Short Programs
Engineering Leadership for Early Career Professionals
Date: June 17-21, 2013 | Tuition: $4,600 | Continuing Education Units (CEUs): 2.8
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Course Summary | Learning Objectives | Who Should Attend | Program Outline | Schedule | Lecturers | Location | Updates
Course Summary
Since the industrial revolution, engineering has increasingly fueled discovery, innovation, and economic growth. Almost everything in the world, including infrastructure, manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, health, communication, information technology, and social networking, was created or profoundly transformed through the practice of engineering.
Engineers and applied scientists today lead complex technical projects and imagine and develop exciting new products that profoundly impact societies around the globe. These projects are progressively more multidisciplinary and the working environment more multinational and multicultural. This complexity increases the requirement for practical skills in leadership, communication, and project management, as well as the traits of commitment and perseverance. Early career professionals must possess this broad skill set if they wish to succeed in the global economy.
This course addresses the essential skill set necessary for early career technical professionals who already possess strong technical abilities. Participants are engaged with 12 core elements of technical leadership, from the fundamentals of leadership theory and styles to practical tools for initiating and leading a project to completion. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed upon experiential learning. Participants are confronted with hyper-scenarios that challenge them to think, communicate, negotiate, motivate, and act. Self-reflection and peer feedback provide essential post-scenario learning elements. Like the practice of leadership, this course is high-contact and high-energy. If you are looking for a traditional “chalk-and-talk” experience, this course is not it.
This course has been developed by the Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Leadership Program. Founded to prepare MIT students for engineering leadership, the program is now expanding to fill a need in early career engineering, further strengthening its commitment to develop effective engineering leadership. The course curriculum is designed specifically to educate and prepare future engineering and science leaders of innovation, invention, and implementation. You will leave this course with the essential skills and tools necessary to become an effective technical leader in today’s competitive global economy.
Fundamentals: Core concepts, understandings and tools (20%)
Latest Developments: Recent advances and future trends (40%)
Industry Applications: Linking theory and real-world (40%)
Lecture: Delivery of material in a lecture format (20%)
Discussion or Groupwork: Participatory learning (30%)
Labs: Demonstrations, experiments, simulations (50%)
Introductory: Appropriate for a general audience (10%)
Specialized: Assumes experience in practice area or field (80%)
Advanced: In-depth explorations at the graduate level (10%)
Learning Objectives
The participants of this course will be able to:
- See the world through a systems lens and develop simplifying conceptual models
- Recognize ethical challenges and respond to them methodically
- Listen, understand, and communicate effectively with others to persuade, advocate, and negotiate
- Think critically and make structured decisions in the face of uncertainty
- Plan actions from conception through completion; recognize risk and manage change as it arises
Who Should Attend
This course is targeted for early career engineers and scientists from across the disciplinary spectrum who are new to project management. Those who should attend include: design engineers, research engineers, project engineers or managers, product engineers, members of the technical staff, applied scientists, and research scientists. The course would also be of interest to those who supervise early career professionals in industry or those who supervise engineering and science graduate students and post-docs in academia.
Program Outline
Day One – Engineering Leadership
Session 1 - Engineering Leadership Theory (1.5 hours): Leadership models, methods, styles, assessments.
Session 2 - Building Teams (1.5 hours): Assessing team assets, recognizing team dysfunctions, promoting group development.
Session 3 - Building Motivation (1.5 hours): Building team drive to act in support of project mission and goals.
Reflection (1 hour): Participants review, assess, and document day’s activities.
Session 4 - Case Study (1.5 hours): Participants work in teams on case study.
Day Two – Engineering Project Leadership
Session 5 - Systems and Constraints (1.5 hours): Thinking holistically, viewing complexity, focusing on critical features, identifying inter-relationships, and predicting emergent qualities.
Session 6 - Project Planning (1.5 hours): Identifying a product/project development strategy, plan of action, critical path.
Session 7 - Project Risk and Dynamics (1.5 hours): Identifying and planning for uncertainties and risk, responding to change, identifying and removing obstacles.
Reflection (1 hour): Participants review, assess, and document day’s activities.
Session 8 - Case Study (1.5 hours): Participants work in teams on case study.
Day Three – Effective Communication
Session 9 - Advocacy and Structured Communication (1.5 hours): Clearly explaining a point of view or approach; advocating a position; explaining interpretation, assumptions, and conclusions using effective communication strategies and structures for different audiences.
Session 10 - Inquiry & Dialoguing (1.5 hours): Active and reflective listening techniques; creating constructive dialogue.
Session 11 - Negotiation and Compromise (1.5 hours): Identifying potential disagreements, tensions, or conflicts and negotiating to find mutually acceptable solutions.
Reflection (1 hour): Participants review, assess, and document day’s activities.
Session 12 - Case Study (1.5 hours): Participants work in teams on case study.
Day Four – Effective Decision-Making
Session 13 - Quantitative Decision-Making (1.5 hours): Applying quantitative decision-making models and tools.
Session 14 - Engineering Reasoning (1.5 hours): Applying qualitative models of decision making; using elements, standards, traits, and processes of critical thinking in engineering to assess decision-making.
Session 15 - Ethical Decision-Making (1.5 hours): Recognizing and framing ethical issues; applying ethical decision-making models.
Reflection (1 hour): Participants review, assess, and document day’s activities.
Session 16 - Case Study (1.5 hours): Participants work in teams on case study.
Day Five
Session 17 - Case Study Presentations (3 hours): Analyzing a technical case study; uncovering leadership elements and effectively packaging and communicating these to an audience.
Reflection (1 hour): Participants review and reflect on week’s activities.
Adjourn
Course schedule and registration times
Class runs 8:30 am - 5:00 pm each day except Friday when it ends at noon.
8:30 AM - 10:00 AM - Session
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM - Break
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Session
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM - Session
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM - Assessment
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM - Case Study
Registration is on Monday morning from 7:45 - 8:15 am.
About The Lecturers
Professor Joel Schindall
Co-Director, Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program
Professor Schindall re-joined the MIT faculty in June of 2002 after a 35 year career in the defense, aerospace, and telecommunications industries. His research includes the invention and development of a nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitor which holds the promise of being superior to electrochemical batteries as a means of efficient regenerative electrical energy storage, and he has also supervised research on dynamic simulation and reliability analysis of complex safety-critical systems.
He has co-developed and taught a required senior course in communication skills, including units on conceptual thinking, giving presentations, how to be effective in industry, cross-cultural skills, and engineering ethics, and he is developing a course on engineering design. As co-director of the Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program, Dr. Schindall is actively engaged in a program to enhance, expand, focus, and disseminate the teaching of engineering design and leadership within the MIT School of Engineering.
Prior to joining MIT, Dr. Schindall was VP and Chief Technology Officer of Loral Space and Communications (a manufacturer and operator of commercial satellites), Sr. VP and Chief Engineer for Globalstar (a 48 satellite LEO mobile phone system), and President of Loral Conic (a manufacturer of telemetry systems for missiles and satellites). Dr. Schindall received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1963, 1964, and 1967. During his graduate years he was lecturer and wrote the text for a 140-student introductory electronics course, received an award for excellence in teaching, and was chief engineer for WBCN, a commercial FM radio station.
Dr. Richard Schuhmann
Senior Lecturer, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Program Manager, Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program
Rick Schuhmann joined the Gordon–MIT Engineering Leadership Program in September 2012 after 15 years at Penn State University, where he served as the Walter L. Robb Director of Engineering Leadership Development.
Schuhmann earned degrees spaced ~10 years apart (B.S. Geology, M.S. Environmental Engineering, Ph.D. Environmental Engineering). This discontinuous approach afforded him the opportunity to spend a balanced life in academia and industry, his experiences in both venues providing him with a strong appreciation for the importance of leadership skills and character and the opportunity to practice them. Schuhmann’s industry experiences include offshore geophysical surveying, including the Gulf of Mexico, where he worked offshore on surveys for oil and gas exploration and construction activities. In addition, he has two decades of consulting experience on large environmental projects around the world.
Dr. Schuhmann’s 15-year teaching experience has spanned the civil engineering, entrepreneurship, and leadership curricula, with a focus on sustainability and global collaboration. He is active in both local and international water resource engineering projects, agricultural projects in rural developing world communities, and in supporting U.S. State Department efforts to promote innovative engineering enterprise development in North Africa.
Location
This course takes place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We can also offer this course for groups of employees at your location. Please contact the Short Programs office for further details.
