BT&M MANAGEMENT COURSES:EXPLANATIONS, RATIONALES & COMPROMISE

K. Coley, L. D’Orazio, M. PiczakDecember 14, 2005

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

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

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

PROPOSED COURSES

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• •

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’

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

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

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

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’

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

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

KILLING n BIRDS WITH 1 STONE

FIN.

MGMT. O.B. H.R.M.PROJ. MGMT. E'SHIP.

STRAT. FOR'N.

SHORT/LONG TERM THINKING    

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

2 COURSES CAPTURED        

SOFTWARE INCLUDED        

DIRECT APPEAL AX DISCIPLINES

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

BT&M Committe

e

IT Civil Process Automatio

n

Comments(max. 4M)

Fin. Mgmt. M = 2M

O.B. M E = 2M, 1E

HRM M = 2M

Proj. Mgmt. M M NP = 3M, 1NP

E’ship E = 1M, 1E

Strat. Form. M = 2M

DISCIPLINE SPECIFIC ELECTIVES CITED

• Supply chain management• TQM• Ethics & IT law• Accounting mathematics• Health and safety management• Finance• Technical sales• Economics and marketing• Others•

A POSSIBLE COMPROMISE

5 EMERGING CORE

• PROJECT MGMT.• ORG’L. BEH’R.• FIN’L. MGMT. • E’SHIP. • STRAT. FOR’N.

+ • 1 DOMAIN

SPECIFIC ELECTIVE• 1 ELECTIVE

DOMAIN SPECIFIC ELECTIVE

Mfg. • •

Civil• •

IT• •

Process Auto. • •

• SPC/6 Sigma Methods• Engineering Economics• Special Topics• Problem Solving & Decision

Making• Lean Manufacturing• New Product Development • H.R.M.

1.Student chooses 1 from respective discipline specific and management elective

2.Student chooses any 2 electives with no restrictions*

3.Student gets no choices within completely prescribed curriculum

* Our recommendation – let the customer/student pick and may the best and most relevant courses win.

3 WAYS TO GO?

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

BT&M MANAGEMENT COURSES:EXPLANATIONS, RATIONALES & COMPROMISE

K. Coley, L. D’Orazio, M. PiczakDecember 14, 2005

The end