400-600 words

Review the video link on the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. For this discussion board, what lessons can be learned regarding project management leadership? Risk management? There is a lot of research regarding this tragedy, so be sure that you use additional (minimum of 2) external cited research from both the Challenger investigation and Project/Risk Management to support your considerations.

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You are a team leader in a clinic inside of a medium security state prison. Many of the inmates have been diagnosed with brain disorders and the attending prison physicians have indicated medications that the prisoners must take while incarcerated in the facility. A state legislator visiting the prison has been advised of this program forcing inmates to take medications to treat their mental illnesses and is concerned about the reasons this is being done against the inmates will. The legislator asks for a meeting with members of the prison clinic and you are tasked to explain the reasoning for the forced medication program. The following are questions being asked by the legislator that need to be addressed:

• Why are diagnosed mental health problem inmates being held in a jail type facility?
• What is the reason the inmates are being given the drugs?
• How can the prison clinic be forcing inmates to take the drugs against their will?

3-5 paragraphs with references

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Scenario:

You are the director of safety and security at a major manufacturing plant. The plant has 1,800 workers and runs three shifts a day. The night shift has about 400 workers on it and runs from midnight to 8:00 AM. The security supervisor for the night shift reports to you that there are some unusual activities going on during the night shift involving three of the younger male employees. You decide that you will visit the plant during the night shift to observe this behavior for yourself.

The night you arrive, you realize that you know one of the three young men involved, and he has always been a good worker and a very serious person. You note right away that all three men have an extraordinarily high energy level. They are having a hard time settling down at their assembly points on the line. They are whooping and hollering all the time over the noise of the shop. They are aggressive to the point of pushing other employees around physically. You notice extreme cases of acne and body odor on all three men when you walk by them. Their eyes are glassy and dilated.

At their 3:30 AM lunch break, they cross the street to an all-night diner. You notice that they sit with a man wearing a motorcycle jacket with local gang colors. They do not eat, but only have coffee. You see them pay cash to the man with the jacket and he hands one of the three men a small package. When the man with the motorcycle jacket leaves, he mounts a motorcycle and rides off. The three men go to the men’s bathroom in the diner. They are in the bathroom for almost 10 minutes. When they come out, they are boisterous, agitated, and overly animated with their movements.

In your paper, answer the following questions based on the scenario:

• How does the drug use in this company affect the coworkers, safety, and company production?
• What is the likely drug being abused by the three workers under suspicion?
• Why did that drug get identified?
• Would it be better to involve the police immediately? Why or why not?
• Should you refer the workers to the Employee Assistance Program? Explain your decision.
• Does the association of the motorcycle gang with the company workers impact the company?
• Why type of liability could the company face if it does not take definitive action concerning this situation?

10-12 pages APA format with references

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Even the most intelligent manager is prone to personal biases and pitfalls that can lead to bad decisions. We all carry biases based on our personal experiences. And we can all fall into various traps that lead to decisions that seem perfectly logical at the time but in retrospect, we see that we should have known better.

In the background materials, including Bolland and Fletcher (2012); Kourdi (2003); and Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa (2008); several specific decision-making biases and pitfalls are discussed. Collectively these are known as cognitive biases. Some of the common pitfalls and biases discussed in these readings include overconfidence bias, confirmation (self-confirming) bias, sunk-cost bias, framing bias, and hindsight bias.

Carefully review all three of these readings and make sure you understand the different types of biases. Then read through the scenarios below and think about what kind of biases are demonstrated in each scenario. For each scenario, carefully explain which specific bias or biases is demonstrated by the decision and what can be done to avoid this bias in the future. Make sure to pick at least one specific bias that you read about for each scenario, and explain your reasoning. Use references to at least one of the three required readings from the background materials in your discussion of each scenario below. Your paper should be 4–5 pages in length:

1. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a corporation is of the strong belief that marketing is not a good use of the company’s money. Someone shows her data from several years ago showing that during a period of high spending on marketing, sales did not go up. She says, “See, I told you marketing is not a good use of our budget!” and cuts the marketing budget to almost zero. Following the cut in the marketing budget, sales also start to drop dramatically. When asked by an employee if the drop in sales is due to the cut in the marketing budget, she says, “No!” and insists there must be a different explanation. What kind of decision-making bias do you think this represents, and why? What steps would you recommend to this CEO to reduce this kind of bias? Support your answer with references to at least one of the three background readings.
2. A CEO decides that he wants to greatly expand the company’s market by purchasing a major rival. This acquisition would double the company’s market share. However, several of his top managers warn him that such a purchase would require the company to take out a huge amount of debt to finance this merger, and that many of these large mergers have failed. They also point out that the organizational culture of the other company is very different and that managing this merger would be very difficult. Nonetheless, the CEO insists that he can overcome the odds and plans to go through with the merger. What kind of decision-making bias do you think this represents, and why? What steps should this leader take to avoid this bias? Support your answer with references to at least one of the three background readings.
3. A CEO wants to purchase a new factory. He is currently deciding between two factories. The owner of Factory A brags that 94% of products produced at the factory are free of defects. The owner of Factory B cautions that his factory has a 5% defect rate but management and staff are working very hard to reduce the rate. The CEO decides to purchase Factory A citing its strong 94% rate of success in producing defect-free products even though Factory B actually has a 95% rate of success. What kind of decision-making bias do you think this represents, and why? What steps should this leader take to avoid this bias?
4. A CEO of an automobile company decides to introduce a new hybrid vehicle using cutting-edge technology. A huge amount of money is spent in research and development as well as advertising. But when the car is completed sales are very slow and the price has to be cut so low that the company is losing money on every hybrid vehicle sold. She is advised to simply abandon the car to avoid further losses in profits, and focus her energy on selling profitable vehicles. However, she insists it is unwise to abandon the hybrid vehicle given that so much money has already been put into the project. What kind of decision-making bias do you think this represents, and why? What steps should this leader take to avoid this bias? Support your answer with references to at least one of the three background readings.
5. Conclude the paper with a discussion about which one of the decision-making biases you think is the most dangerous to a leader, and explain your reasoning.

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