Task breakdowns

When examining how humans respond to their work environment and the duties required of them,
employing a task analysis can offer a methodical working outline of the task. Such an analysis furnishes
precise data on how tasks are carried out in reality, which can be contrasted with how tasks ought to be
performed and/or how tasks are perceived to be performed. In task analysis, a thorough description is
developed of the working duty and all its requisite sub-duties, demonstrating how all the tasks are
interconnected at different levels. This method can be employed to anticipate challenges, assess
performance and recognize risks. The analysis begins by determining the overall goal of the task is.Once
we have broken down the overarching duty into sequential segments, it is feasible to single out certain
postures or movements that, if left unmodified, could contribute to long-term harm or MSDs. The
necessary data to conduct a task analysis can stem from interviews, observations, manuals or prior
experience.

Diagnosis:
Ergonomics means designing for human beings. Ergonomics considers our physical attributes, habits,
behaviors, and needs to develop a work environment that is well-adapted for humans.

Everything from the lighting, to the positioning of work equipment, to the organization of workers’
schedules contribute to ergonomics. To create a good ergonomic workplace, equipment must be able to
be adjusted to individual people’s needs. The significance of ergonomics should be made evident by
management and incorporated into daily work.

Not every job is as likely to lead to ergonomic problems as others. Some work environments make it
more probable that employees will experience musculoskeletal disorders and other ailments.
Here is an assessment of how likely an occupation is to have deficient workplace ergonomics and lead to
musculoskeletal disorders:

 Greater force required to perform a duty

 Static and awkward postures adopted when fulfilling a task

 How repetitive a duty is

According to the WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury, 2000-
2016: Global Monitoring Report, the majority of work-related deaths were due to respiratory and
cardiovascular disease.

 Non-communicable diseases accounted for 81 per cent of the deaths. The greatest causes of
deaths were chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (450,000 deaths); stroke (400,000 deaths)
and ischaemic heart disease (350,000 deaths). Occupational injuries caused 19 percent of deaths
(360,000 deaths).
 The study considers 19 occupational risk factors, including exposure to long working hours and
workplace exposure to air pollution, asthmagens, carcinogens, ergonomic risk factors, and noise.
The key risk was exposure to long working hours – linked to approximately 750,000 deaths.
Workplace exposure to air pollution (particulate matter, gases and fumes) was responsible for
450,000 deaths.

What is Workload Analysis?

A task for a human operator within human-machine interactions should neither underload nor overload
an individual, and workload analysis is important to assess workload during task completion. A number
of tools for the evaluation and prediction of mental workload were developed and currently used (Rubio,
et al., 2004). There are three categories of mental workload measurements; subjective measures,
performance-based techniques and physiological measures.
 1. Subjective measures

Subjective workload measures are commonly used tools in many fields and task scenarios. Subjective
measures are known to be sensitive, comprehensive and diagnostic as well. Subjective measures are
frequently preferred because they are simple to employ and users tend to accept these approaches.

There are many subjective workload scales such as the Modified Cooper Harper [MCH], the Subjective
Workload Assessment Technique [SWAT], the NASA Task Load Index [NASA-TLX], the Overall Workload
Scale, the Bedford Scale, the Verbal Online Subjective Opinion [VOSO], the Workload Profile [WP] and
the Subjective Opinion via Continuous Control [SOCC]. Commonly utilized subjective measures include
the NASA-TLX, SWAT and WP. SWAT, NASA-TLX and WP are all multidimensional. See the figures for the
rating scale dimensions.

2. Performance-based
techniques

Performance-based
measures can be
categorized in primary task
measurements and
secondary task
measurements. Primary
task measurements
evaluate user’s
performance (e.g., speed or
accuracy) on primary
system functions as indexes
of operator workload. It is
expected that user’s
performance (speed and/or
accuracy) will decrease as
workload increases.

Secondary task
methodologies normally
utilize secondary tasks
which are not part of
normal system functions
(Wierwille & Eggemeier,
1993). Such tasks typically
involve memory, mental
math, interval production,
reaction time, time
estimation, and tracking.

3. Physiological techniques

There are various physiological techniques that can be used as indexes of mental workload.

 Heart rate: an index of arousal or physical work

 less-intrusive; good for continuous monitoring of workload)

 Brain activity: e.g., EEG recordings

 Difficult to synchronize stimuli with EEG records; lots of noise in data from body
movement)

 Eye activity: e.g., eye-blink latency, eye-blink duration, eye-blink rate

 typically, best used to measure workload of visual tasks

 Others: respiration, eye point-of-regard, epoch analyses of EEG

Why Use Usability Testing?

Workload analysis would allow assessing human operators’ experience of workload during executing
tasks, regulating workload demands would ensure safety, health, comfort, and long-term productive
efficiency of the operators (Rubio et al., 2004). A goal of workload analysis would be to regulate task
demands not to be neither underload or overload an individual. Although the dangers of overload have
long been recognized, many of our recent concerns are with the stress of underload and boredom
(Becker, Warm, Dember, & Hancock, 1991; Hancock & Warm, 1989), particularly as operations become
the subject of progressively increased automation.

When to Use Workload Analysis?

Workload analysis often used in the later design stage of evaluation. Human operators are typically
assessed during they are interacting with targeted systems in a real-world or simulated environments.
Workload analysis also can be implemented at early stage of the design cycle such as task analysis.
Designers or human factors evaluators may predict points of overload or underload to find potential
error points.

How to Use Workload Analysis?

There are criteria to consider selecting suitable workload assessment methodologies for your targeted
task/system/procedure (Eggemeier, Wilson, Kramer, & Damos, 1991):

1. Sensitivity: A tool’s power to detect changes in task difficulty or demands.

2. Diagnosticity: This involves identifying changes in workload variation as well as the cause of those
changes.
3. Selectivity/Validity: The index must be sensitive only to differences in cognitive demands, not to
changes in other variables such as physical workload or emotional stress, which are not necessarily
associated with mental workload.

4. Intrusiveness: The measure should not interfere with the primary task performance, the load which is
the actual object of evaluation.

5. Reliability: The measure must reflect consistently the mental workload.

6. Implementation requirements: Including aspects such as time, instruments, and software for the
collection and analysis of data.

7. Subject acceptability: This refers to the subject’s perception of the validity and usefulness of the
procedure.

In addition to the primary considerations, there are additional things that human factors researchers
might need to consider to select workload analysis measures (Wierwille & Eggemeier, 1993).

 Time: short-term (several seconds) vs. Long-term (hours). It is important to identify if you want a
momentary workload assessment or an overall workload assessment

 Multiple measures: some measures may be sensitive to different parts of a task; thus,
employing more than one measure may be more helpful for diagnostic purposes. However,
multiple measures may also interfere with one another

Situation awareness (SA) is the understanding of an environment, its elements, and how it changes
with respect to time or other factors. It plays a crucial role in effective decision-making across various
contexts, including law enforcement, aviation, healthcare, emergency response, and military
operations1. Let’s delve deeper into what SA entails:

Perception: SA begins with perceiving the relevant elements in the environment. This involves
recognizing and gathering information about what is happening around us.

Comprehension: Beyond perception, SA involves comprehending the situation. It’s not just about
knowing the facts; it’s about understanding their meaning and significance.People with high SA can
integrate information and grasp its implications.

Projection: The highest level of SA involves projecting future scenarios. It’s about anticipating how the
situation might evolve based on the available information. This proactive aspect of SA is critical for
decision-making in demanding environments.
SA is like creating a mental map that helps us navigate our surroundings, identify challenges, and develop
effective coping strategies. Whether you’re a pilot monitoring flight conditions or a healthcare
professional assessing a patient’s status, SA empowers you to act with clarity and adaptability.

7 steps of the decision-making process

1. Identify the decision.

2. Gather relevant information.

3. Identify the alternatives.

4. Weigh the evidence.

5. Choose among the alternatives.

6. Take action.

7. Review your decision.

Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has
made all the difference.” But unfortunately, not every decision is as simple as “Let’s just take this path
and see where it goes,” especially when you’re making a decision related to your business.

Whether managing a small team or leading a large corporation, your success and the success of your
company depend on making the right decisions—and learning from the wrong decisions.

Use these decision-making process steps to help you make more profitable decisions. You'll be able to
better prevent hasty decision-making and make more educated decisions.
7 decision-making process steps

While there exist numerous minor variations of the decision-making process available online, in business
textbooks, and in leadership presentations, professionals generally employ these seven steps most
frequently.

1. Identify the decision.

To make a decision, you must first identify the problem you need to solve or the question you need to
answer. Clearly define your decision. If you misidentify the problem to solve, or if the problem you’ve
chosen is too broad, you’ll knock the decision train off the track before it even leaves the station.

If you need to achieve a specific goal from your decision, make it measurable and timely.

2. Gather relevant information.

Once you have identified your decision, it’s time to gather the information relevant to that choice. Do an
internal assessment, seeing where your organization has succeeded and failed in areas related to your
decision. Also, seek information from external sources, including studies, market research, and, in some
cases, evaluation from paid consultants.

Keep in mind, you can become bogged down by too much information and that might only complicate
the process.

3. Identify the alternatives.

With relevant information now at your fingertips, identify possible solutions to your problem. There is
usually more than one option to consider when trying to meet a goal. For example, if your company is
trying to gain more engagement on social media, your alternatives could include paid social
advertisements, a change in your organic social media strategy, or a combination of the two.

4. Weigh the evidence.

Once you have identified multiple alternatives, weigh the evidence for or against said alternatives. See
what companies have done in the past to succeed in these areas, and take a good look at your
organization’s own wins and losses. Identify potential pitfalls for each of your alternatives, and weigh
those against the possible rewards.
5. Choose among alternatives.

6. This is the stage of the decision-making process where you actually make the decision.Hopefully,
you’ve identified and clarified what decision needs to be made, gathered all relevant information, and
developed and considered the potential paths to take. You should be prepared to choose.

6. Take action

Once you’ve made your decision, act on it! Develop a plan to make your decision tangible and
achievable. Develop a project plan related to your decision, and then assign tasks to your team.

7. Review your decision

After a predetermined amount of time—which you defined in step one of the decision-making process—
take an honest look back at your decision. Did you solve the problem? Did you answer the question? Did
you meet your goals?

If so, take note of what worked for future reference. If not, learn from your mistakes as you begin the
decision-making process again.

A decision matrix is another tool that can help you evaluate your options and make better decisions.
Learn how to make a decision matrix and get started quickly with the template below.

Planning Process
The planning function of management is one of the most crucial ones. It involves setting the goals of the
company and then managing the resources to achieve such goals. As you can imagine it is a systematic
process involving eight well thought out steps. Let us take a look at the planning process.

1] Recognizing Need for Action

An important part of the planning process is to be aware of the business opportunities in the firm’s
external environment as well as within the firm. Once such opportunities get recognized the managers
can recognize the actions that need to be taken to realize them. A realistic look must be taken at the
prospect of these new opportunities and SWOT analysis should be done.

Say for example the government plans on promoting cottage industries in semi-urban areas. A firm can
look to explore this opportunity.

What are the Types of Plan?

2] Setting Objectives

This is the second and perhaps the most important step of the planning process. Here we establish the
objectives for the whole organization and also individual departments. Organizational objectives provide
a general direction; objectives of departments will be more planned and detailed.

Objectives can be long term and short term as well. They indicate the end result the company wishes to
achieve. So objectives will percolate down from the managers and will also guide and push
the employees in the correct direction.

Importance, Features, and Limitation of Planning here in detail.

3] Developing Premises

Planning is always done keeping the future in mind, however, the future is always uncertain. So in
the function of management certain assumptions will have to be made. These assumptions are the
premises. Such assumptions are made in the form of forecasts, existing plans, past policies, etc.
These planning premises are also of two types – internal and external. External assumptions deal with
factors such as political environment, social environment, the advancement of technology,
competition, government policies, etc. Internal assumptions deal with policies, availability of
resources, quality of management, etc.

These assumptions being made should be uniform across the organization. All managers should be
aware of these premises and should agree with them.

4] Identifying Alternatives

The fourth step of the planning process is to identify the alternatives available to the managers. There is
no one way to achieve the objectives of the firm, there are a multitude of choices. All of these
alternative courses should be identified. There must be options available to the manager.

Maybe he chooses an innovative alternative hoping for more efficient results. If he does not want to
experiment he will stick to the more routine course of action. The problem with this step is not finding
the alternatives but narrowing them down to a reasonable amount of choices so all of them can be
thoroughly evaluated.

5] Examining Alternate Course of Action

The next step of the planning process is to evaluate and closely examine each of the alternative plans.
Every option will go through an examination where all there pros and cons will be weighed. The
alternative plans need to be evaluated in light of the organizational objectives.

For example, if it is a financial plan. Then in that case its risk-return evaluation will be done. Detailed
calculation and analysis are done to ensure that the plan is capable of achieving the objectives in the
best and most efficient manner possible.

6] Selecting the Alternative

Finally, we reach the decision making stage of the planning process. Now the best and most feasible plan
will be chosen to be implemented. The ideal plan is the most profitable one with the least amount of
negative consequences and is also adaptable to dynamic situations.

The choice is obviously based on scientific analysis and mathematical equations. But a manager's
intuition and experience should also play a big part in this decision. Sometimes a few different aspects of
various plans are combined to develop the single ideal plan.

7] Formulating Supporting Plan

Once you have chosen the plan to be implemented, managers will have to come up with one or more
supporting plans. These secondary plans help with the implementation of the main plan. For example,
plans to hire more people, train personnel, expand the office etc. are supporting plans for the main plan
of launching a new product. So all these secondary plans are in fact part of the main plan.

8] Implementation of the Plan

And finally, we come to the last step of the planning process, implementation of the plan. This is when all
the other functions of management come into play and the plan is put into action to achieve the
objectives of the organization. The tools required for such implementation involve the types of plans-
procedures, policies, budgets, rules, standards etc.