Managing the virtual project team
“Bzzz. Bzzz.”, goes the iPhone. 7:39am. The first email of the day arrives, announcing that the manuscripts for Unit 4 have been successfully deposited to DropBox and are now ready for integration. I log in to the shared Google Document status report spreadsheet to confirm that the appropriate cells have been coloured green and the date correctly recorded, and welcome another day as a virtual PM.
The PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) does an excellent job of standardizing and cataloguing the inputs, outputs, and processes required to successfully manage a project using the Waterfall approach. An unwritten assumption of the approach, however, is that project teams and project managers (PMs) enjoy the luxury of working together in a central location, sharing equal access to information, to time, to resources, and to one another. In the context of a modern business, however, the existence of this traditional team structure is fading, and enterprises small and large are composing non-traditional project teams to respond to specific project requirements.
Sutherland’s Differential Association and its nine propositions
Edwin Sutherland’s theory of Differential Association evolved from the Chicago School of sociology, which observed that crime occurred more frequently in areas lacking social organization and institutions of social control (Gomme, 37). Crime was usually explained by multiple factors – such as social class, age, race, and urban or rural location. Sutherland developed his theory of Differential Association in order to explain how these factors were related to crime (Cullen & Agnew, 122). It had been observed that once high rates of crime were established in a geographical region, the pattern reoccurred, with “new generations of inhabitants sustaining the pattern” (Gomme, 37). Sutherland was thus interested in explaining how such a cross-generational transmission of delinquent values occurred (Lilly et al., 42). In his theory of Differential Association, he posited that criminal behaviour is a result of a process of socialization, during which criminal “definitions” are not only transmitted culturally (Gomme, 37), but are actually learned through social interactions with intimate groups (Winfree & Abadinsky, 193). The theory is outlined in nine propositions.
Robert Merton’s personal adaptations to anomie (aka “strain theory”)
Like many sociologists and criminologists, Robert Merton was interested in explaining the root of social deviance; however, unlike most theorists, who posited that crime and deviance arise from individual causes (such as a biological “defect”) (Cullen & Agnew, 171), Merton argued that certain groups participate in criminal behaviour because they are“responding normally to the social situation in which they find themselves” (Tierney, 95-6). His theory of the five personal adaptations to anomie, also known as “strain theory”, arose from the earlier sociological theory of anomie developed by Emile Durkheim (Gomme, 49). Anomie is a sort of psychological “state of confusion” in which an individual observes a conflict between the prescribed and commonplace social goals and the culturally-acceptable, “legitimate” ways to pursue those goals (Gomme, 48).
Seductive Evil in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”
Some have criticized Paradise Lost for its sympathetic portrayal of Satan as a heroic and appealing character. At times, Satan’s actions seem somewhat justified: he considers himself to be an innocent victim, suffering alienation once exiled from Heaven. This begs the question: why is Milton’s Satan not more obviously "evil"? Why has the stereotypical, red, horned "Devil" been replaced by a somewhat sympathetic, fallen angel? Does this imply that Paradise Lost failed at its task of moral education, or that perhaps Milton’s own understanding of evil was ambiguous, unclear or incomplete?
Milton’s just, merciful and redemptive God
William Empson’s book Milton’s God is an account of Paradise Lost that associates God with a Stalinist tyrant (146). The primary association for this understanding is located in Empson’s critique of Milton’s God as a "neurotic parent" (116) who exposes his children to certain temptation, and ultimately orchestrates their Fall. For this author, it appears that in releasing Satan (Empson 112), God assures the Fall of humankind in order to "save" it, and in this way is a harsh tyrant who enslaves His human creations to serve His own narcissism. (Empson 39)