An introduction to Engineering Systems

(Adapted from http://bit.ly/rESY9J)
It’s always cool to know how to do the math or physics, but how about learning to pull it all together in real world situations? Engineering Systems is an interdisciplinary approach to problems in large, complex systems such as energy, environment, health care, manufacturing, transportation and communications.

Critical contemporary issues within these systems involve not only technology, but also people and their needs and behaviors. As a result, successful design, operation and problem-solving require participation of multiple disciplines: engineering, management and social science.

ESD.00 at MIT gives students the opportunity to tackle some of these big problems. ESD.00 students learn in class about methodologies used to understand and analyze complex systems — system dynamics, uncertainty and causal networks, as well as practice in applying the concepts to real-world situations. These provide tools for studying feedback, non-linearity and other system characteristics. Students also work in small, faculty-led groups to complete projects based on real-world problems.

Check out this really cool video introduction to the class…

http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/15324-esd00

Intrigued? But don’t want to take a class, read “Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World by Olivier L. de de Weck, Daniel Roos, Christopher L. Magee, Charles M. Vest. This book is really one of a kind since it brings out the essence of the challenges we find in today’s interwoven society, the excitement of engineering the solutions that address those challenges, the problems caused by increasing complexity caused by all that engineering as well as the techno-social frameworks needed to manage these systems.

I have had so many ‘aha!’ moments in reading this book that I recommend it as essential reading for anyone who is deeply interested in the intersection of business 2.0+ and technology 2.0+.

The 11 laws of the Fifth Discipline

1) Today’s problems come from yesterday’s “solutions.”
2) The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.
3) Behavior grows better before it grows worse.
4) The easy way out usually leads back in.
5) The cure can be worse than the disease.
6) Faster is slower.
7) Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space.
8) Small changes can produce big results…but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.
9) You can have your cake and eat it too —but not all at once.
10) Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants.
11) There is no blame.

(Wikipedia)

Structuring your time at SDM

This quick post is written for prospective full-time candidates of the system design and management program at MIT. The SDM program is extremely flexible and gives you a whole bunch of options for getting through it, but it’s easy to trip over those options and lose sleep worrying about the future if you don’t know what you are getting into.

I am going to focus almost entirely on on-campus students who have made a conscious decision to attend MIT full-time and then go on to do things they always wanted to do (including a career change). Some of this information is discussed by during IAP, but from a staff member’s point of view. This blog post, on the other hand, is the straight dope from someone who’s been through the program, from the trenches!

Your ‘common’ options are:
1) 13 month (IAP + Spring  + Summer + Fall + IAP)
2) 16 month (IAP + Spring  + Summer + Fall + IAP + Spring)
3) 24 month (2-3 IAP’s + 2 Springs + 2 Summers + 2 Falls)

I say ‘common’ since it is possible to request for an ‘uncommon’ program plan (such as a 20 month plan or even a 28 month plan. But we’ll leave those off the table for now.

Consider the 13 month option if your employer is sponsoring you and you intend to go back. You will probably not have time to do an internship or get involved in a lot of good stuff happening on campus (talks, clubs, events,…) since you will have to complete the minimum coursework needed and do your thesis. Also, you’ll probably face challenges during Fall recruiting because of time constraints. I keep saying ‘probably’ since it is theoretically possible to do all this and finish the program in 13 months and land a great job (it’s been done before), but you’ll need to be ninja efficient and superb in all respects (untrue for ~>95% of the people who pass through the program every year). Or you’ll kill yourself with your schedule trying to do everything at once- something’s gotta give.

Consider the 16 month option if you’d like to get involved in a few things on/off campus (such as a consulting gig for a company) and would like a bit of a breather. Consider it if the economy is good, and you have a great network, understand the US job market (or are ready to go back to your country) and know for sure that you can land a job. This program option does not allow you to do an internship (unless you can find an off-cycle internship in the Spring of your second year). Not doing an internship will make it a bit harder for you to change your career after the program. Worst case, try to do a Winter ‘externship’ in an area that you want to move into.

Also note that tuition fees for the 16 month program go up by ~10-15%. The 16 month program costs about the same as a 24 month program (not counting living expenses, etc). You may also get lucky and land a TA/RA in the Spring of your second year and that will help with expenses. An RA/TA in the Fall of the first year is kind of doable, but it will compete for your time with recruiting events.

The 20 month option doesn’t make a lot of sense on paper since you will still be paying the same amount of tuition as the 24 month option. So why would you pay money and not take full advantage of it by taking more classes? It’s called opportunity cost. If you land a great job during Summer (or the Spring) of the second year and would like to rejoin the workforce quickly, you may want to consider this option. Importantly, this option lets you do a summer internship in your first/second year. Note that people on a student visa cannot intern in the first nine months of study because of immigration regulations. Look it up on the internet.

The 24 month option is my recommended choice (partly because I am personally going through it- ha!). It is priced reasonably (compared to other programs- nothing is cheap at MIT), gives you plenty of time to do internships, consulting projects, classes, events, etc. Having done all this and having gone through roughly twice the number of classes that a normal 13 month SDM graduate would go through without waiving a single program requirement, I daresay that I have really lived the MIT/SDM experience; but that doesn’t mean that 13 month graduates in my cohort did not learn enough or do well for themselves- they knew what they wanted, and got in and got out. To each, his own.

Importantly, the 24 month option lets you spend a lot more time in the job market and that is a blessing in a bad economy (such as what’s prevailing). It lets you fully understand your career options and allows you to spend time polishing yourself and your skills and building your network to help you achieve your career goals. Again, it’s not impossible to do all this, at varying degrees, with the other program options discussed above, but do consider the obstacles.

Secondly, the 24 month option allows you to spend good time on your thesis and come up with high quality work- something that I personally attach a high level of importance to. Finally, I know of many high tech employers who would recognize a 2 year business slightly more than a 1 year business degree, but that attitude’s changing somewhat.

As a closing comment, I will also say that less than a third of any given class (don’t quote me on this) graduates in 13 months. Many students who say upon matriculating that they want to finish in 13 months change their minds and extend their graduation, primarily because of one or more of the factors discussed above. The SDM program office has some very nice and cooperative folks who are willing to work with you if you change your mind in the middle of the program, but please don’t abuse the system! I know that it is impossible to predict the future (and the job market to an extent), but arm yourself with all the facts before you make a decision, and stick to your decision. It’s like the traveling salesman problem- plan your time ahead and save time later.

Decisions, decisions!

Business courses for the aspiring high tech manager

While it is true that a lot of management could be learned on the job, it would a shame if you went to a quality business school and did not capitalize on the opportunity to learn what constitutes the fundamentals of running a business.

It does not matter whether you aspire to become a top product marketing manager or a CTO. The truth is that any aspiring high tech manager must understand how a business works and be able to generalize that knowledge to any situation by drawing appropriate analogies. This is even more true of engineers who seek to transition into management positions since there is a lot of ‘soft stuff’ beyond engineering that goes into being an effective leader.

An engineer with well rounded management skills is DYNAMITE and most firms recognize that. From a business school student’s standpoint, getting to that state of well-roundedness is not that simple since a conscious effort needs to be made to explore the ‘other side’ and learn (either experientially or through coursework) things that you might otherwise have thought to be not that important.

Part of that effort includes taking the ‘right’ courses in school. There are certain ‘core’ courses that I think one absolutely needs in order to prepare for an effective technology management career.  My belief is that any program that seeks to bring out top technology management talent must include these courses as part of the core curriculum. But alas, that isn’t the reality in most ‘high tech management’ programs and the reasons for excluding some or many of these core business courses are usually political or have to do with complacency, institutional memory, or a disconnect from the needs of the ‘customer’.

First, a caveat: Recognize that ultimately, it’s you, and not the courses that you will take in school that will determine the amount of success you enjoy in industry. However, recognizing that there is a good reason that you are in school, this blog will help structure your program in a manner that I think is optimal to a senior engineer who wants, after finishing his program, to transition to a leadership career in high tech management.

Read on.

This is my basic list of courses that you *must* consider taking as part of your transition to management: if your program doesn’t automatically include these courses as part of your curriculum, look into ‘back-door’ ways of getting this education (such as substitutions with other courses, listening in), or in the worst case, read good books on these topics.

1. Marketing and Sales (by Marketing, I specifically do not mean a course on Open Innovation or Crowdsourcing!)

2. Managerial economics (mostly microeconomics. Read The Economist for the macro stuff) and Competitive Strategy (make sure you learn the frameworks. Did your Technology Strategy class teach you what an Ansoff Matrix is or did it mostly focus on the evolution of ice machines and tungsten light bulbs?? Also learn some game theory- it is fascinating and super useful).

3. Corporate Finance and Managerial Accounting basics (Financial/Cost Accounting isn’t useful for high tech mgmt)

4. Operations Management, Supply Chain & Lean/ Six Sigma (That waiting line will never look the same after this! Very necessary for manufacturing driven companies- having this knowledge also makes you somewhat more employable in larger companies)

5. Organizational change, HR (needs to be experiential) and Global Strategy (very important since engineering managers REALLY need to know how to work with global teams) or International Management.

6. Teamwork, leadership, power, negotiation (more of the soft stuff! Don’t ignore!) and Managerial communication (learning to write and speak effectively)

7. Risk/Decision/Uncertainty Analysis, Statistics and Data Models (the Excel and the underlying math are really important- but you already knew that!)

<UPDATE: Since my original post, I have consolidated items in my original list of 11 courses, to the following seven. My only removal was a course on Logistics, since I realized that you learn a lot of that in a full semester course on #4 above: Operations and Supply Chain Management. I am also considering adding a course on Entrepreneurship to this list>

That makes seven full semester core business courses.

Now tack on your 4-5 core systems courses (such as System Dynamics, System Architecture, System Project Management, Product Design & Development and Enterprise Architecture) on top of the above list and you have a world class Technology Management program that is doable within a reasonable time frame.

More importantly, you, the end result, will be so much more meaningful to the high tech organization that you join than your everyday MBA. With this kind of education, you will bring real meaning to your workplace and be able to cut through all the fluff that you will confront on a daily basis. No amount of hand waving or business jargon will ever daunt you since you will have walked the walk and talked the talk. You will have become the chameleon that you always aspired to become.

It’s important to recognize that good Technology Management programs have most of this content built in already. Definitely take whatever courses you would like to take (or whatever courses your program shoves down your throat) but make sure that you also cover the listed basics. These courses might not be readily ‘available’ for you to take at any given point of time. But look around and you’ll find them. The joy of life is in figuring out these things!

Spend an extra semester if necessary to get this education since you really don’t want to leave school with incomplete training. Take the time out to learn now and hit the ground running on your next job! You’ll thank me ten years later.

Good luck!

MIT Sloan options

The dizzying array of graduate business programs at MIT Sloan can easily confuse the average person. Harvard has ONE program (called the ‘Harvard MBA’) and many other top schools are similar. But MIT Sloan begs to be different.

So how does the average applicant choose between doing an MBA, or the LGO (Leaders for Global Operations) program, or the SDM (System Design and Management) program or the Sloan Fellows program or even the newly launched Executive MBA program?

Well, much like a CPG company having a brand offering at every price point/customer segment, MIT Sloan has structured its programs to represent offerings at multiple price points/customer demographics.

Give this a thought- regardless of the specific program, the common thread that runs through all the programs is the high quality of education and the benefits of being at MIT (even more so with the SDM and LGO programs since they have close connections with MIT Engineering). Also, each of the programs comes with great opportunities which allow you to progress in your career or even move into something that interests you more.

If you are set on MIT, just as I was when I was looking, and you are trying to choose between the various MIT Sloan program  options, think about yourself and what you want to do after the program and then look at the chart below.

***Disclaimer: Please take all this with not one, but multiple grains of salt since everything that I am about to say is completely unofficial and IMHO only. The individual programs will give you a lot of information some of which might not make sense- this is my way of looking at all that detail, living the MIT experience and simplifying it all to a blog post.***

The top chart in the figure below represents the kind of roles that people tend to take up after finishing each program. The bottom chart shows the typical seniority with which people start out post-business school. A uniform shaded area over multiple roles means that students tend to go evenly into all of those roles. Uneven shading indicates concentration in one or more business roles.

(CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO OPEN IT)

Note: Entrepreneurship as a post-b school choice is big at MIT. I just didn’t put it in the figure above since I couldn’t think of a nice way to fit into the corporate framework (no big surprise there!)

What’s the next step? Well, you’ll need to go a bit deeper than just this. Consider the following factors.

1. Program costs are different: LGO costs only ~30K counting partner company subsidies, SDM is ~75K, MBA is ~100K, the Sloan Fellows and EMBA programs run 25-30% more than that)

2. Entry points into each program are different and previous work experience is obviously very important (SDM recruits staff level engineers, EMBA only brings in people at the Director level and higher, etc.) and admission to any of these programs is very competitive.

3. LGO’s/MBA’s tend to be younger (25-30). SDM/Sloan Fellows a bit older (30-35), EMBA’s even more so (40+).

4. MBA’s/LGO’s get a lot of help with recruiting since they employ well-oiled career services- SDM’s, SF’s and EMBA’s are a bit more independent in job hunting. MBA’s typically have more career choices and hence more jobs to choose from, but they aren’t focused on any one thing (which is a good thing for companies to mold them however they want, but a bad thing in the sense that non-MBA’s have been known to question the actual value that an MBA can bring to the enterprise) and tend to move into relatively junior, ‘canned’ positions in industry. However, MBA’s tend to have strong networks and a clear path for career progression. SDM’s primarily focus on managerial positions in high tech (and often start out in more senior roles in technology management, depending on their past experience- their class tends to be very diverse) .

SF’s/EMBA’s tend to target executive positions. Although the EMBA program is new, the Sloan Fellows program is very well known since it one of a kind in the world and has graduated the majority of all the well known alumni from MIT Sloan (Kofi Annan, Carlie Fiorina,…).

5. Program lengths and logistics are different too. MBA and LGO are mandatory on-campus two year programs. The other programs offer varying degrees of geographic and temporal flexibility. SDM lets you video-conference into classes.

That isn’t all…there are literally dozens of other factors that you’ll need to consider when you are about to pick. Regardless of your program, I’m pretty sure that you’ll have pretty awesome experience here!

Hope this helps- good luck!

Thomas Smith on Effective Advertising, circa 1885

The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
The second time, they don’t notice it.
The third time, they are aware that it is there.
The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.

Corporate Strategy

Corporate Strategy Development — Key Concepts and Frameworks — B. Teeuwsen 2010 http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/557492