Beyond the Classroom

You might think that professionals who are working full-time, balancing family lives and taking up to four courses would have enough on their plates. But each term, students also take part in extracurricular offerings made available through EMTM — sometimes even returning to campus on non-program weekends.

Among the added options this Fall:
> Politics & Networking Workshop
> Project Management Workshop

Other program 'extras' have ranged from a Negotiations seminar, to Business Plan Writing workshops, to optional Global Immersion Trips that have taken students to Germany, China and Japan. This year, the Global Immersion Trip focus will be on the business, political and cultural environment of India.

> Politics & Networking
For many engineers, scientists and technologists, simply acquiring the business skills and strategic perspectives to accompany their technical expertise isn't enough. To break the management barrier may require a better understanding of 'how to play the game' in a more directed and positive way, for yourself and others. More than 50 students took part in a 4-session workshop on this topic, which met Friday evenings during program weekends. Led by Victor McCrary, PhD, EMTM'95, they explored the why's and how-to's involved in the self-evaluation, networking and relationship building that can lead to greater satisfaction and success in one's personal and professional life.

For Ali Qureshi, EMTM'06, Web Systems Branch Manager for the U.S. House of Representatives, the learning was timely. "One of Dr. McCrary's suggestions is to always have the top three priorities for your unit or company in mind, so that you can describe them on the spur of the moment. I recently had a chance to put that into practice," says Ali. "At the end of a meeting with the Associate Administrator (CIO) at the House of Representatives, he asked me if there were any issues he should be aware of. It wasn't the topic of our meeting, but I was able to respond with a couple of strategic priorities, and he was clearly impressed that I was able to answer his question clearly and with succinct detail. Two of the priorities are already tangible action items. (Thanks again for the timely advice, Dr. McCrary!)"

Dr. McCrary is former Chief of the Convergent Information Systems Division at the National Institute of Standards & Technology and currently the Business Area Executive for Science and Technology at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. In March 2002, Dr. McCrary received the Percy Julian Award from the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers, the organization's highest honor, for lifetime achievement in research in science and engineering.

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> Project Management Workshop
This 2-day workshop, held on a non-program weekend (Friday & Saturday, September 23-24), covered the skills required for planning, monitoring and controlling technological projects. Participants learned the tools of the trade, and then practiced them in a simulated project management environment using the Project Management Trainer (PMT), a software tool designed to support training for managing dynamic multiple projects, and that also has an effective interface with Microsoft Project.

Leading the workshop was Avraham Shtub, MBA, PhD, Associate Dean and head of the MBA Program at the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Shtub is the Sharon and Stephen Seiden Professor of Project Management in the Industrial Engineering and Management faculty at the Institute. He has been a consultant to industry in the areas of project management, risk management and the design of production-operation systems. Dr. Shtub developed the concept of "project segmentation," and he is author and co-author of two award-winning books, Project Management: Engineering, Technology and Implementation (Prentice Hall), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): The Dynamics of Operations Management (Kluwer).

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