BT&M MANAGEMENT COURSES: EXPLANATIONS, RATIONALES & COMPROMISE

1. BT&M MANAGEMENT COURSES:EXPLANATIONS, RATIONALES & COMPROMISE K. Coley, L. D’Orazio, M. Piczak December 14, 2005

2. THE CHALLENGE • To select a roster of courses that could be acceptable to a range of disciplines • To select a roster of courses that would provide timeless, universal skills and attitudes to prepare BT&M graduates for the current positions and future promotions • To be mindful of evolving directions of engineering education in the Canadian context • To contribute to the generalist/specialist balance appropriate for B.Tech. graduates • To develop a structure that would permit some latitude for student choice • To accomplish all this within the constraints of 7 courses

3. OUR METHODOLOGY • Draw on the combined experience of the Management Courses Team: • K. Coley, BSc., Ph.D., DIC, Chair Material Sciences & Eng., McMaster University, Former Engineering & Management Program Chair • L. D’Orazio, B.Eng., MBA, M.Eng., Ph.D., P.Eng., former chair, Mechanical Eng., Mohawk College, adjunct professor, University of Western Ontario • M. Piczak, Dipl.T., B.Comm., MBA, former chair Industrial Management, Mohawk College, part time professor, McMaster University (Faculty of Business and B.Tech.) • Keep in mind McMaster’s collection of course offerings to their B.Eng. students • Internet search for what other Schools of Engineering and Management are teaching • November 8, 2005 Think Tank presentations • Canvassing B.Tech. students for their views on skills they believe they require to top up technical training (n=50) • Review Think Tank notes, e-mails and minutes • Review ‘Evolution of Engineering Education in Canada’, 1999

4. WHEN CHOOSING • Think both long term and short term for the skills that graduates could benefit from • ‘Kill as many birds’ as possible with one stone for every course choice • Try to appeal to as many disciplines as possible realizing that we could not possibly please everyone • Keep the courses management/business oriented • Keep the courses general and universal • Call for flexibility to the courses and electives to capitalize on emerging topics and faculty strengths • Acknowledge that adult learners like choice to permit tailoring of their studies • Let the selections be driven, not by our own preferences or biases, but instead what we believe the market needs and wants • Distinguish between musts and wants • Keep in mind PEO requirements

5. CORE Financial Management Organizational Behaviour Human Resource Management Entrepreneurship Project Management Strategy Formulation Elective ELECTIVES SPC/6 Sigma Methods Engineering Economics Special Topics Problem Solving & Decision Making Lean Manufacturing New Product Development PROPOSED COURSES

6. WHY FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT • Current B.Techs. have little/no feel for money/costing • Lack of money sense is a source of criticism for engineering graduates in general • Money is the universal language of management where nothing happens until it makes financial sense • Should/must have some exposure to both financial and managerial accounting • Were there no accounting, someone would ask ‘how can you not have accounting?’ • Engineering decisions/recommendations do not occur in a financial vacuum • The ‘Money Engineer’

7. WHY ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR • Soft skills remain hot, current topic • Rarely go ‘out of style’ • Graduates need team, leadership, group skills exposure • All B.Tech. work occurs in organizational settings

8. WHY H.R.M. • Need exposure to leading edge practices for recruiting, selecting, motivating and retaining quality employees • Teach students to respect statutory minima/maxima to comply with the law • What many experts refer to as most unique source for competitive advantage because of its relative immobility

9. WHY PROJECT MANAGEMENT • Graduates quickly become involved in managing projects of various sizes • Will be a skill they resort to throughout their careers across a broad range of projects • Permits students to appreciate the need to manage the amalgam of physical, human and financial resources

10. WHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP • New company formation and small business is engine of Canada’s economy • Students need to be taught to think in terms of business planning and business plans • Encourage starting their own enterprise and consequent hiring of employees • Business plan preparation is integral part of ‘intrapreneuring’ • Stimulate thinking beyond an ‘employee’s mentality’

11. WHY STRATEGY FORMULATION • Prepares graduates to think like their managers • Adopt a brand of thinking that considers broader contexts • Promotes examining factors occurring external to the firm • Provides an analytical framework which is normal and natural to everyone in this room (SWOT thinking) • Promote opportunistic state of mind within the confines of an organization • To prepare B.Techs. for their next promotion

12. WHY AN ELECTIVE • To permit the student to tailor their studies to issues of interest and need to them • To allow flexibility within the curriculum to examine emerging issues of the day

13. KILLING n BIRDS WITH 1 STONE

14. 1st CUT SCORE CARD (M=Must; E=Elective)

15. DISCIPLINE SPECIFIC ELECTIVES CITED • Supply chain management • TQM • Ethics & IT law • Accounting mathematics • Health and safety management • Finance • Technical sales • Economics and marketing • Others

16. 5 EMERGING CORE PROJECT MGMT. ORG’L. BEH’R. FIN’L. MGMT. E’SHIP. STRAT. FOR’N. + 1 DOMAIN SPECIFIC ELECTIVE 1 ELECTIVE SPC/6 Sigma Methods Engineering Economics Special Topics Problem Solving & Decision Making Lean Manufacturing New Product Development H.R.M. A POSSIBLE COMPROMISE DOMAIN SPECIFIC ELECTIVE • Mfg. • IT • Civil • Process Auto.

17. 3 WAYS TO GO? • Student chooses 1 from respective discipline specific and management elective • Student chooses any 2 electives with no restrictions* • Student gets no choices within completely prescribed curriculum * Our recommendation – let the customer/student pick and may the best and most relevant courses win.

18. ALL WE ASK • To keep an open mind • Be mindful of resource limitations • Be mindful of the benefits associated with exposure to other disciplines and alternate paradigms • To remember that if a course is so central to a discipline it could/should be a year 1-3 ‘required’ • Think both short term (soon after graduation) and long term (in preparation for their next promotion) • Think like our two customers i.e. students and employers in terms of needs and wants

19. BT&M MANAGEMENT COURSES:EXPLANATIONS, RATIONALES & COMPROMISE K. Coley, L. D’Orazio, M. Piczak December 14, 2005 The end