Introduction

I took Managing Teams and Projects from Professor Bo Tep in Spring 2008. This is an elective course in the MBA program at Santa Clara University. I took it as a late-night class, starting at 8:30 PM, before the business school eliminated that schedule spot.

Instructor profile

Professor Tep had a career in the telecommunications industry before moving recently to academia as a second career.

Classroom experience

The most important thing to point out is that half of most class sessions was spend on presentations and activities led by a student team. Each team was responsible for planning two group presentations that taught something substantial while keeping the class interested. Most of these involved some traditional talking over PowerPoint slides, a teamwork-related game, and a follow-up discussion relating the game experience to the topic in question.

Professor Tep made a few things clear at the start of the course. First of all, the course is all about teams, and not about projects. Second, Professor Tep tries to improve the course from quarter to quarter, so some things students have heard about previous sections may or may not apply to this section of the course. Of course, every instructor should make conscious improvements. When I started writing this series of course reviews, this statement influenced me to be sure to phrase my essays as reviews of specific course sections, not as timeless reviews of the course or the instructor.

Another thing to note is that Professor Tep used some of the course’s main themes about adult learners to structure the course itself. Students were assigned to teams by Professor Tep at the first class. The teams lasted all quarter, and most of the course work was done within these teams. Each team was responsible for two in-class presentations and two group papers during the quarter.

Each class had a topic corresponding to a chapter from the textbook, Joining Together by the Johnson brothers. Some chapters were split into two classes. As I noted above, about half of each class session was taken by a presentation led by one of the teams. The remaining time was spent with a short prepared lecture and general class discussion moderated by Professor Tep.

Coursework, exams, and grades

Each team was responsible for two group presentations, a mid-term paper, and a final paper. Each topic was expected to be 8-10 pages on one of the course topics. Groups had considerable leeway to define the subjects of their paper. Two individual papers were supposed to account for a total 15% of the course grade, but midway through the course Professor Tep made the second individual paper optional.

What I learned

I took a deeper dive into some of the topics that I learned about in MGMT 501. Most of this learning was about topics chosen for my individual and group projects: Sources of power and status within groups, positive and negative outcomes of intergroup conflict, and conflicts arising from mergers and acquisitions.

I also learned some things about effective presentations, spurred by Professor Tep’s high standard for keeping the whole class engaged in the class presentations, and a healthy competitive spirit between project teams.

Professor Tep’s lectures emphasized the importance of building trust within a team and the group leader’s responsibility for candid 1:1 communication outside of group interactions. I learned several group work techniques that were immediately applicable to MBA course projects — so I’m particularly glad that I chose to take this course early in the program.

Criticisms

It was too easy to skim through many of the topics, and because some of the topics were not discussed deeply in class, I missed some of the core material. Part of this is due to the fact that group presentations and group-led activities – a major component of this course – took up almost half the total class time.

I think it the course could have been structured for more breadth if Professor Tep required individual papers to be on specific topics, or planned lecture time with a bit more structure.

Recommendation

Once you visualize yourself engaging in an hour or two of games during the quarter, and planning and leading two of these activity sessions, you may have an easy time deciding whether you want to take this Professor Tep’s MGMT 538 class! I believe that every MBA student at Santa Clara should consider this course as an elective. If you have your heart set on a career that does not involve any work in permanent or temporary teams, or influencing external teams or assisting them in conflict resolution, an MBA might not be the right degree program for you anyway.

Trailer

This article was first written in 2008 by Dylan Salisbury for dylansalisbury.com. All rights reserved. I added this paragraph because spam blog sites pick up copies of my blog posts.

For a list of course reviews and a disclaimer, visit my Course Reviews page.

Allan Chen posted a review of this course from Winter 2007 on his blog.

Introduction

I took Organizational Analysis and Management, a.k.a. Organizational Theory, from D. R. Palmer in Winter 2008.

This course is currently required for all non-executive MBA and MSIS students at Santa Clara.

Instructor Profile

D. R. Palmer, not to be confused with the tenured management instructor who is also named David Palmer, is a lecturer at Santa Clara University and management consultant. He also leads workshops through Santa Clara’s Executive Development Center. Palmer has a range of academic credentials including study under Peter Drucker.

I’d better get the main theme of this course review out early: Dr. Palmer is passionate about giving career advice and coaching on career growth, but perhaps not so passionate about Organizational Theory. There was a strong emphasis on practical career advice throughout this course, and generally that is appropriate for a class full of working students who are near turning points in their careers. But that emphasis came at some cost to in-depth coverage of the core course content.

Classroom experience

Class sessions were generally structured as a combination of lecture and open discussion. Typically Dr. Palmer discussed something related to the homework or a career management topic then went into the chapter’s material. For some classes the chapter material review didn’t start until more than halfway through the class period.

Coursework, exams, and grades

The course grade was comprised from five short in-class quizzes, and individual project, a group project, and a class participation factor.

The individual project, Process Map Analysis was a project for each individual to research and map out their own work group in a number of different ways. The idea is to give the student new insight into their own work situation and opportunities for increased effectiveness and advancement. This was a valuable activity for me. Students whose employer had a “no public org chart” policy had a much harder time finishing this assignment than others.

The group project was the major work effort of the course. The class self-organized into groups of about six, and chose one of our employers’ divisions to do the project on. The project involves interviewing around six members of the chosen organization and producing a paper that analyzes the current structure and recommends structural changes.

My class generally found that some of the quiz questions were ambiguous. Students argued about a couple of them in class and won Palmer over. In Palmer’s defense, the entire cohort took ACTG 300 the previous quarter from Chris Paisley, who intentionally put tricky true/false questions on his exams that required careful parsing. Palmer was trying not to use tricky wording, but when the wording was slightly ambiguous we suspected a trap.

What I learned

I had a great experience with the group project, because I had a smart hardworking team and one of our team members got high-level buy-in from his organization to support our project. I probably learned the most from just exploring the current challenges faced by the organization and the historical and structural factors that led to them. My whole career has been in software development organizations, and it was great to see similarities and differences faced by an organization full of knowledge workers in a different industry.

From the individual project I got some good insight into my place in my company. Particularly, I started differentiating between direct power over resources and business plans and indirect power such as dependent work relationships. My work group is high in informal power — people throughout the organization rely on us to help meet their goals, and we have specialized experience and knowledge that can’t easily be replaced. Yet we do not have a comparable amount of direct power over financial resources, large-scale hiring, or setting business plans. This changed some of my long-term career thinking, which is the whole point of the project.

I don’t think I became too well grounded in Organizational Theory itself, but I learned many of the key concepts and terms and I’ll be able to use the text and other resources from here to keep talking the talk as I continue in the MBA program.

Criticisms

Not enough class time was spent on the core OT topics. Although Palmer’s emphasis on career planning was very appropriate for the SCU graduate student body, he could probably have cut the amount of lecture time devoted to this by half and had a more effective course.

Recommendation

I got a lot of value out of this course and the workload was manageable, yet I’m hesitant to give it a blanket recommendation because some students will be put off by Palmer’s lecture style. If you’re ready for some introspection on your career growth, think ahead about a project group you’d like to work with and a company you can do the project on, and take this course.

Trailer

This article was first written in 2008 by Dylan Salisbury for dylansalisbury.com. All rights reserved. I added this paragraph because spam blog sites pick up copies of my blog posts.

For a list of course reviews and a disclaimer, visit my Course Reviews page.

Update 2008-08-17

Allan Chen posted a thorough review of this class from the previous quarter on his blog. Although his review is more critical than mine, I think our reviews are very consistent.

Introduction

I took Managerial Competencies and Effectiveness, a.k.a. Organizational Behavior, from James Hall in Fall 2007, my first quarter in the MBA program. This course is currently required for all non-executive MBA students to take during their first quarter in the program.

Instructor Profile

Professor James Hall is a professor at Santa Clara University and management consultant. He served two multi-year tenures as chair of the Management department, a fact he weaved into his lectures for this course.

Classroom experience

Class sessions were very well balanced between discussions of the current topic and a variety of structured activities. Many of those activities were smaller group discussions about the course readings. There was one role-playing exercise. Some other activities included self-assessments of leadership and conflict resolution styles.

Professor Hall was very good at answering students’ questions thoroughly while keeping the class moving. I got the impression that Professor Hall has broad knowledge of the research grounding the various topics covered in this foundational course. Why? Because many of his answers to student questions were prefaced with something such as, “the research in this area suggests….”

On a Saturday near the end of the quarter all students participated in a day long management simulation exercise, along with students from other MGMT 501 sections.

Coursework, exams, and grades

The course grade was comprised of two in-class written exams and a paper based on the simulation. Professor Hall provided study guides for the exams and was very clear on the grading criteria for the paper.

The grading criteria for the exams were mainly around being able to clearly explain the core concepts of the course or apply them briefly to example situations. In-depth writing or analysis of any particular topic was not required for the exams or the paper.

What I learned

Primarily, I learned a lot about my own work styles and preferences from the class discussions and exercises. I was also grounded in the basic concepts and lingo around organizational behavior.

The effective way that Professor Hall ran the classroom contributed to healthy norms and trust within the class cohort that started forming during this quarter.

Criticisms

I’m not sure if I learned enough from the management simulation exercise to justify the amount of time it took up. That’s about the only negative thing I have to say about this course.

Recommendation

Because this is a required first course, it seems unlikely that someone will find this article before choosing a section for MGMT 501. Based on my experience in this class, I would recommend taking Professor Hall for any course or workshop he teaches.

Trailer

This article was first written in 2008 by Dylan Salisbury for dylansalisbury.com. All rights reserved. I added this paragraph because spam blog sites pick up copies of my blog posts.

For a list of course reviews and a disclaimer, visit my Course Reviews page.