A typical dissertation runs between 250 and 300 pages, divided into four or five chapters, often with a short conclusion following the final full-scale chapter.
There is no set minimum or maximum length, but anything below about 225 pages will likely look insubstantial in comparison to others, while anything over 350 pages may suggest a lack of proportion and control of the topic, and would probably take too long to write.
How to create temporary teams that can bypass bureaucracy and get crucial work done quickly.
In the past 20 years, the agile approach to improving products, services, and processes has swept the business world. Rooted in software development, agile has spread to many other functions, and some companies have turned much of their organization, including the C-suite, into agile teams.
But agile is not suitable for all circumstances, particularly in carrying out the many key operations and functions of an organization that require consistency and efficiency.
This article describes how large established companies can use agility hacks to temporarily bypass their standard processes to act quickly and effectively while leaving the overall system alone.
Arguably the most natural and powerful form of learning is through experience, or more precisely through reflection on doing. This is also known as experiential learning.
Facing rapid change—and even unprecedented upheaval—large and small businesses alike must race against time to innovate and adjust their strategies, business models, organizational systems, and cultures.
While some organizations struggle with rapid transformation, many are able to evolve quickly because leaders have built strategic agility into the organization’s DNA. In this live online program, you’ll learn how to become a more strategically agile leader who can help your organization compete and succeed in uncertain times.
Career Development offices at American universities advise on personal branding tactics in order to improve the career prospects of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students. Yale University, for example, helps students understand how best to use LinkedIn in order to network with contacts and employers.
When uploading a photo, students are advised: “To be mindful of the image you want to project. Be sure that it is appropriate for the audience who will be viewing it.”
The office also recommends that students join Ivy League groups and alumni networks to take advantage of connections with other elite universities. Further, Yale students are advised “to connect with those with whom you share common interests.“
As children Americans learn at an early age to be on – or to be put onto – center stage. As early as Kindergarten, in Show and Tell, they are asked to bring something personal into school: a toy, a stuffed animal, one of their favorite books. They stand before their peers and present.
They practice not only speaking in front of a group – the first experience with public speaking – they learn how to speak about themselves and their feelings. And when they do, they seek from the other children attention, positive feedback, ultimately approval. They are in presentation mode.
It is the same with letter-writing. American children are taught not only to feel free to begin sentences with I. They are encouraged to write in the active, not passive, form. They should write from their individual, personal perspective. Letters are per definition a personal and consciously subjective form of communication.
Personal branding is not new. People have always taken into consideration how they are perceived by those they are trying to persuade. It is natural that the marketing techniques used to sell products are being applied to selling a person, or a person’s skills, experience, value.
Books, seminars and companies advise individuals on how to best manage their reputation in the Internet. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other forums and communities exert influence on how people are perceived. Perceptions are personal and subjective. Branding means presenting the messenger in the most positive light.
See what books Amazon offers on personal branding.
Perhaps because of the high cost of tuition at American universities, Americans typically view students as customers and schools as businesses. As such, teachers will attempt to cater to the needs of their students – if a certain process doesn’t interest the customers (students), the teacher will change it in order to keep the customers attentive.
During their classes, if American teachers notice that students aren’t paying attention, they will often include several amusing anecdotes that they tell throughout the class to keep their students’ focus.
For example, during a physics class, it would not be uncommon for an American professor to stop the lecture to talk to students about how Herman Weyl (one of the early proponents of group theory) had an affair with Erwin Schrodinger’s (the physicist who’s best known not only for his quantum mechanics equation but also for his potentially dead cat) wife, or how Murray Gell-Mann (who won the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics) was so narcissistic that he once warned his cab driver not to cash his check, because he believed that his signature was worth more than his cab fare had been.
American teachers will also include anecdotal stories from their own lives if these stories have any relevance to the subject matter. For example, if the teacher is describing a discovery made at CERN, he/she might talk about a colleague who worked there.
The case method utilized in business schools is also used in American law schools. It relies on the principle that the most effective way to learn American law is to scrutinize judicial opinions which have become the law.
Law school cases allow students to discern a legal rule, prompting students to test their knowledge in simulated situations. This sensitivity towards facts and reliance on previous judicial rulings is deeply imbedded in the legal system in the United States.
Most American business schools base their teaching on case studies, a method which goes back over one hundred years. Business cases are descriptions of actual business situations.
Information is presented about a company: products, markets, competition, financial structure, sales, management, employees, as well as other factors influencing success. The length of business cases ranges from five to fifty pages. Case studies are based on experience.