MIT-SDM Diary

Tech Treck and Spring Semester

2009-02-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

I had heard about the tech treck before, thanks to Samir Sawant who is part of Media Lab Club. I took the opportunity to join the club (finally) and went on three day Tech Treck trip in JAN '09.
Even being at distance (350 miles from Boston) I took 8 trips to Boston last year and tried to keep some face to face time with atleast some of the classmates...that being said distance student do miss on lot of cool stuff happening at MIT.

Tech trip was nice, got to meet folks from Sloan and SDM and did Media (IT), Energy and BioTech on each of the three days. For me it was more of a sampling and networking opportunity. The theme everywhere was that there are very few hirings (except Medical devices and Health sector companies we visited) and intership opportunities.

Jan '09 has gone as soon as it came like previos years..:-) and today was the first lectures of Spring Courses. I have taken Tech Strategy which looked like a great lecture, lot of discussion, lot of energy and lot of student involement , I have heard some good things about this course. The other one is ERBA (Engineering Risk Benefit Analysis) which also looked promising.

So here diving in to Spring Sem and I'm sure there will be lot of interesting storied along the way which I would like to share more often than I have shared them in past.

- Ashok Dhiman.

SDM so far...

2009-02-04T18:58:00.000-08:00

Its been a great year...I enjoyed the Fall courses I had:
a. Systems Architecture : I don't know where and how I will use what I learned in Systems Architecture . I think course is looks at a very high level at Systems Architecture and gives a very generic view. I really likes the guest lectures though - Liebeck and Imrich...Its always good to hear people from real world who have used Systems Architecture principles but in varied ways.

b. Project Management: The best of this lecture apart from Project Management theory and tools was prof. De Weck. I really liked is focused and disciplined teaching style. His lectures had nice balance of discussions and the material which needs to be covered. Lot of time profs get carried away by discussion and digress from lecture which can be fun at times but folks loose on the content which was suppose to be covered. This seldom happend in De Weck's class.

c. Software Systems Architecture: This lecture was ad hoc, except some consistent lectures around healthcare and software evolution. Part of the course was to read "Dreaming in Code" which I thought was alright books, it had its high and low chapters. The course load was light though and there were lot of interesting readings and videos which we saw and discussed.

The load was quite a lot though and I wanted a break so badly after Fall semester that I did not even touch any book for next 6 weeks, just took rest, spent some resting time with family and friends. Now back in Spring Sem I think I should have spend couple of weeks to get back in study mood.

SDM so far has been about reading from a spectrum of subjects and for me I guess challenge is to tie all pieces together. Going forward I think I'll need to look back and gather the linkages from courses which are done and the ones which are remaining and get some kind of structure. The good or bad thing about a program like SDM is that you have quite a bit of flexibility to choose what you want to study but it also needs good amount of thinking and planning to choose right courses which will best suite the career path ahead.

Some of SDM'08 have left, best of luck to them. Got to talk to some of the SDM '09 folks - welcome....Looking forward to meet you folks during Spring Business Trip.

- Ashok Dhiman.

There goes the term...

2008-05-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

So that was end of term-1, 5 more to go. Spring term was good, pretty manageable all along. There were some night outs during the end of term as expected. I was in team with 3 other on campus full timers and so their schedule was really busy but we did spend quality time with each other on the common assignments and submitted all on time and to our satisfaction.

We have 3 weeks break till 9th June '08 since summer term. Recently got the subject list for Summer term, mostly gonna pick Financial and Managerial accounting and System dynamics. Only two this summer which should be enough to keep me busy with my work and family.
So taking needed rest and getting other chores completed during the break, might hit shore sometime in next two weeks and there will be shopping with wifey and zoo with little one..:-)

Also looking forward for July business trip and meet the class again.

Also looking in to some engagement near MIT so that I can move near to the classes...its a work in progress..

Well, will come back with more till then I leave you with some of my recent close-up and long shots : http://picasaweb.google.com/ashuarchitect/CloseupAndFarShotsMay08?authkey=E-pVo4S8PlU

Enjoy,
Ashok.

Little about courses

2008-04-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

Its been a while so thought of jotting something down. I'll start by saying that till now its been pretty manageable - the job, family and MIT lectures/assignments and readings. I hope I don't jinx myself..:-)
So coming back to lectures - I'm continuing Product Design and Development, the Concept selection is done, we are now designing our product. This course hits both arenas on one hand it takes you to the engineering domain of concept selection, designing and actually building a product (we are given $800 budget) and on the other side of it we were involved in market selection, user group finding, and will work on business plan shortly. Guest lectures have been great , one specially I liked was lecture on "Sustainable Development" by Nicholas Ashford. He talked about how growth needs to be tied closely will energy, politics, business and people.

Another course in 2nd half of Spring semester is "System Optimization". I like it, its cut short but to the point, I do not know where I'll be using it in real life but it gives insight in to how companies makes decision on choosing a path in their business, let me supply chain, investing, product development. The lectures are example based with couple of case studies and individual and group assignments, it has some maths but nothing too cryptic...I'm sure I'll not be able to optimize a real world system after this course but surely will be able to understand it better.

I also was trying to get little more organized in recent days and so have been visiting lot of GTDs and mind mapping sites....I've started using "freemind" open source mind mapping software and is going good so far. I'm still experimenting though and so will be some time before I trust one system and get use to it...

Well that's it for April '08.

Ashok.

Business Trip Week

2008-03-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

We had our first "Business week trip" from 10th MAR - 14th MAR. The idea of these weekly business trips which happen three times a year is to get face to face time with distance students , listen to special guest lectures , seminars and have fun..:-)
We had two speakers in this trip:
Dr. Andy Grace of the MathWorks to talk about Model Base Design-Concepts
and
We had session with Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., Former Chairman of IBM which was great. Its interesting to see the simplicity needed to do task at a CEO level. He talked about management and leadership. Some of the point I wrote during the session are:

1. What do managers do:
Managers create great processes, use information to team's benefit, create compensation/reward channels. He added time-management to the equation and talked about how "meetings" are such a killer of time. Managers should become colleagues during problem solving process (be with their team during weekend when fighting fire) and should become Boss when its about accountability.

So management is finding what are different processes in an organization and how to make them better.

2. On Leadership:
> They create culture, climate, possibility and opportunity to win.
> Leadership is to make others do what they otherwise don't do (inspire, motivate).
> Leaders do not preside they are along side with their people.
> They don't take credit for other's work, there is always enough credit to go around for all.

He also talked about values, behavior when dealing with people, being open and aware and seeking and giving good advice.

One hour session had experience from his life before during and after his IBM days.

I could meet my Product Design and Development team and talk face to face and discuss on our future product ideas and concepts for the course assignment. We had couple of evening get together parties, some sleep and lot of fun.

Jaldi Vapis..:-)

1/6th of the year is gone

2008-03-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

Feb was interesting, not as hectic as Jan but studying with distractions from office and little distractions from home has been a learning experience. I'm taking classes this semester from distance using "live video conferencing". It has exceeded my expectations , the class coverage is amazing, distance students (15 others like me) are well involved in the class discussions. The VTC technology itself has improved a lot from cost point of view but still there are lot of areas of improvement. My only complain is the audio delay, its worth it though given the fact that I can attend classes without leaving my job which not only is economical but also the learnings from class can be compared/applied in real life within the company. Its interesting how you change your view of looking, talking and observing things back in your company after you learn stuff in class.
In class discussions has its sides - There are folks who talk only when they have something valid and something which actually is in flow with the topic and adds to the learning value but then there are instances of pure air time and talks about "I did this" and " I did that". That being said you cannot live without them they are what makes the whole learning experience worth while.
Reading before calls is vital something I'm not able to do as well I want, it really makes discussions more knowledgeable if you go in class with atleast some sense of the broad topic to be discussed.
My courses this semester revolve around Innovation in Product Development and Design, organization factors, marketing and one course on a actual product design which is suppose to take us from the need finding process all the way to realizing the actual product. We have $800 budget for each team so they are not expecting us to make next Space Shuttle but a small product with less than 10 parts. The idea is to go through the whole product development life cycle. There have been cases where folks have been able to create something simple in the past which went to patent office.
We have another business trip in a weeks time and so I will back at MIT campus for a week. I'm looking forward to it. There are some guest lectures lined up for us, I'll come back and post about them later mid March. With submissions in mid March I'm assuming I'll be busy but hope to come back here time and again to reflect on what my experiences with SDM program and to answer any queries folks out there might have.

Be safe, be healthy,
AshU.

I leave you with pictures I took in last couple of weeks at Valley Forge Park in PA:

More here : http://picasaweb.google.com/ashuarchitect/Winter0708?authkey=VGumRSbdrXQ

Looking back at JAN Session

2008-02-03T14:19:00.001-08:00

30th JAN was the last day of lectures in JAN and that gives us about a week to reboot ourselves before we go to the Spring term lectures on 5th Feb. Looking back JAN seems more worthwhile , it went little too fast, 25% of Systems Architecture done, Full course of Human side of technology done, 2 design challenges, a probability and statistic refresher and couple of sessions on leadership in general. I need to really organize the notes and get ready for spring session. It was great to be back with family and comfort zone but will not longer before I dive back to the spring semester.
I leave you with some more photos from the JAN session and will be back with more in coming weeks.
AD.

Classroom:

SDM '08

Boston in Winter

The Stata Center houses

Global Warming and World Hunger

2008-01-24T14:43:00.000-08:00

Well these were the topics for our Design Challenge - II which happened today and brings yet another busy week to end. There were 10 teams like earlier Design Challenge and each of us were suppose to take either on Global Warming or World Hunger problem and come up with a systems approach to how to solve them. Obviously they did not expect us to solve these problems in two weeks but to see how we approach a complex system. We picked World Nutrition topic and presented an idea of floating a company which will use system dynamics to make models and give region/case specific solution to Non Government and government organizations so that they will be able to get more value for their efforts. Other teams had great ideas - Like for Global warming we heard ideas of using algae which absorbs CO2 and converts it to BioFuel, space elevator (future), Government policy modifications and other innovative ones and for World Nutrition (Obesity and Malnutrition) we had ideas like Kiwi Cards where you get points for eating at healthy places which can be converted to miles and gift cards, other ideas were genetically engineered crops/animals, lot of graphs and statistics........Interesting was that even after doing research for about two weeks and getting to know lot of stuff still there were new approaches and ideas to be learned from other teams. 7 teams presented solution/approach to curb world hunger and Obesity and none were the same all teams had different solution/approach.
Idea I guess is to enhance the thought process, these Design Challenges are there to start system thinking in our minds...is it working? I'll let you know as the time goes by....:-)
AD.

Assigments and Design Challenge

2008-01-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Thats typical of MIT studying Systems Architect on one hand and solving world hunger problem on the other...We are working on Design competition to come with a system approach on hunger-obesity spectrum. We have divided the work and are working on trends, approaches in different part of the globe. This weekend was long but so was the assignments and to do list of things to submit next week. Some folks went for Boston this morning but I got up late (thanks to late sitting last night) and missed the trip, well it was very cold - I wouldn't have enjoyed anyways..:-).
Eating American all week gave way to eating Desi twice this weekend one was nice buffet in Hotel Shalimar of India on Mass Ave. and other in Desi Dhaba for dinner tonight.
So what have I learned so far:

a) Design Challenge.
b) System Architecture.
c) Human Side of Technology.
d) Probability and Statistics as a refresher for Engineering Risk Benefit Analysis.
e) System approach to past cases, things around us and future solutions and concepts.

I'll elaborate on each one of them later. As someone put it nicely that to learn at a institute like MIT is like drinking water from fire hose - and so I'm working on planning my spring courses to make sure I drink the part I need to quench my thirst.
I've made some good friends and acquaintances and have all intention to make these new networking to work for mutual benefit in the time to come.

Just finished reading a case on Homestar Appliances on which we all need to write a report before end of this month - will ponder on it in coming week.

Chao.

Snow and Lectures

2008-01-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

Well we had 10 inches of snow yesterday and the spring like weather last weekend was transformed to a true Boston style winter. One thing is sure after living in winter in Boston I'll definitely stop cribbing about cold in Philly..:-)

We had sessions on Career development today - Networking, using Alumni, MIT web resources and Career development depts. One last year SDMer also gave insight on how he was able to secure 5 offers by using these resources, not that all get these kind of offers but it was good to see a working approach.

Tomorrow we will have Resume building exercise where they shrink your 5 page resume to 1 and try to make you more aware of your skills, goals, options and career path - will post more about it later.

System Architecture (SA) - This has been more of a philosophical class so far but in last couple of sessions it has become clear why Mr. Crawley has taken the approach of clearing the terms, nomenclature and definitions first and then getting in to functions and other elements. SA's assignments are interesting but are very time consuming the currency we SDMers do not have in JAN..:-).

Human Side of Technology is very well taught by Ralph Katz and he is doing an amazing job in keeping the class participation and clearing the concepts. His energy is visible on the podium, no wonder his lecture is after lunch and even after free lunch I see very few heads dozing. This lecture talks about Human behavior in organizations, team work, disruptive technologies - Lot of interesting storied from Ralph's personal experience, Its very informative.

...........and we have a 6 lecture refresher on Probability and Statistics which will be used in our Engineering Risk and Benefit Analysis later.

Working on my spring course selection this week as I'll be taking them via Video Conf. so will need to synchronize them with the work.

Well its 11:45 in the night and I need to teleport to dream so saio nara .... will catch yaa later.

Where is sleep in the schedule ?

2008-01-12T19:11:00.001-08:00

It has been a crazy week at SDM-MIT. By some calculation average sleep the class got last week was less than 5 hours. Last week we had first lectures in System Architecture, Refresher on Statistic and probability and Human side of technology. SDM is a costly program but it was good to sense the worth in the professors who teach, they are masters of their fields with so many papers and books under their belt and they bring tremendous experience and vision to the class.
So we had lectures 9:00 - 5:00 with assignments and then from 5:30 onwards till night whatever time the group design challenge work was done, we had to steal some time after 5:30 to finish the class assignments too. In First Design challenge the class was divided in 10 teams of 6/7 people (total class of about 65). The task was to build a robot from kit who could do 5 different tasks. Competition was held last Thursday and it was great to be part of a highly charged atmosphere. Our robot did did not do as well as we anticipated but the competition was fun, it was great a team building exercise and there were lot of learnings.

Some photographs from our Design Challenge-I :

Working on the bot:

Final version (ready to fire ..:-))

Competition Arena:

Other Robots (the ones on the table..:-) :

Yesterday we got our Second Design challenge (DS) in which the class is divided again in to 10 teams but with different people. DS-II is more of a research based project in which we have to choose one of the topics (Global warming, Malnutrition in poor countries/Obesity in developed countries and how we can divide the food more equally in this world). We need to take a systems approach to give a solution to one of these problems and present in class in another 10 days. With hectic last 10 days our group started DS-II with a little introduction and then agreeing that lets take this weekend off to reboot. I came went back home to spend some quality time with wifey and little one. It was nice to to eat some home made food after 10 days of pizza, sandwiches and salad. Heading back to MIT tomorrow.
MIT campus is amazing and is at the most desirable location on the bank of Charles river. Here are some of the campus snaps.

Boston Downtown from MIT Campus:

MIT Main building:

I'll end today by saying that I'm glad to be here. There is wealth of knowledge here and I hope I'll be able to absorb the little part which will make my time here and future more worthwhile.
Catch you all later.
AD.

First day at SDM 2008

2008-01-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

Today was first day at SDM. It started with little presentation from program director Pat Hale talked about what to expect in JAN session. Then each of us (60 folks) went on with presenting a brief slide pack telling about ourselves. Its an amazing mix of folks, by rough count I could see at least 15 from India and south asia, about 10 from China/Korea/Japan, some 10 from Latin Amercia, quite a few from Canada and Europe and about 10 from USA Navy. Almost 60% already have Masters degree, couple of PHDs, a physician doctor, some with MBAs and couple who left their MBA programs to join SDM. More than the academic it was interesting to see a great bunch of folks having very varied taste , hobbies and outlook towards life. After couple of other general information session we were given our first design challenge in the evening. We have to make a robot (kit provided) who can shot a projectile, do relay race with other group's robot, do synchronized dancing with other group's robot, do tug of war. So its a nice 5 day exercise where 10 teams (6 in each team) will compete/collaborate to accomplish this task. This is only evening work we still have to attend lectures in day time.
First day was a great experience, no burning yet but I can feel the heat.
Will come back..:-)

Reached the campus..finally

2008-01-02T17:12:00.001-08:00

Its an amazing feeling to be where you want to be..:-)
I finally reached MIT campus today evening. I'll be trying to get as much sleep I can get today as the schedule from tomorrow looks crazy. We have first two weeks of JAN with Classes/group activities from 8:30 AM till 10:30 in the night and then till 6:30PM for remaining two weeks of JAN, no wonder the JAN session has earned the name as "JAN Boot Camp". Apart from getting in to topics like Risk Benefit Analysis, System Architecture, Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation and product design and development there will be two design challenges in JAN.
Drive to campus was hectic but its good to be finally on the campus.
Thats it for today will come back with more from the class...

Getting prepared for JAN session

2007-12-29T15:36:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking of documenting my journey to MIT SDM (System Design and Management) for long and it feels good to finally get on to blogger and key in my thoughts.

I got my admit letter from MIT in AUG 2007 and then there was wait/debate/decision between this program and others which I was looking at, its a never ending debate between MS or MBA, MIT or some other top school. Finally I decided to put my money on MIT-SDM program and the journey began....

I'm getting ready for the JAN session which they call "Boot-camp" in SDM. Room has been booked for the month of JAN and all travel arrangements have been finished. I'm excited about going back to school but also sober about the fact that its a start of two year commitment which will take a lot out of me. At the end I expect it to be a rewarding experience - intellectually and personally.

I'll key in my experience from time to time in this diary and expect it to give insight to folks looking at this program from outside.

Next post will be from Boston campus.....:-)