James Drogan

I've taken the summer off from teaching, but that doesn't mean that my students are not on my mind.  I'm preparing for three fall courses and writing a number of short papers.

These short papers are intended to provide additional detail on subjects I consider important to the students.  The papers and  brief abstracts are:

Some Comments on Teams in Graduate Courses

I have always used teams for projects in my graduate courses whether the mode of delivery is in the classroom or online.

Of late, my satisfaction with how the teams work (i.e., the process) to produce the project report (i.e., the product) has declined. It’s time for some introspection to find the root causes and identify actions to raise the performance of the teams.

This paper draws upon Hackman, J. Richard. Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

The Value of Introspection

One definition of introspection is that it is “contemplation of one's own thoughts, feelings, and sensations; self-examination.”

Introspection comes into play in “Know what you know, know what you don't know, and know who knows what you don't know” and “When things are going really well you've probably missed something.”

Introspection is valuable, important, and perhaps even critical to successful business operations. A prominent case dealing with this that my students and discuss is “What went wrong at Cisco Systems?” More recently, we have difficulties in the global financial industry and the American automobile industry that also suggest the lack of introspection.

This note takes up this characteristic – introspection – in more detail with some comments on its value, how it can be developed and applied.

The Need to Know About Technology

The breadth and depth of data and information regarding technology is, for all practical purposes, fathomless. It is probably impossible, and at least impractical, to know all there is to know.

There is, however, a set of data and information about technology that is highly relevant to one’s role and responsibilities in an organization in an industry.

This note suggests ways to discover that set.

Data Management

“It ain't what we don't know that hurts us, it's what we know that ain't so."

“We also study Cisco. What comes through from our class discussion is that Cisco thought they knew it all and had no need for corroboration. The conflicting data was available; they chose not to look at it.”

”I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

Here we have three of several issues associated with data management.

1. Data that does not represent truth.
2. Hubris of thinking we know all we need to know.
3. Succumbing to the temptation to make a decision before the relevant data is in.

This note takes up a general set of considerations regarding data management.

The Context of Interest

Virtually all my classes use the Context of Interest as a unifying theme.

This note describes the origins and meaning of the context and how it can be used as a basis for thinking about business.

Learning Diagnosis and Design

Business people are confronted with issues requiring resolution. This requires diagnosis of the issue and design of a solution.

The knowledge and skills of diagnosis and design are particular to the issue, the structure of the organization, and the nature of the industry.

This note takes these matters up.

Business Dynamics, SCOR and UML

TMGT 8510 System Design and Control is an elective in the Masters of Science in International Transportation program, and a “required” elective is one is taking the Supply Chain Management Certificate.

The catalog description for this course is:

“This course examines the consequences of global markets, meaning that successful competition in an uneven cultural, economic, political, and social playing field requires deriving cost efficiencies from constantly re-engineered, extended supply chains. The best of the re-engineering takes a total cost analysis approach, viewing all parts of the supply chain as an integrated whole and leaving nothing in isolation. Students are introduced to the design and control techniques that derive from a systems approach.”

This course exposes the students to business dynamics and the SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference) model with the intention of linking the two concepts in a useful and usable manner. Inasmuch as one would then like to translate the result into a technical specification, the notion of describing the results in UML (Unified Modeling Language) seems natural.

This note sketches a broad approach for doing this.

An Introduction to Logistics and the Supply Chain

Oft times I have found that students come into a course that assumes they have knowledge of logistics and the supply chain, but, in fact, lack that knowledge.

This note helps to provide a bridge to those students and improve their chances of successfully completing the course.

Risk Management

The general approach to risk management as related to me by my students is that one simply needs to buy insurance. This seems to me to be a narrow interpretation of risk management that focuses on recovery of loss.

We should, I think, focus on prevention of loss. This requires the identification of events that could cause loss, some estimate of the probability and impact of the event, some estimate the costs associated with prevention, and subsequent decisions as to whether and how one should fund recovery of loss.

My thoughts on this are developed further in this note.

The Gap Between Now and The Future Grows Smaller 

‘Our mission is to use our knowledge of supply chain management and information technology to help companies achieve their business goals. In these past few months, we find that the definitions of short, medium and long term now mean something completely different:

Short term used to mean within the next six months. It now means "next Monday."

Medium term used to mean six months to a year. It now means "after next Monday."

Long term used to mean two to five years out. It now means "over the next six months."’

This quote would seem to support the assertion of the title of this note. Time does not seem to be what it once was. Smaller decision windows. More data and information arriving more frequently. The appearance of “black swans.”

How should we think about this phenomenon? How should this thinking inform the design, implementation, and operation of business systems? Are new sets of knowledge, skills, and experiences required? How are these developed and maintained?

This note takes into consideration these and other questions, draws conclusions regarding the impact of the shrinking gap, and offers suggestion for actions to deal with his trend.

The Intersection of Global Awareness and Technology Literacy

I have from time to time become involved in the assessment of undergraduate and graduate courses of instruction. Recently I was asked to assess two graduate courses for the students’ grasp of issues related to global awareness and technology literacy. While these were at the same institution and at the graduate level, they were two independent efforts.

However, I am left wondering about the relationship between these two issues.

Audience

“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.”

Audience was the theme for 2009 annual symposium of the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute.  It seems to me that the conference called for assuming a point of view that is often ignored, even when one may be the audience.

The conference prompted this preparatory note which, I regret to saqy, has not yet been finished.

I have at various times noted the following Principles of Communications.

1. The grammar and syntax of the messages being exchanged are understood.

2. The information communicated in the messages is relevant.

3. The medium of communication is acceptable.

4. There is a desire to communicate.

5. There is confirmation of understanding.

These principles are part of the lens through which the communicator and the audience set expectations and filter information.

This note examines the relationship between the communicator and audience.

Values are fundamental elements, or a set of beliefs which lie behind a person and shape the way s/he interprets the world and acts upon those interpretations.

For example, my years in IBM inculcated me with values (called The Basic Beliefs in IBM at the time) of Respect for the Individual, Customer Service, And Excellence.

I grew up in a small, rural community in the middle of America where everyone knew everyone, your word was your bond, and there was a strong work ethic.

These values are with me today and shape all that I do.

Over time other values -- the greater good, collaboration -- have been added.  I consider my set of values to be ethical, but I hasten to add that values are not automatically ethical.  Witness the parties involved in the financial crisis.

What should one do when one's role and responsibilities comes into conflict with one's values?  It is not always easy to arrive at an answer to this question.  Indeed, it is a current situation with which I am involved that prompts this log post.

There are three actions that can be taken:

1. One can act as if nothing is happening -- sweep it all under the rug.  That may work for some, but, as for me, I cannot (as my bride has said many times) remain quiet on the sidelines.  Plus, why would one  ignore the conflict?
2. One can work to  change the role and responsibilities such that the conflict is removed.  I think this is very much the role of leaders.  I suggest that Lou Gerstner was very much about this when he was Chairman of IBM.
3. One can resign from the role and responsibilities.  This, for me, is the toughest of these three actions.  It is not in me to give in, give up, or fail.  Yet, as the fate of Sisyphus has taught us, there may be no other way to resolve the conflict than to cleanly separate the sources of conflict.

Of course it is only the second action that leaves one personally fulfilled.  The third leaves one with a bit of a feeling of failure, but there is, it seems to me, no point in maximizing one's losses.

Managing these situations are not as cleanly prescriptive as indicated above.  Many factors enter in to making the associated decisions.  For example, success, it has been said, is sometimes involved in how much time you give something before you give it up.  I can't, for example, imagine going directly to step three without spending some time in step two.

We encounter situations on a daily basis where our values and the reality of the world come into conflict.  Often this is in a minor way, but the major events come along and we need to be ready for them.

For further reading I recommend Costa, John Della. The Ethical Imperative: Why Moral Leadership Is Good Business. Addison-Wesley, 1998.   You might also find Closing Words - CUNY Conference on Academic Integrity of interest.

From time to time I am asked to help students with their résumé.  For those of you I have hopefully helped or are thinking about stopping for a chat, I recommend of read of How to Write a Résumé That Doesn't Annoy People from Harvard Business Publishing.

I've based the title of this post on the title of a book, Stuff You Don't Learn in Engineering School: Skills for Success in the Real World, by my colleague at Maritime, Carl Selinger. 

My sense is that our responsibility as teachers is to cover more than what is in the syllabus.  What's in the syllabus is simply not enough to pack the survival kit you'll need for "out there where the cold wind blows."  Hence, some of my courses feature a discussion on "How to Deliver Constructive Criticism."

Another approach to delivering this responsibility I think teachers have is to point students to relevant material.

In that regard your attention is drawn to How Can “The Best and Brightest” Get It So Wrong? from Irving Wladawsky-Berger's blog.

One of my cautions to you is synthesized nicely in this paragraph.

"It is difficult to find people, especially those whose accomplishments have helped them achieve success, wealth and power, who do not exhibit feelings of arrogance to a greater or lesser degree. But, especially for those in a position of leadership, it is crucial to be on guard for such feelings and not let them take over. Good leaders must have their feet firmly planted on the ground. Otherwise their feelings will lead to a distorted view of the reality around them and of their own capabilities to deal with the troubles that inevitably lurk ahead."

"Sorry, someone had to say it.

Your products are predictable. Your insights are recycled. You don't bring surprise with you when you enter a room.

That's why people are ignoring you.

Which used to be fine, because you could just buy attention for your brand or your company or your sales efforts. But that half-price sale on attention is now over.

The only path left is to lean out of the edge and become interesting, noteworthy and yes, remarkable."

Insight from Seth Godin.

Dave has brought to my attention this fantastic 27 minute video featuring Professor Michael Sandel.

"Hundreds of students pack Harvard's Sanders Theater for Michael Sandel's "Justice" course—an introduction to moral and political philosophy. They come to hear Sandel lecture about great philosophers of the past—from Aristotle to John Stuart Mill—but also to debate contemporary issues that raise philosophical questions—about individual rights and the claims of community, equality and inequality, morality and law.

Despite the size of the course, Sandel engages students in lively discussion on topics including affirmative action, income distribution, and same-sex marriage, showing that even the most hotly contested issues of the day can be the subject of reasoned moral argument. This film, which contains excerpts of several classes, is part of a project to make this legendary course an educational resource that reaches beyond the Harvard classroom."

It focuses on justice and moral reasoning, but much of what is said in this video applies to many (all?) disciplines.  The questions taken up by Sandel and his students have their counterparts in the courses I teach on logistics, supply chains, and management information systems.

I encourage you to find the time to review this.

This item, authored by Robert Reich, ought to be of interest to my students.

"Symbolic analysts have been hit by the current downturn, just as everyone else has. But over the long term, symbolic analysts will do just fine -- as long as they stay away from job functions that are becoming routinized. They will continue to benefit from economic change. Computer technology gives them more tools for thinking, creating and communicating. The global market gives them more potential customers for their insights."

Success means understanding alternatives, their potential value, then assuring that you are in the best position to seize that value.  Hence the focus on how to think and not what to think.

I draw your attention to The Wave of the Future: What has Google Done? by James and posted on cac.ophony.  I don't know as much about Wave as I could or perhaps even want to, but James' succinct discussion and especially the conclusion he reaches and questions he poses are reminiscent of Always on, always connected, always transacting.

We have, I think, the answer to Sherry Turkle's question.  We are being changed by technology. Can we master the change or will the change master us?

Via cac.ophony comes this item.  if you are looking for inspiration and ideas, try TED Talks.

One of my students stopped me in the hall the other day to say that what he liked about my class was that I taught him how to think, not what to think. Ah, sweet words those.

So, to those of you who haven't been in any of my classes and as a reminder to those of you who have, please heed the first sentence.

This leads me to direct you to The Case for Working With Your Hands in the May 24, 2009 issue of The New York Times Magazine.

The article in the print edition begins with

"After acquiring a Ph.D. and an information-age résumé, I opened a motor-cycle repair shop.

And that's where I learned to think."

I recommend it to your reading and consideration because of ideas it provokes about what education means and how it is to be obtained.

One of the pithiest lines is

"Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?"

Fair warning to those of you who have signed up for my classes; this is likely to be assigned reading.