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11.08

Innovation Management Masters Program Helps Engineers Fuel Value Creation

By Eden Fisher, Ph.D.

At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, the interdisciplinary Masters program in Engineering and Technology Innovation Management (E&TIM) is designed for engineers who are passionate about creating value from technological innovation. The professional program, which was launched in 2007, reflects the vision stated by Carnegie Mellon’s Dean of Engineering, Pradeep Khosla: “Future engineers must be able to enable, create, manage, and deploy innovation in a multinational, distributed environment."

Because of its culture fostering successful interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as a convergence of relevant strengths, Carnegie Mellon is an ideal home for an innovation management program. Carnegie Mellon’s strong programs in a range of engineering and scientific disciplines provide a promising environment for innovative ideas, which often occur at the interface between established fields of study. In addition, the University can claim a tradition of excellent engineering project courses, successful entrepreneurship education, and a significant research community studying innovation and technological change. The E&TIM Masters degree is offered by the College of Engineering and administered by the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, in collaboration with the Heinz College of Management, the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and the Tepper School of Business.

Graduates from the first class of Carnegie Mellon University’s interdisciplinary Masters program in Engineering and Technology Innovation Management (E&TIM) have moved into roles where they are putting their education into practice.

At RealNetworks, Inc., in Seattle, E&TIM graduate Randy Sinnott is Program Manager, Professional Services. His responsibilities include coordinating and leading the technical effort for a major mobile service provider’s video service, as well as being the face of the team to the client. Sinnott says, “I dove into mobility — the technologies that come together to provide the end-user experience that is a modern mobile phone. Carnegie Mellon and the E&TIM program prepared me to be effective in areas ranging from negotiating with clients to debugging code with development teams.”

Nokomis, a growing defense contractor near Pittsburgh that develops and sells state-of-the-art sensor technology, also recognizes the importance of combining engineering strength with preparation for innovation management. Nokomis President Walter J. Keller explained, “Small, high-growth companies that drive the nation’s technology backbone require the interdisciplinary skills that enable technological innovation and help achieve market goals.” So, when Nokomis sought talent in this area, he reached out to Carnegie Mellon’s E&TIM program.

“Jerry Pauly, one of the first graduates of the E&TIM program, has demonstrated a breadth of engineering and engineering management acumen that has propelled him to achieve dramatic success, and play roles that would typically be reserved for employees with more experience,’’ said Keller.

For Pauly, who entered graduate school after working as a traditional engineer in large industrial companies for a few years, the E&TIM program helped him master a whole new set of skills, including not just managing budgets, but the ability to explain the economics behind sound decisions. “The workplace is changing. This new degree program gives us a resilient skill set and the ability to grow and become both better engineers and better managers,’’ said Pauly.

Lectures, case studies, team project courses and an industrial internship are all part of the E&TIM program’s core structure. A seminar course featuring innovation management practitioners in a variety of roles and organizations spans the program, to encourage dialogue with different stakeholders about challenges and approaches to successfully create value from technological innovation. The students, who come from a variety of technical disciplines, each shape an individual curriculum with their choice of technical and management electives.

The goal of the Managerial and Engineering Economics core course, taught by Professor David Gerard, is to provide engineers with both the tools and the economic intuition for making decisions concerning innovation opportunities and projects. For the core course in The Strategy and Management of Technological Innovation, Professor Francisco Veloso uses cases studies to help teach strategic concepts, such as how incorporating technology and innovation into the corporate strategy can help a firm achieve a profitable and sustainable competitive advantage, as well as management concepts associated with developing or leveraging technology competencies for value creation.

One new core course developed for the E&TIM program is Decision Tools for Engineering Design and Entrepreneurship, or “DTEDE”, co-designed by Professor Jeremy Michalek of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Erica Fuchs of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy. Building upon engineering fundamentals, this course provides a toolset to determine and communicate the economic competitiveness of an innovative technology or a new product design. Students learn to represent both production implications and projected market response for new design choices. They apply these tools in team-based projects, analyzing real-world opportunities for innovation.

Students bring their learning from these courses, as well as learning from initial technical or innovation management electives, to the industrial internship each student undertakes during the summer. An internship is viewed as an integral part of the program, as it offers significant opportunities to apply knowledge from classes to real situations, and to frame questions for further study. E&TIM’s full-time, one year program schedule is structured with an unusual spring semester start, which enables students to both prepare for and learn from their mid-program internships.

E&TIM student Bharath Venkatramani completed his 2008 summer internship with Cisco Systems in San Jose, California. He was excited to work with innovative technology, and his internship called upon him to apply a range of skills required for bringing a new product to market. He drew upon both his computer engineering expertise and his innovation management education, contributing to software development, systems testing, market analysis and product management. “The experience reinforced my passion for innovation, and confirmed my interest in working at the interface of technology and management,” Venkatramani reported.

What Carnegie Mellon’s new program does is teach students how to be innovative in purposeful ways, according to Dr. Jimmy Williams Jr., Director of Defense Research and Development for Alcoa. “It’s simply a great program,’’ he said.

For 2009, new program options have been introduced for students in Engineering and Technology Innovation Management. While the one-year program maintains a calendar year schedule, students interested in a new, dual masters degree opportunity between E&TIM and select traditional programs in Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering may apply to begin their graduate education in September. For E&TIM applicants with a specific interest in software and mobile computing innovations, a new course of study that includes Carnegie Mellon’s campus in California’s Silicon Valley is also available. For additional information about E&TIM, please see www.cit.cmu.edu/etim.

Eden Fisher, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the interdisciplinary Engineering & Technology Innovation Management MS Program, and Professor of the Practice, Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University. Her professional focus includes: strategies and processes for driving innovation and creating sustainable value, technology planning, and the front end of innovation. Prior to joining the Carnegie Mellon faculty, she was Manager of Technology Planning at Alcoa's R&D Center, and the leader of technology strategic analyses for a diverse set of business units.

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.