P. Within the NAACP, she could not escape sexism, therefore, Terrell confronted Washingto n's then current racial issues and i t became her greatest achievement. Ann Dunbar-Nelson addressed the issues that confronted African-Americans and women of her time. S he served as field organizer for the Woman's Suffrage M ovement and for the Wome n's Committee of the Council of Defense . Dunbar-Nelson was a teacher, activist, and journalist who was active in the women's suffrage and anti-lynching movements. During the last two decades of her life, her efforts were directed towards the political issues surrounding African Americans. Her one-act play "Mine Eyes Have Seen" was published in the Crisis, a NAACP journal edited by W.E.B. DuBois. It raised questions about the duties of Black Americans that served in a war waged by a country that had not given them any justice. Ann Dunbar-Nelson utilized theories of transformationalism through her may works that developed from her abilities to use her Creole linguistics to get her points across. While she continued the struggle for Black Nationalism and African Independence, Amy Jacques Garvey doubled as a pioneer for Pan-African emancipation. Becoming the wife of the late, great Marcus Garvey in 1922, she gained notoriety by aiding him in writing his countless articles and publications. Garvey, within her own right, later published her own book, Garvey and Jackson 3 Garveyism and later published two collections of essays, Black Power in America and The Impact o f Garvey in Africa and Jamaica. Herself and husband were advocates of rallying for blacks to gain their own central powers and have freedom to self-govern. All along she helped organize and develop Garvey's philosophy of African Consciousness, Self-help, and above all economic independence. She will be greatly remembered for her conscious efforts of heroic deeds and sacrifices. Claudia Jones was a Communist for her entire adult life and a leader in several major mo vements. Although her formal education had terminated because she was forced to drop out of high school, her education did not stop there.

Human Resource Allocation in Software Development

Human Resource Allocation in Software Development Human Resource Allocation in Software Development Human Resource Allocation in Software DevelopmentThis fact contributes to the diversity of domains for software projects. Rapid evolution of software frameworks, technologies and approaches creates a constant need Software development industry is one of the core industries in the modern world. New software products are used for automating processes in virtually all spheres of human life for change. Hence, companies operating in software development industry have to deal with short-term projects, projects with very specific knowledge requirements, projects requiring special expertise, etc. This diversity creates a situation when software developments and other IT professionals are involved in the projects from time to time, often combine working on several projects and deal with various technologies simultaneously. Due to high flexibility of workforce in software projects and very specific requirements to project members, there emerge situations when the resources are allocated ineffi ciently.Problem StatementThe problem considered in this report is the following. The company provides the services of software development to a large number of clients. Due to the varied nature of projects, short-term project life cycle and specific skill sets needed in software projects there emerges the problem of inefficient resource allocation.According to Fairley (2011), companies providing the services of custom software development and companies offering consulting services in software development allocate 85% or more of their operating costs to development costs. In other words, business costs of such companies are formed by the salaries paid to software developers and other IT professionals (Fairley, 2011). However, the company has numerous inefficiencies in the process of workforce allocation to projects. This means that the company spends excess money on development and reduces the chances of successful project completion. Such state of affairs reduces the companys compet itiveness and viability. Therefore, it is important to address and resolve this workplace issue.There are several sources of inefficiency in the current process of resource allocation. The company deals with different projects, the duration of which varies from 2 weeks to 6 months on average. These projects are broken into stages; commonly, these stages include setting requirements and planning, software design, implementation, verification and sometimes maintenance (Martin, 2009). At each stage, the number of IT professionals required is different, and the skill sets needed during different phases also change. However, project team is usually assigned at the first stage, and there are additional resource allocations during implementation and verification phases.Sometimes project members lack the necessary skills for implementation and verification. They have to deal with technologies where they have little experience or perform supplementary tasks. It also happens that team members have no business expertise in the required domain, and there are no professionals with the required technical skills and business knowledge available. In such cases, team members have to master the new domain, which increases their value for future projects but reduces the effectiveness of solutions in the existing project. Finally, the work load is not uniform: there are times when team members have to work overtime and times when team members have to wait until other developers complete their parts of work. Such situation leads to professional burnout after overtimes (which are followed by escalating project costs) and to low performance during the idle time.This report is devoted to analyzing the problem of inefficient resource allocation in a software development company, considering several workplace programs and procedures aimed at resolving this problem and selecting one of the alternatives according to five criteria of software project effectiveness relevant to the situatio n. Therefore, this report contributes to improving workplace effectiveness in companies providing the services of custom software development.Overview of AlternativesAlternative A The first alternative that is commonly used in software development industry relies on the services of outsourcers or freelancers. Analysis of the key factors causing inefficiencies in resource allocation shows that there are three major causes: inflexible or premature allocation of resources, absence of prospective team members with the required characteristics (combined with the inefficiency of hiring developers with these characteristics due to short-time nature of the tasks) and fluctuating workload.The industry-wide practice is to invite freelancers or using the services of outstaffing companies to resolve such issues (Futrell, Shafer Shafer, 2002). Possible implementation of such approach include (Futrell, Shafer Shafer, 2002): placing ads for the required freelance services, contacting potential t eam members in person or using the services of an outsourcing company. It would be most efficient to use the latter option and sign a contract with several outstaffing companies. These companies would help to add external team members when necessary.Alternative B Another alternative is using more efficient resource leveling practices and detailed assessment of employee skills and abilities. The proposed program is the following: project managers should divide the stages of the project into smaller sub-stages, assign project roles and responsibilities in accordance with these sub-stages (Schiel, 2009). It is essential that project managers adjust project roles after every sub-stage of the project and align the changes with the schedule containing   activities of potential team members (including previous projects and future projects) (Schiel, 2009). HRM professionals should improve skills assessment process and introduce sub-skills in development and different business domains. The se skills should be weighed against current project role requirements so that project managers could assign team members who can add maximal value to the project.CriteriaCriterion 1. Compliance with customer requirementsThis criterion determines to which degree the company’s ability to adhere to customer requirements will be changed after implementing the new program.Criterion 2. Adherence to initial budget estimates.This criterion determines the extent to which project teams will be able to match initial budgets after implementing the new program.Criterion 3. Compliance with project timingThis criterion describes the degree of complying with schedule that teams will demonstrate after implementing the new program.Criterion 4. Business risk exposureThis criterion assesses the change in the degree of exposure to business risks achieved due to implementing the new program.Criterion 5. Project risk exposureThis criterion assesses the change in the degree of exposure to project ri sks achieved due to implementing the new program.Research MethodsThe methods used to research the information needed to determine the best recommended alternative included reviewing literature, analyzing research evidence pertaining to the impact of the use of outstaffing and advanced resource leveling on project resource allocation. In addition, the sources related to the influence of outstaffing and/or resource leveling on software quality, project time and budget, project risks and corporate risks were considered. The information was collected from software project management books, human resource management books and journals, computer science journals and case studies evaluating the effect of project management solutions.