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MS Software Management Blog

Wondering if a Carnegie Mellon degree is right for you? Read along as our students chronicle their journey through the MS in Software Management program.

Amin is a second year grad student in the MS Software Management program, a former Software Design Engineer from Microsoft and a current Software Engineer at Adify, a Silicon Valley startup. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, software and traveling. He would love to start a software company someday.
Vineet is a second year part-time software management student, currently working @NetApp also nominated as the best place to work in North America recently. His area of expertise is Oracle ERP solutions. Other professional areas of interest are SaaS markets both technologically and business wise. @CMU he wants to grow his knowledge to manage software products and businesses. He is interested in work on start up ideas. On the personal side he loves to spend time with his family and travel.
Rene is a recent alum, a manager of operations and program manager in Cisco's software development organization, the mother of two daughters and a performing arts fan.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Method and Process of Learning at Carnegie Mellon West


I thought it would be helpful to give you some of the methods and processes I've seen employed so far at Carnegie Mellon West, and some of the "take-aways" I've gathered from it:

You are only as good as your team and vice versa
CMU West provides a holistic learning experience by providing a team-oriented and learn-by-doing approach. What this means is that most of the tasks are completed as part of a team. The faculty, at the start of the semester, create the teams for each course. The team members work together to accomplish both team and individual tasks as well as manage team and individual learning. For each of the courses so far, I have had a new set of team members. Typical teams so far have ranged from about 3 students to 5 students.

As you divide the task and create roles amongst the team to accomplish a particular task, you begin to improve your team management skills, communication skills, and learn from each other in a collaborative environment.

In each task through the first 2 semesters, I tried to take up different roles; from editor to researcher to team lead. My recommendation to students is to try and take up roles that they are not comfortable with and fulfill those roles to the best of their abilities while utilizing the help of your peers and faculty. As a student, you should avoid always taking roles that you are already comfortable with. Don’t be afraid to be the weak link. This is the opportunity for you to learn in a controlled atmosphere and your team members are there to help you.

And then there is the Coach
Ensuring that the team is performing to its highest potential is the job of the coach. A coach is a faculty member that observes and oversees the team dynamics as they accomplish the task, and her or she will provide suggestions and tips for improvements. The coach also helps the team avoid traps. Unlike a game of basketball or baseball, the coaches are not the ones calling the play-by-play strategy. I can draw closer comparison to a golf coach who provides tips on improving your swing.

By working in small teams under the supervision of the coach you acquire knowledge related to the course together as a team. At the same time you are going through team formation and dynamics, project management, improving people management skills, leadership skills, and communication skills.

Role-playing
As part of the learn-by-doing philosophy, in some courses team members and faculty are role-playing as part of a fictitious company. The tasks themselves mimic a real-world business problem where faculty members act as senior managers of the company and you and your team members are working on critical assignments and projects for the company. For example, in the current course for Systems and Requirements, we are working to create vision of a new product and present it to the CEO and VP of Marketing for their approval to start product development.

The plenary session
Every week there is a two-hour plenary session. The session is run more like a round-table discussion on most occasions except when the faculty wants to present something specific or we have visiting faculty. The topic of each session relates to suggested and optional reading material that are used to help in the completion of the task. These sessions provide a forum to learn from the larger class as we discuss relevant experience, and from the faculty as they share their expertise and experience.

The suggested and optional reading material
The required readings take about 3-4 hours a week, but if you read all of the optional readings too, you could double that. It is always good to plan your week such that the readings are completed before the start of the week. Considering earlier assignments are completed by Saturday, one should be done with their reading on Sunday or latest by Monday.

The ad-hoc team meetings
Not all assignments can be accomplished through designated team meetings, wiki, or emails. There are times that you need to get on brainstorming sessions that are not supervised by faculty or the coaches but are instead self-regulated by the team. These sessions improve the individual members’ communication skills.

The office hours
The faculty has open office hours to discuss any assignment related issues. But these times also function as a great opportunity for the students to speak to the faculty and take their advice on work or school-related issues. I have had the opportunity to speak to a few of the faculty members as part of their office hours and have learned a lot from them. They have been very helpful and encouraging to my inquiries and questions.

The deliverables
Each course has multiple tasks and each task could have more than one deliverable. The deliverables are typically reports that need to be submitted before a deadline that is set by the faculty or a deadline that you as a team have determined. When the team is working on a deadline set by the team members, the team acquires project management skills. One lesson I learned quickly through this process is to start thinking of the intended reader and audience of the report as each report initially has a maximum page limit that we had to adhere to.

Most courses also have at least one presentation as a deliverable. In this case you deliver the presentation to your peers or to the “senior management” (aka the faculty) of the fictitious company. The goal of the presentation could be to announce a decision related to the project, analyze a particular problem and provide solutions, or sell a new idea. The faculty as well as your peers critiques these presentations for both the style and content of the presentation.

And then to know how you did in the course
Obviously there are grades that go with each course but at Carnegie Mellon West there are other indicators that tell you how well you did.

  1. Each member of the team goes through a detailed analysis of the accomplishments and contributions of every member as well as a self-appraisal. The team members share positive contributions and qualities as well as areas for improvement as part of a team meeting.
  2. The coach and the faculty’s formal and informal assessment of your deliverables provide you with a running assessment of an individual as well as the teams abilities.

In summary
My grades could always be a lot better and there is room for more personal improvements but the MS in Software Management is turning out to be the best personal investment I have made in a long time.

posted by Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley @ 4:01 PM  3 comments

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