1) Understand the appropriate conduct for particular Creative Media workplace
1.1 Describe and compare the cultures of different Creative Media workplaces
Wherever you work, your new environment will always be different to your last one. Some company environments vary because of their size. Some are large, more populated companies, and others are smaller and more independent. Some placements have a strict dress code, others are more relaxed; some companies are lax on swearing, others hold up a big "no-no" flag to swearing. Some companies have employees working by themselves on a regular basis, some have them working together in pairs or teams more frequently. Generally the smaller the company, the more relaxed atmosphere it seems to be.
1.2 Describe examples of challenging behaviours and issues in the workplace
CHALLENGING BEHAVIOUR - used as a way to label the behaviours as challenging, rather than label the person as the problem.
In a healthcare facility, difficult or challenging behaviours can include:
> Aggression, with or without threats
> Screaming and/or calling out constantly
> Confusion or other cognitive impairment
> Suspiciousness, accusations
> Noisiness
> Sleep disturbance
> Manipulation
> Hiding and losing items
> Wandering
> Anxiety
> Intoxication
> Withdrawal, apathy
> Intrusive behaviour
> Incontinence
> Confabulation - verbalisations about people, places and events with no basis in reality
> Disinhibition - inability to suppress impulsive behaviour and emotions
> Verbal offensiveness
> Self-destructive or suicidal acts
> Clinging
> Refusing assistance
> Rocking
> Spitting
> Clamping mouth shut
1.3 Explain the role of the key people to inform in relation to those examples
Before Worksafe ACT becomes involved in the issue, try resolving the issue "in house", if you haven't already done so.
This might include:
> Direct negotiation with management
> Negotiation with management through union representatives or your Health & Safety representative
> Reporting a complaint to your local Work Safety Committee
You can contact Worksafe ACT if none of these courses of action are appropriate or successful. For action to be taken it will be necessary for sufficient information to be provided to enable Worksafe ACT to:
> Identify the issue as one within their jurisdiction. Where it is identified that another agency has jurisdiction over the issue, we may advise you to refer it to them.
> Find the address of the workplace and the location within that workplace which is the subject matter of the issue
> Identify the name and address of the organisation or individual in control of the workplace
Inspectors will not reveal the source of the information if you wish to remain anonymous. However, if you wish to remain anonymous, it is not possible for an inspector to seek further information from you or provide feedback on the outcome of any investigation. Remaining anonymous may also limit Worksafe ACT's capacity to deal with the matter effectively.
1.4 Explain the impact of different behaviours and conduct in the workplace
Bullying and harassment in the workplace exposes organisations to two significant risks:
> LEGAL - through employment law, personal injury claims and anti-discrimination legislation relating to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and disability.
> PERFORMANCE - morale and performance drop when employees feel intimidated by their colleagues or by their managers.
2) Know how to plan and manage workload
2.1 Describe effective time management skills needed to plan workload
10) SET PRIORITIES - Focussing on priorities is a big part of good time management. First you need to define what those priorities are. Start with the big picture: Where do you want to go in your life and career? Also consider values. Next, think about what you can do this month, this week, even as soon as tomorrow, to make progress towards these goals.
9) JUST SAY NO - The reason to set priorities is that you can't do everything. That's why good time management also involves deciding what not to do. Too often, we obsess over how to fit every task and project into our schedule, when we would benefit by simply dropping unnecessary duties.
8) DON'T AGONIZE, ORGANISE - The first step in getting organised is to write down the things you need to do. This is an ongoing process and a key to effective time management. The goal is to get it off your mind but make sure you deal with it. Use what works.
7) BREAK IT DOWN - Breaking large projects and unpleasant tasks into smaller action-items can be a great stress-reliever. It's easy to feel overwhelmed when you have six major commitments looming. Your goal should be to take each project and divide it into manageable components. Then pick out the ones you can do today - and actually do them!
6) BLOCK THAT TIME - You've set priorities, broken your project down into tasks, now what? Set aside time to do it. Too often, we put an item on our to-do list, fail to get around to it and move it over to tomorrow's list. Why? Meetings, interruptions, phone calls, crises and more interruptions. Dedicate blocks of time to specific tasks.
5) MULTI_TASK WISELY Multitasking "implies that we are focussing on two things at once". Multitasking is not necessarily a way to increase productivity. In fact, experts now think that the distractions and bursts of attention involved can lead to a mild form of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) (Source: Kirwan-Taylor)
4) TAKE CONTROL OF MEETINGS - Any time wasted in a meeting is multiplied by the number of people involved. That's why it's essential to make meeting times as efficient as possible. Keep the number of attendees at a minimum, and don't attend a meeting unless your participation is really needed. Make sure everyone knows the purpose and agenda of the meeting.
3) TAME YOUR E-MAIL HABITS - E-mail seems like an ideal time management tool, right? The reality is that many people find themselves checking their e-mails and end up putting aside other work to read and answer them. You may be deluged with irrelevant messages. E-mail can quickly become a time-waster.
2) PLAN FOR TOMORROW - The irony of time management is that many of us can't find the time to manage over time. Habits and pressing duties keep us from setting priorities, breaking down tasks and getting organised.
1) RELAX - BE HAPPY
> Always take a lunch break
> Schedule exercise breaks
> Determine a cut-off time for work
> Disconnect regularly
> Set aside time to do nothing
> Take a real holiday
These are just omse ways you can help stop time management becoming another source of stress.
2.3 Explain how to construct a simple project plan
1) PROJECT GOALS - A project is successful when the needs of the stakeholders have been met. A stakeholder is anybody directly or indirectly impacted by the project. Identify these stakeholders. They could be:
> Project sponsor
> Customer who receives the deliverables
> Users of the project outputs
> Project manager
> Project team.
The best way to find out their needs, is by conducting stakeholder interviews, taking time to draw out true needs that create real benefits, and prioritise these. Once clear goals are established, record these in the project plan.
2) PROJECT DELIVERABLES - Using the goals set in step 1, create a list of things the project needs to deliver in order to meet these goals. Specify when and how each item must be delivered. Add deliverables to project plan with an estimated delivery date. More accurate dates established in step 3.
3) PROJECT SCHEDULE - Create a list of tasks that need to be carried out for each deliverable identified in step 2. Identify:
> Amount of effort (hours or days) required to complete the task
> The resource who will carry out the task.
Once these are established, you can work out more accurately when each deliverable will arrive to the consumer. Update deliverables section with the updated delivery dates. If you discover that the sponsor's imposed delivery deadline is not realistic based on your estimates, you must connect them immediately. Options are:
> Renegotiate deadline
> Employ additional resources
> Reduce scope of project
4) SUPPORTING PLANS
> Human Resource Plan - Identify by name, the individuals and organisations with a leading role in the project. Describe roles and responsibilities for each. Describe number and type of people needed to carry out the project. Detail start dates, estimated duration and the method used for obtaining them.
> Communications Plan - Who needs to be kept informed about the project and how they will receive the information. A weekly or monthly progress report is ideal, describing how the project is performing, milestones achieved and work planned for the next period.
> Risk Management - important part of project management. Identify as many risks to your project as possible, and be prepared. Common risks include:
> Time and cost estimates too optimistic
> Customer review and feedback cycle too slow
> Unexpected budget cuts
> Unclear roles and responsibilities
> Stakeholder input is not sought or needs are not properly understood
> Stakeholders changed requirements after project started
> Stakeholders added new requirements after project started
> Poor communication resulting in misunderstanding, quality problems and rework
> Lack of resource commitment
Track risk in risk log, and review it regularly, adding new risks throughout the project's life. When risks are ignored, they don't go away.
2.4 Explain the use of a contingency plan
CONTINGENCY PLAN - A plan devised for an exceptional risk which is impractical or impossible to avoid. Often devised by governments or businesses who want to be prepared for events which, while unlikely, may have catastrophic effects. For example, suppose many employees of a company are travelling together on an aircraft which crashes, killing all aboard. The company could be severely strained or ruined by such a loss. Accordingly, many companies have procedures to follow in the event of such a disaster. The plan may also include standing policies to mitigate a disaster's potential impact, such as requiring employees to travel separately or limiting the number of employees on one aircraft.
2.5 Explain the importance of storing work, using version control and observing file naming conventions
Your data is valuable. It will cost you time and effort to re-create it, and that costs money or at least personal grief and tears; sometimes it can't even be recreated (e.g. if it is the results of some experiments or a survey). Since it is an investment, you should protect it and take steps to avoid losing it.
There are four reasons you might lose data:
> HARDWARE FAILURE - Though modern hardware tends to be quite reliable, it can still break seemingly spontaneously. The most critical piece of hardware for storing data is the hard disk drive (HDD), which relies on tiny magnetic fields remaining intact in a world filled with electromagnetic noise.
> SOFTWARE BUGS - Modern software doesn't even tend to be reliable; a rock solid program is an exception, not a rule.
> HUMAN ACTION - Humans are quite unreliable, they will either make a mistake, or they will be malicious and destroy data deliberately.
> NATURAL DISASTER - Nature might not be evil, but it can wreak havoc even when it's being good. All in all, it's a small miracle anything works at all.
Backups are a god way to protect the investment in data. By having several copies of the data, it does not matter as much if one is destroyed (the cost is only that of the restoration of the lost data from the backup).
It is important to do backups properly. Like everything else that is related to the physical world, backups will fail sooner or later. Part of doing backups well is to make sure they work; you don't want to notice that your backups didn't work. Adding insult to injury, you might have a bad crash as you're making the backup; if you have only one backup medium, it might be destroyed as well, leaving you with the smoking ashes of hard work. Or you might notice, when trying to restore, that you forgot to back up something important like the user database on a 1,500 user site. Best of all, all your backups might be working perfectly, but the last known tape drive reading the kinds of tapes you used was the one that now has a bucketload of water in it.
When it comes to backups, paranoia is in the job description.
VERSION CONTROL lets you track your files over time. Why care? So when you mess up you can easily get back to a previous working version. You probably have your own version control system without realising it had such a geeky name. Got any files like:
> Kalid Azid Resume Oct2006.doc
> Kalid Azid Resume Mar2007.doc
> instacalc.logo3.png
> instacalc-logo4.png
> logo-old.png?
It's why we use "Save As". You want the new file without obliterating the old one. It's a common problem, and solutions are usually like this:
>Make a single backup copy (Document.old.txt)
> If we're clever, we add a version number or date (Document_V1.txt, DocumentMarch2007.txt etc.)
We may even use a shared folder so other people can see and edit files without sending them over e-mail. Hopefully they relabel the file after they save it. Using shared folders/naming system good for class projects or one-time papers, but don't use for software development.
A good VCS (Version Control System) includes:
> Backup and restore. Files saved as they are edited, and you can jump to any moment in that file's timeline.
> Synchronisation. Lets people share files and stay up-to-date with the latest version
> Short-term undo. Monkeying around with a file and messed up? Throw away changes and go back to the "last known good" version in the database
> Long-term undo. Sometimes we mess up bad. Suppose you made a change a year ago and it had a bug? Jump back to that version and see what change was made that day.
> Track changes. As files are updated, you can leave messages explaining why the change happened (stored in the VCS, not the file). This makes it easy to see how a file is evolving over time, and why.
> Track ownership. A VCS tags every change with the name of the person who made it. Helpful for giving credit.
> Sandboxing, or insurance against yourself. Making a big change? You can make temporary changes in an isolated area, test and work out all the kinks before "checking in" your changes.
> Branching and Merging. A larger sandbox. You can branch a copy of your code into a separate area and modify it in isolation (tracking changes separately). Later you can merge your work back into the common area.
FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS - Good file names need to make sense to more than just the creator. The name should be clear to everyone in the department or agency in which the file was created. A record should be distinguishable from files with similar subjects as well as different versions of the same file.
1) AVOID USING SPECIAL CHARACTERS - ( \ / : ; " ' ? < > | [ ] & $ etc.) Special characters are frequently used for specific tasks in an electronic environment. For example, a / is used to identify files in Microsoft products, where as a Mac OS would use a colon :. Periods are used in front of file name extensions to denote file formats (.jpg, .doc, .bmp etc.). Using them in a file name could result in lost files or errors.
2) USE UNDERSCORES INSTEAD of periods or spaces. Periods already have a function (as mentioned above, to denote file name extensions or formats), and tell the computer where the format type begins and the name of the file ends. Spaces are frequently translated in a web environment to be read as %20 (e.g "Naming Tutorial.doc" would read as "Naming%20Tutorial.doc"). this can cause confusion in a file name, as well as a difficulty in a person reading the name of the file.
3) ERR ON THE SIDE OF BREVITY - Generally about 25 characters is sufficient to capture enough descriptive information for naming a record or document.
4) NECESSARY DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION should be included in the file name, independent of where it is stored.
> Wrong: 0001.tif
> Right: WW1_Poster_Owens_0001.tif
5) INCLUDE DATES AND FORMAT CONSTANTLY - Some workplaces may find it more useful to have the date at the start of the file name, others may prefer it at the end. Just keep it consistent. The best way to list the date is based on an international standard - ISO8601. ISO8601 specifies numeric representations of date and time to be used in an electronic format.
The international standard date notation is: YYYY_MM_DD or YYYYMMDD.
> YYYY = year
> MM = month of the year, between 01 (January) and 12 (December)
> DD = day of the month, between 01 and 31
For example, 5th January 2008 is written as 20080105. This format allows ease of comparing files by date and prevents confusion with other date formats (especially in other formats that use just two digits for the year). For example, a document could be named "filenaming_20080507.doc" to reflect that this draft was last credited on May 7th 2008.
6) INCLUDE VERSION NUMBERS - Easiest way is to include a letter "v" to represent "version number". Then "v01", "v02", "v03" etc. can be added as needed to a file, and the main file can stay the same name. This is much more effective than other common additions like "updated", "new", "revised", et al. An exception to the rule is the use of the word "FINAL" to indicate the final version of the document. Use "FINAL" instead of the version number, rather than in addition to it.
7) BE CONSISTENT - Some choices will need to be made about organisation that affects the entire workgroup - where to include the date, what abbreviations to use, etc. Regardless of what the group decides, it is only effective if everyone follows the rules consistently.
3) Understand the importance of continuous professional development.
3.1 Explain what is meant by "continuous professional development"
CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD) or Continuing Professional Education (CPE) is the means by which people maintain their knowledge and skills related to their professional lives.
The CPD CERTIFICATE SERVICE defines CPD as "A commitment to structured skills enhancement and personal or professional competence". It believes that it is important for everyone, no matter their occupation, role or responsibility within an organisation, to ensure that their skills and knowledge are up to date. Its view is that the undertaking of CPD is particularly important in today's fast moving technological world, as the criteria used for achieving qualifications may no longer be relevant.
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