LG Oh Yeah

Looking back on LGO

2011-06-13T08:05:00.001-07:00

I can’t believe two years have passed so quickly.

I gained a tremendous amount personally, academically, and professionally from my time in the LGO program. I don’t think I can summarize everything in a single blog post, although my classmate Leo did a great job with his.

As I sat at graduation I had a lot of time to think while they called what seemed like 10,000 names. I looked at the people around me and read through the program and I realized an important lesson that holds true for LGO:

Surround yourself with role models.

The classmates, faculty, and alumni brought together by this program all became life coaches for me in one way or another. I am amazed at the intelligence of some, the personal sacrifice of others, the commitment to family, integrity, humility, service, drive, and many other countless examples. There is no substitute to surrounding yourself with role models. I am incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend two years with this group, and it is that environment that I will miss the most.

System Problems

2011-03-18T08:49:00.001-07:00

First things first, to all of you potential 2013s who got the call from Don recently I hope to see you during admit weekend. Coming to LGO is a very complex decision and I urge you to reach out to current students, alumni, faculty, or anyone else to get all of your questions answered. I speak for everyone when I say we are all happy to help.

Now I want to talk about how organizations respond to problems.

My wife Kerin, son Sean and I took a trip to Dallas recently and, as would be expected anytime you leave the house, we encountered some trouble. It started with the subway trip from our place in Davis Square to the airport. MIT provides subsidized unlimited transit passes for students making it very cost effective to get around. The morning we left for the airport I tried the pass that I had been using for the past few months only to find out it had stopped working. We were in a rush to get to the airport so I just paid the fare and planned to deal with it when we got back. When we landed in Dallas we collected our checked bag from the conveyor and found it had been damaged and no longer stood up by itself. Most if not all airlines have a policy that they aren’t responsible for any damage to bags so we carried it to the rental car and headed to the hotel. On our flight home the same airline sent Sean’s car seat to Pittsburgh instead of Boston. And finally my subway pass still wasn’t working when I tried it on the way home.

None of these problems were major and we were able to resolve them in some fashion without much monetary damage or frustration (Kerin might disagree about my level of frustration) but every time I talked to a customer service type person I got a similar story. “We’re sorry, these things happen.” I’m sure this is true but it left me thinking about a response I would have been happier with. I know that all systems have problems and I understand statistics. Sometimes it’s my turn to be the unlucky one that gets to deal with a defect. What would make it better from my perspective is some sort of information about how the company is responding to the type of problem. I’d like to know if they are working on it. How many bags have been damaged this year? How does that compare to last year? How common is it for subway passes to stop working? Is anyone actively trying to fix it? I think if I knew what kind of response a company was taking to reduce the likelihood of me or anyone else experiencing a similar problem in the future I would be happier. I also think if I was a customer service agent who had to deal with a dissatisfied customer having that kind of information could be helpful. Maybe the information takes the form of a pamphlet or newsletter or something available at the time of the problem. Everyone hates that helpless feeling of being the unlucky guy or gal who has to deal with a process that didn’t work. Maybe it would be a little easier to swallow if you knew someone was doing something to keep it from happening next time.

The home stretch

2011-01-05T17:27:00.001-08:00

With precious few months left for me in LGO I still have a few things left on the to do list:

Decide where to work after the program (easier said than done)
Write a thesis
Take my spring classes
Live it up for one more semester with everyone back on campus

At this point in the LGO program there are a few things on my mind that prospective students may find helpful.

Balancing the program – The first semester schedule is set in stone and can be quite busy. After getting through the summer you get to decide how many credits you want to take and the difficulty of your courses for the other three semesters. This gives you plenty of options for balancing the other things in your life. Knowing that Kerin and I were planning on a baby I kept my second and third semester heavy so this spring I only need three classes to graduate. (I’m taking more but it’s nice to know I don’t have to)

Life events during LGO – I’ve mentioned it before in the blog but having a baby during this program has worked out very well for us. I was fortunate enough to land a local internship with a flexible schedule that allowed for me to spend time at home after Sean was born. The medical insurance through MIT was great and covered almost all of our expenses. The Boston area hospitals are also some of the best in the world and we were very well taken care of.

Finding a job after graduation – Being a part of MIT, Sloan, and LGO opens some incredible doors. A great benefit specific to LGO students is the partner company relationships. Most of them offer excellent opportunities for LGO graduates with high potential career paths. The job situation is obviously affected by the economy, but our class seems to be doing quite well and recent classes didn’t have any trouble either.

The decision to come to LGO – Leaving my job, moving across the country, disrupting Kerin’s career, and living like a grad student for two years was a big decision that Kerin and I made. Now that I’m 75% done with the program and have a pretty good idea of what I’ll be doing after graduation I can honestly say I’ve been happy with the decision from day 1.

LGO Delivers

Internship, recruiting, new baby, …..it’s going to be a busy fall

2010-09-09T20:00:00.001-07:00

It’s September which means my internship is half over, recruiting season is starting, and Sean is already almost three months old.

Internship

I’m really enjoying my time working at Genzyme. My project is improving a critical step in the manufacturing process of enzyme replacement products. I’m learning a great deal and experimenting with some of the new concepts I learned in the LGO program. It’s also great to have the network of my classmates to discuss ideas and review my thinking. Working at Genzyme these past few months has also been interesting due to the shear number of reasons they’re in the news.

Recruiting

Some of you prospective students may be wondering about the process of actually finding a job at the end of the LGO experience. While students are free to pursue any avenue they want to find employment after the program, most people utilize the recruiting process through MIT, Sloan, and LGO (all three are slightly different but complimentary). The career development office begins posting job opportunities on an internal website in September (there are already nearly 200 posted this year) with interviews taking place starting in October and continuing through the school year. The busiest period of on-campus recruiting is the end of October through November. LGO has a week of dedicated recruiting for the partner companies during the first week of November. Employment statistics for the LGO class of 2010 are posted here and Sloan statistics for the class of 2009 are here.

Sean

He’s growing incredibly fast and keeping us busy. It’s been great having my nights and weekends free to spend time with him. One of the major benefits of internship is the slower pace compared to classes. We’re headed to the cape this weekend to give him a chance to put his toes in the ocean for the first time (but only for a second because the water will be cold).

A new addition

2010-07-19T22:21:00.001-07:00

I’ve been slacking on the blog posts, and for that I apologize. I do however, have a decent excuse. His name is Sean and he was born on June 21st.

He and Kerin are both doing great. He has impacted our sleep schedules a little bit (Kerin’s more than mine), but he found time to visit campus and apply for early admission.

He’s four weeks old today. So far, so good.

My internship

2010-06-01T19:41:00.001-07:00

A significant part of the LGO experience is a six month long internship at one of the partner companies. My internship started two weeks ago at the Allston Landing Facility working for Genzyme. I am working for an LGO alum in the Lean Transformation department at a biotechnology plant.

The facility I’m working in produces two critical drugs for Genzyme that account for a large portion of the company’s revenue. In the past few years the plant has struggled with FDA compliance issues, contamination problems, and missed orders. In addition to those challenges there is a billionaire investor looking to shake up the board of directors and oust the sitting CEO who has been at the helm since 1985.

With that much going on I’m sure it will be an interesting six months. I’ve been spending my first days at Allston meeting people and learning the process. I hope to have a thesis project scoped out by the end of my first month.

Life really does go on

2010-05-13T09:58:00.001-07:00

One of the biggest concerns that Kerin and I had before deciding to join the LGO program was that we would put our “life” on hold for two years. When thinking about a significantly reduced income (Kerin is working while I’m in school), selling more than half of our furniture, moving 3,000 miles, the uncertainty of where we’d be after graduation and a number of other unknowns it felt like coming to LGO would be hitting a big pause button on all of our plans. After a lot of discussion we decided (and hoped) that it would be worth it and took the plunge.

More than a year has passed since we made that decision and in less than a year we’ll be back in the real world. The interesting thing we have learned is that our life really didn’t pause as much as we thought it would. We made the decision to have our first child while we’re in Boston close to Kerin’s family. Our son is due June 19th just after I start my internship. We still take vacations, go to the movies, hang out with friends, and eat a fancy dinner once in awhile. Life is different, but our vision of eating ramen every night, and commuting from Maine so we could afford housing didn’t come to pass. And I feel secure about our future because of the things I’m learning, the people I’m meeting, and the experiences I’ve had.

If you’re considering LGO and are worried about putting your life on hold I encourage you to reach out to current and past students to get an idea of what the transition is like. “2010 me” would have told “2009 me” not to worry and he would have been right.

The network

2010-04-29T19:45:00.001-07:00

There are so many great things about the LGO program, but one that may be hard to get a feel for without being here is the people you meet through the incredible network. When you join LGO you become a member of the roughly 1000 current students and alumni as well as the broader Sloan and MIT communities.

This semester I’m working with a team of 2011 LGO students on a project examining the relationship between General Motors and the United Auto Workers, specifically how negotiation dynamics changed leading up to bankruptcy. The current Vice President of Labor Relations at GM is a graduate of LGO and the former VP graduated from the Sloan Fellows program. Our team was able to reach out to both alumni and talk directly to them and their teams about what it was like to be at the negotiating table during the ‘05, ‘07, and ‘09 talks. They both made time to take our phone calls, answer our emails, and helped us tremendously. We were also fortunate enough to have Ron Bloom visit our class last fall to talk about the GM bankruptcy from the government’s perspective.

It was incredible for our team to have access to the people who were at the epicenter of one of the most significant economic events of our lifetime. An experience made possible by the LGO network.

Mustache March Winners

2010-04-02T04:49:00.001-07:00

Most Fitting

Diego

Most Disturbing

Mike D

Dirt Lip

Donovan

Best in Show (with over 85% of the vote!)

Steve H

Thanks for playing everybody. Only 332 days to wait until the beginning of 2011 Mustache March.

Mustache March has been taken to the next level

2010-04-01T07:17:00.001-07:00

If Drew Hill was a professional wrestler and had entrance music you’d be hearing it right now.

That just happened….

Mustache March Voting

2010-03-29T16:31:00.001-07:00

One of the numerous and fantastic traditions of the LGO program is Mustache March. Drew wrote about the competition last year so you can read here for background on rules and proceedings. We got a late start this year so our dates are a little different than last year, but it’s the same idea. We’ve reached the end of the month and it’s time to review the candidates and submit your votes.

What you’re voting on

As you review the contestants below pick your favorite in each of the following categories:

Best in Show – This man was born to wear a mustache. It enhances his innate talents and abilities and no one laughs or chuckles when he enters a room wearing said ‘stache. When considering this category think: Tom Selleck or Burt Reynolds (also imagine it’s 1978).
Most Disturbing – The winner of this category should make you fear for your as yet unborn children. When this individual enters the room you hope they don’t sit anywhere near you. When considering your choice for this category think: This guy.
Most Fitting – Once in awhile a gentleman just looks good in a mustache. While more understated than the best in show ‘stache, when you see this mustachioed person at first you don’t even notice he’s wearing an upper lip warmer. However, once you see it, your reaction is not repulsion, but instead willing acceptance. When deciding who to vote for in this category think: Your dad at some point in his life (most likely), Dr. Phil, or Jason Lee from My Name is Earl.
Dirt Lip – This one is pretty self explanatory. Most of you went to high school with a few guys who didn’t shave their upper lips for months at a time yielding only a few pathetic follicles. As you make your choice for this category think: People you know who went through adolescence late, and this kid.

VOTE HERE NOW

Voting closes on Thursday 4/1 at noon

Mustache March 2010 Contestants

Click pictures for larger view – you know you want to

For your viewing enjoyment I now present your choices for the 2010 Mustache March awards (You’re welcome ladies):

Steve Hale

Mike Donohue

Steve Smith

Donovan Collins

Travis Gracewski

Diego Mendez de la Luz

Leo Espindle

Andres Garro

David Segrera

RJ Lehman

VOTE HERE NOW

We also have a special showing this year for a couple contestants who got a running start with full beards so they aren’t eligible for awards but we still want to recognize their efforts.

Ben Wheeler

Kevin Resch

And here are a number of last minute ‘mustache challenged’ contestants:

Danielle Sita

Karla Krause

Min Hsieh

Chris Hopkins

Kevin Leiter

Mustache Camaraderie

VOTE HERE NOW

The latest happenings

2010-03-08T20:10:00.001-08:00

Busy weekend…

I went to the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on Saturday which was awesome. Lots of high level sports owners, managers, and commentators talking about how statistics and detailed analysis have changed the face of professional sports. The highlight for me was a panel with Bill Simmons (Sports Guy), Mark Cuban (Owner of the Dallas Mavericks), Jonathan Kraft (Owner of the Patriots), Bill Polian (President of the Colts), Daryl Morey (Rockets General Manager), and Michael Lewis (Author of Moneyball) all on stage together. They covered a lot of ground but the best conversation was about the decision of Bill Belichick to go for it on fourth down in the regular season Pats – Colts game this year. Kraft and Polian were being polite but Simmons was openly critical of the call. Mark Cuban was also not shy about everything from front office decisions of other NBA teams to league officiating. Saturday night I celebrated my 30th birthday with dinner and drinks on the town.

Sunday Kerin took me to a nice dinner with just the two of us followed by the annual two class LGO hockey game. Everyone had a good time with the 2011s winning 3-1 over the 2010s.

The future class of 2012 also started getting phone calls this weekend to let them know they’ve been accepted so I’m looking forward to meeting them in April. This is the last week of class before spring break which means 10 days until I leave for a China / Japan trek. And last but not least Mustache March is in full swing.

A day in the life – spring semester

2010-02-21T20:00:00.001-08:00

Along the same line as my post back in July, here’s a running diary of my Friday February 19, 2010:

8:00AM – Wake up after multiple snooze button presses and get ready for the day. Kerin was up before for work early today so she took care of walking Charlie Murphy.

8:40AM – Walk about 300 yards to the subway station where I catch the train to campus. I live at the Davis Square stop and MIT is at the Kendall stop. I can get from my front door to a class in about 20 minutes when the trains are running on time.

9:00AM – Get to the LGO office about an hour before my first class for the day so I have a chance to talk to a few people and restock the LGO store. The store is a student run alternative to the vending machines around school. A group of us volunteers every semester to make costco runs to buy snacks, sodas, and other items in bulk. We then sell them at a small margin and use the proceeds at the end of the year to party.

10:00AM – Friday’s are recitation days for some of my classes. The system dynamics session today covers some of the topics on the homework that will be due next week.

11:30AM – I grab lunch from the Sloan cafeteria and eat in the LGO office with other people.

12:00PM – I meet with my tiger teams group and an academic advisor. We’re working with a company called EnerNOC this semester to evaluate and offer improvement ideas for their supply chain.

1:00PM – Marketing Strategy class. This is my only “official” class that meets on a Friday and it’s only a half semester class so I can deal with it. Today’s class is a case discussion examining the business strategy differences between Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

2:30PM – Meet with my tiger team again to visit EnerNOC at their corporate offices in downtown Boston.

3:00PM – We arrive at EnerNOC and spend the next hour and a half learning about their current supply chain and asking numerous questions to help us understand what we should spend the semester working on.

4:30PM – I meet up with Kerin downtown because EnerNOC is a few blocks from her office. We ride the train back to Davis Square.

5:15PM – Davis Square is a great little neighborhood with lots of shops, restaurants, and bars. We grab a couple of sandwiches at a deli right near the subway station on our walk back to our apartment.

6:15PM – We take the subway to Harvard Square to meet a bunch of other people for a Harvard vs. Cornell hockey game. There are a couple of Cornell alums in LGO and they wanted to watch the Big Red beat up on Harvard. Cornell won 3-0 and it wasn’t even that close.

9:00PM – A group of us go back to Davis Square for BBQ at Red Bones.

10:30PM – We walk over to Spirit Bar a few blocks away to hang out and watch some of the Olympics. Women’s curling was on and everyone in the bar was getting into the match. I guess beer makes any sporting event more exciting.

1:00AM – We walk home from the bar after a long but fun day.

Spring classes and waiting for the internship decisions

2010-02-09T17:08:00.001-08:00

Two weeks ago was internship fest which has been covered in some of the other LGO blogs, so I won’t rehash it here. Suffice it to say I did 19 interviews in 3 days. It was definitely an interesting process. We ranked our preferences for what jobs we liked last Friday and now we’re all waiting to see what the results of the algorithm will be and who we’ll be working for. We should know by sometime next week if everything goes smoothly. I recommended that we reveal the internship matches in a big group with a game show (press your luck) theme, but I’m not sure we’ll get to have that much fun.

Classes started last week and I’m taking just shy of a full load this semester. I also front loaded my classes so after spring break I will only be in a classroom nine hours per week. I should have lots of time to enjoy the weather.

15.025 – Game Theory – This is primarily a theory based class taught by a professor from UC Berkley. He covers a variety of types of “games” typically encountered in real life and we discuss how players should and do react.

15.615 – Business Law – Taught by a former lawyer, this has been interesting so far. Topics cover the basics of things like product liability, fiduciary responsibility, and real life legal cases that have affected businesses and managers.

15.665 – Power and Negotiation – This course is simulation based meaning every week we work in groups to learn from simulated negotiating scenarios. We are able to try different styles with no risk. It’s nice to practice negotiating a job offer before it’s the real deal.

15.834 – Strategic Marketing – An all case based class covering topics like quantifying customer service scores to make investment decisions.

15.871 – System Dynamics – One of the most well known topics taught at Sloan because it was invented here. This is an interesting class about how to model complex systems. Our first homework assignment was to build a model that replicated data from the SARS outbreak in Taiwan in 2003.

ESD.267 – Supply Chain Planning – This is an engineering class that many LGOs take (there are 25 of us in the class this semester). It is a good foundational course for topics like inventory policy, postponement, and supplier management.

ESD.941 – Tiger Teams – Project based class where teams of 3 to 5 of us work with area businesses on real industry problems. My team is working with EnerNoc, a company that among other things works to coordinate demand responses during peak energy events. We will be working to improve the supply chain they use to get monitoring equipment delivered and installed for new clients.

News from the road – plant trek

2010-01-10T09:26:00.001-08:00

I’m writing this post from Austin, Texas where our class is spending the weekend after an awesome first week of plant trek. We started on Monday in Seattle visiting Boeing, went to Phoenix on Wednesday to see Amazon, and LA on Friday to see Amgen. This coming week we’ll see Dell and Cisco in Austin before flying to Raleigh to see Novartis and then Detroit to see GM and Ford.

It has been an excellent opportunity to see some world class operations with a bunch of other people who really love this kind of stuff. We also have Professor Shoji Shiba, a world renowned Total Quality Management expert with experience observing hundreds if not thousands of operations all over the world. His perspective has helped us all see something knew.

Here is a run down of what we have seen so far:

Boeing – We had the opportunity to see two Boeing production facilities. The Everett, Washington facility, which produces the 747, 777, and the new 787 Dreamliner, is simply enormous. It is very impressive to see a building with assembly lines full of jumbo jets. We got to walk through in-process planes and see some of the assembly operations up close. That night we got to tour the Dreamliner Gallery building which was built to help customers make design decisions when ordering a new 787. We got to take turns sitting in a mock cockpit, and saw all the configuration options for seats, equipment and interior designs.

The next day we went to the Renton, Washington plant where the 737 is assembled. This building was also very impressive and the operation had more of an assembly line feel. Site leadership talked to us about their lean journey that started in the 90’s and continues today. It was amazing for the class to learn that the 737 model has been so popular that the plant has a five year backlog.

Amazon – We visited a fulfillment center in Phoenix, Arizona to get a look at Amazon operations. The building was about 600,000 square feet and very well laid out. It was obvious that Amazon has taken 5S principles to heart throughout the organization. We walked through the process while Amazon leadership described their impressive throughput rates and focus on continuous improvement. I was also surprised to learn that they develop all of their own software internally to enable their process. The importance that Amazon places on leadership was obvious during our time in Phoenix and our class was grateful that so many operations leaders were able to spend time with us. Amazon flew in approximately eight senior leaders (many were LGO alumni) to share their stories with us.

Amgen – Our next stop took us to Amgen headquarters in Thousand Oaks, California which is about forty minutes from Los Angeles. We toured their large corporate campus where they showed us how operations support the development of new drugs and produce product for clinical trials. At their headquarters, Amgen has a pilot plant capable of making many different types and batch sizes of test products as well as a fill and finish plant that packages product shipped in from other facilities for use in clinical trials. We also saw the impressive quality labs and a hand pack and ship operation for delivering product to hospitals performing trials all over the world.

The other huge benefit of the plant trek trip is how much time we have to hang out together as a class. We have a number of stories and adventures from the past week including a late night swim in the pacific ocean and a four man epic Las Vegas road trip. Many others have said plant trek is the high point of the LGO experience and I can definitely see why.

Plant Trek

2010-01-02T20:41:00.001-08:00

I leave tomorrow for what I’m sure will be one of the best experiences of the LGO program – plant trek. It’s a two week cross country jaunt with visits to eight partner companies in six cities. Our whole class and a few professors will spend 13 days seeing a variety of operations and hearing from partner company leaders.

We will also have a great time. One of my classmates took the opportunity to create some awesome heavy metal style tour t-shirts so we can travel in style. They show all of our tour stops and dates, and have some face melting graphics on the front. It’s been dubbed the “LGO 2010 Wips and Supply Chains Tour” …get it?

Our first stop is in Seattle to see two Boeing sites where they build some of the largest and most complex machines in the world.

It’s pronounced ‘Nucular’

2009-12-05T12:47:00.001-08:00

Actually, no it isn’t, but if that’s how Homer Simpson wants to say it then it’s okay by me.

One of the awesome things about LGO is you get to learn about all of the important business stuff from leading big brain business people, but you also get to learn about technical stuff from leading big brain technical people. No other business school shares a campus with the best engineering school in the world.

One of my classmates (and summer team member) Natallia organized a tour of the MIT nuclear research reactor yesterday and it was pretty amazing. A group of about 13 of us spent three hours with Ed Lau, the Superintendent of Reactor Operations, who was kind enough to answer all of our questions and show us how the facility works. We got to see the control room, the process they use to remove spent fuel from the reactor, their medical research setup and a bunch of other stuff.

I was intrigued by a form of cancer research established as a joint program between MIT and Harvard. From the website explaining how the process works:

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a binary form of cancer therapy which uses a boron-containing compound that preferentially concentrates in tumor sites. The tumor site is then irradiated by a neutron beam. The neutrons in the beam interact with the boron in the tumor to cause the boron atom to split into an alpha particle and lithium nucleus. Both of these particles have a very short range (about one cellular diameter) and cause significant damage to the cell in which it is contained. In this way, damage is done to the tumor cell, while largely sparing healthy tissue.

Seemed pretty amazing and then they showed us their diagram of how the reactor and the patient interact:

I could just imagine sitting in a room with a doctor as he (or she) explained to me that they were going to aim a nuclear reactor at my head.

Walking home it made me realize how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to participate in LGO. I can’t think of another place in the world with so many innovative thinkers, cutting edge facilities, and interesting visitors. I really do learn something new everyday.

Fall semester home stretch

2009-11-30T09:05:00.001-08:00

Word on the LGO street is that the first two semesters (summer, fall) of the program are the most difficult. My opinion won’t count until I’ve actually made it through all the semesters so I’ll reserve judgment for now. I’ve been a pretty crappy blogger for the past few months but in an attempt to redeem myself here’s an overview of what fall has been like for me:

Classes

MBA Core – All LGOs take these classes with Sloan students to give us the foundation for the rest of our MBA degree. Core includes Economics, Accounting, Communication for Managers, and Organizational Processes. This is a great introduction to a broad range of topics. As my Economics professor put it “We’re going to cover three courses of material in the next six lectures so come to class on time.”

Sloan Electives – As the name implies, this is the elective part of my MBA coursework. After the MBA core you can take just about anything else you want in the business school to fulfill your degree requirements. I haven’t counted them but I believe there are over 150 electives to choose from. I’m taking Finance Theory this fall as my only business elective, but my next two semesters will be all electives for MBA classes.

Engineering – I’m taking two engineering classes this semester which will leave me with only two more to take to complete my requirements. Logistic Systems is a class that covers a number of topics that were briefly discussed in the summer Operations Management course but in much more detail. Integrating the Lean Enterprise covers examples of companies that have reshaped themselves in order to transition to a lean organization and a methodology to apply the concepts to other firms.

Other – A fun thing about MIT is when you reach the credit limit (and you will) in a single semester you can audit classes as long as the class isn’t at capacity. This means you attend lectures and in some cases do coursework but don’t receive a grade. I am auditing two speaking series: Professional Seminar which is a series of industry leaders, generally from partner companies, who come to campus to speak to the LGO class and Leadership and Ethics taught by two long time supporters of LGO who were in executive roles before retirement.

The last few weeks of the semester are pretty full with major team projects due in most classes and preparation for finals. On the bright side, winter break at MIT is incredibly long. My last exam is December 16th and I don’t start spring classes until February 2nd! With that much time off I might remember how to play video games.

The application process

2009-11-15T20:00:00.001-08:00

Some (or many) of you are reading this looking for advice on applying to the LGO program. At this time last year I was checking the 2010 and 2009 blogs for the same reason. Here are some thoughts that will hopefully help:

Have a plan - Read the website and make sure you create a timeline that allows you to get everything (essays, recommendations, cover letter, resume, GMAT or GRE test) done in time for the December 12th deadline.
Get some help – I relied on friends and family to review my essays and resume to make sure my ideas were clear and concise. I think I rewrote one of my essays at least six times, but the final draft was much better than what I started with. It helped to have people with no experience in the type of work I did look at my materials so I didn’t get too technical or specific.
Play to your strengths – Make sure you understand why you think you’re a good fit for the LGO program and state it in your application materials. I knew I wasn’t as strong academically as some others who would be applying last year but I felt I had a lot of relevant leadership experience. I was candid about both points in my application essays and my interview.
Get as much information as you can – There are a lot of places to get your questions answered. Feel free to email me, or any of the other student bloggers. There is still time to visit campus before the application deadline to visit a class, meet faculty, hang out with students and check out Boston.

Above all else don’t stress out about the process and best of luck if you decide to apply.

Iceland was awesome

2009-10-15T19:14:00.001-07:00

We had a blast on our trip to Iceland. It was a quick four days but we accomplished a lot. A group of about 40 flew out on Thursday night right after class and came back on Monday evening just in time to study for midterms this week. We got to visit the central bank to learn about Iceland’s economy and we toured a geothermal power plant.

Here are my highlights of the trip:

Visiting Iceland’s natural wonders

Checking out the city of Reykjavik

And having fun with friends

If you want to see more pictures here is my Iceland album on picasa.

Sloan Treks, or, I’m going to Iceland

2009-10-08T12:35:00.001-07:00

One of the cool “extra” parts of going back to college (especially at Sloan) is the opportunity to travel. Throughout the year different groups organize treks to various parts of the world. Most of these trips line up with long weekends or vacations. They generally have a purpose like making connections for a job after school, learning about an industry, exposure to a new culture, or just to visit somewhere you’ve never been.

Some of the treks are organized by LGO, like the domestic plant trek in January and the international plant trek in March, while others are organized by Sloan students but are open to LGOs. Sloan treks scheduled for this year include trips to LA to meet with media companies, New York City and London for finance and banking, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and others, literally anywhere you could think to go.

I’m leaving tonight to go to Iceland on my first Sloan trek. A group of about 40 of us are taking advantage of the long Columbus weekend and spending 4 days snowmobiling, visiting the Icelandic National Bank, and checking out other cool stuff. I’ll have pictures and stories to share when I get back.

Finding a place to live….. again

2009-09-15T18:12:00.001-07:00

Like most other people who moved to Boston for LGO Kerin and I spent a frantic weekend back in April looking for somewhere to live for at least one and possibly two years during the program. After looking at about seven places in different neighborhoods we found one we liked and made arrangements to move in on June 1st. We’ve been here three months and were starting to get comfortable when we found out that our landlord is selling the property to someone who wants to turn the building into condos. This means we have to move…again.

On the bright side we have more time to figure out what we want. In case you’re ever in a similar situation here’s our general thoughts on areas to live while attending MIT:

In our situation (married, no kids, dog, Kerin working in downtown Boston) it makes sense for us to stay on the red line. There are also other possibilities using buses or driving in and out of the city, but the subway line is very convenient and makes it possible not to bring a car to the city. There are very distinct neighborhoods around each subway stop with different average rent prices, night life, and general feel.

Sorted starting furthest from MIT

Alewife – This stop is right at the edge of the Cambridge city limits and includes a fairly large parking garage for commuters. It is possible to walk to this stop from certain parts of Arlington. There isn’t too much in terms of nightlife around Alewife, but there are some nice parks and recreational sites. It is possible to find a decent sized (2 bedroom, 1 bath, 1000 sqft) apartment for around $1600 here. Commuting time from Alewife to MIT is about twenty minutes on the train plus the walk to the station on each side.

Davis – The Davis T stop is in the city of Somerville. It’s a pretty cool area near Tufts University with bars, restaurants, a movie theater and other night life. There are about five LGOs living in Davis from the 2011 class. It would be easy to find a 2 bed, 1 bath, 1000 sqft apartment in Davis with a parking spot for between $1600 - $1800. Davis is also a good option if someone in the family will need to commute out of the city for work as you can get to both 93 route 2 quickly. The subway ride from Davis to MIT is about 15 to 17 minutes.

Porter – There is less nightlife in Porter than Davis, but Porter has a little bit more of a family neighborhood feel. There are a lot of parks in the area especially to the west of the subway stop. A handful of bars and restaurants on Mass Ave near the main square are good but can also get old. Porter has a couple of great advantages over other neighborhoods, a good supermarket right next to the subway station and when it gets boring it’s only a 12 minute walk to Davis Square and a 20 minute walk to Harvard Square. A comparable sized apartment in Porter will run about $1700 - $1900 and it’s a 12 minute subway ride to campus.

Harvard – Harvard is an interesting place. It’s one of the more famous spots in Boston and as such is normally packed with tourists. There are some cool bars, restaurants, and shops but you’ll also pay a premium to live in the area and parking will cost extra. A 2 bed, 1 bath, 700 sqft apartment in Harvard will start at about $2000 and a parking spot could be another $150 per month. Unless you’re planning to take a lot of classes at Harvard or absolutely want to have the experience of living there it’s probably better to leave in one of the other neighborhoods and visit when you get the urge. The subway ride from here to MIT is about 10 minutes

Central – Central has a lot to offer with bars and restaurants spread up and down Mass Ave. It doesn’t have as many trees or parks as further up the red line, but you can walk to the west side of MIT campus (gym and athletic fields) from here in about 15 minutes. You can find a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 800 sqft apartment for $1600 - $1800. Central seems to be the most popular spot for people in LGO who don’t want to live on campus. It’s only about a 7 minute ride to campus from here.

Kendall – This is the stop right at MIT campus and is only a couple hundred yards from the Sloan buildings and the building with the LGO office. There is some off campus housing here but most of it is in high rise apartment complexes. Rent tends to be a little more expensive here and it’s also harder to find places that will take pets. A 1 bedroom, 1 bath with 600 sqft can run close to $2000. MIT has a number of good options for grad students although they don’t take pets and many of the buildings are on the opposite side of campus.

Mass General Hospital (MGH) – This stop is across the Charles River from Cambridge in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. It’s a great spot to be in if you don’t need a lot of space and want to be close to downtown. It’s also near a bar that many Sloan students visit on a weekly basis, Beacon Hill Pub. A 1 bed, 1 bath, 600 sqft place here can be $2000+. It’s a five minute subway ride to campus and only about a 20 minute walk across the Longfellow Bridge with one of the best views of the Boston skyline in the city. It’s also close to the hatch shell, a famous outdoor venue on the banks of the Charles River that hosts frequent free concerts.

There are many other stops further down the red line and other great possibilities for places to live while in LGO, but these are the areas that Kerin and I have looked at. We’re still looking at the moment, but we’ll probably end up either staying in Porter or moving to Davis or Central. We have a couple more weeks to decide but we’re planning to move as soon as possible so I can get back to focusing on ~~school work~~ football.

Sloan orientation and fall semester

2009-09-04T09:16:00.001-07:00

Sloan orientation wrapped up last night after 4 days of informative lectures, meeting a new team, and a number of social events. The class is split up into six different cohorts which are given ocean names and take core classes together. I’m in the Indian Ocean. Each ocean then has teams of six or seven that do group projects together similar to our LGO summer teams.

For the fall I will be taking five classes for my MBA, two engineering electives, and two courses as part of the LGO curriculum. I will also continue to participate on committees and possibly join some Sloan clubs. It will be a very busy semester.

To add to the fun Kerin and I found our recently that we will need to move again. We currently live in a three family in Cambridge but the owners are selling it to someone who wants to convert the building into stand alone condos. That means he needs to do some significant renovations and we’ll have to find a new place to live. Luckily we kept all of our boxes and we have a lot of experience packing.

Summer break

2009-08-23T17:47:00.001-07:00

One of the great things about being back in college is getting more time off. Summer classes ended on August 18th and we don’t have to go back until Sloan orientation starts on the 31st.

It’s nice to have some time to unwind after the busy summer and Kerin and I have taken the opportunity to do some local touristy stuff. Yesterday we spent some time exploring the bike path that runs through Somerville (the town next to Cambridge). Today we walked the Freedom Trail, a Boston tourist must see. Later this week we plan to visit Newport, Rhode Island. We’ve been there before but it’s a really cool place to visit. I especially like the cliff walk, a three mile trail along the ocean with views of some incredible mansions. Next weekend we’re going up to Sebago Lake in Maine. A benefit of living in New England is being less than a two hour drive from so many interesting places.

Sloan orientation starts a week from Monday and runs for four days. We get a long weekend for Labor Day and start class on Wednesday September 9th. I’m taking seven classes in the Fall so I’ll be busy, but I’ll find time to update the blog.

Committees

2009-08-13T15:51:00.001-07:00

I don’t know how to say this, but committees in LGO are kind of a big deal.

Students in the program are able to influence decisions, shape curriculum, and create change through a variety of committees. Committees cover topics like new partner company recruiting, social events, leadership, annual plant trek, and others. I joined three committees this summer and will give you a general idea about what each of them do:

Leadership – Responsible for a variety of tasks and events relating to the development of leadership skills for the class. This summer our committee planned the Leadership Reaction Course event, provided advisors to summer teams to improve team skills, and will lead a leadership lab activity next week. Leadership lab is an opportunity for members of the class to talk about specific experiences in order to teach their peers. Our session next week will be a discussion of working in union environments. The members of our class that have worked with unions will answer the questions of those who haven’t.

Professional Seminar – This committee organizes speakers to come to campus and speak to our class. We look for leaders of various organizations to give us their perspective and share their experience. In the next few months we will have a CEO, a school administrator, a variety of business leaders, political figures, and others share their message with us.

Internship – Work with partner companies to identify internships for the class. This summer we created a survey to poll the class on the types of jobs, locations, and industries we’re interested to work in. Over the next several months we will work with the partner companies to align their needs with our skills and interests, hopefully resulting in internships that are meaningful and impactful.

There are many other committees that others in my class are running. It’s a great way for us to improve the program and give something back.

Meet my summer team

2009-08-08T08:02:00.001-07:00

To give you an idea of the people in LGO here’s a brief bio for my summer teammates:

Manuel – Graduated from Rice University in 2004 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked for Shell Oil in Houston, TX for five years before coming to LGO.
Asvin – Came to Boston from Florida where he was working for a strategy consultant. He also worked for Anheuser Busch for three years. Asvin has an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Florida. He hopes to work in product strategy after graduation and is especially interested in the medical device industry.
Steve Wessels – Prior to LGO Steve was working for UPS and living in San Diego, you can read all about him on his blog.
Natallia – Is a Nuclear Engineer originally from Belarus. She was working for GE in their Global Nuclear Fuel division before starting LGO. After the program Natallia wants to return to the nuclear industry in a project management role.
Emily- Was living in Boston prior to the program and had been working for Osram Sylvania since 2005. She has a Chemical Engineering degree from Bucknell and her hometown is Greensboro, NC.

Here’s my team during a bonding experience at Outward Bound.

Crunch time

2009-08-04T21:03:00.001-07:00

We have less than two weeks to go in the summer semester so things are officially ‘hectic’. I can’t believe the time has passed so quickly. It seems like only days since I dusted off my Voltron trapper keeper and my Scooby Doo lunch box and went to my first day of class. Fast forward eight weeks and this is what’s left for final projects:

A final systems optimization project including a ten page paper and fifteen minute presentation.
An operations management presentation based on the experience of one of my team members. We have to evaluate the scenario on leadership, business process, and feedback mechanism.
A competition for our statistics class where teams of students have to use design of experiments methods to maximize the hang time and landing accuracy of a paper helicopter.
A final exam for statistics class.
A final team evaluation paper for the performance of our summer team.
A final process improvement assignment for high velocity organizations class where I have to evaluate a situation at my prior place of work and determine how it could be improved.

That all wraps up on August 18th and you can be sure our class will have some steam to let off. I’m looking forward to the party but until then I will be finding out how much sleep I really need to function. If my next blog post includes something like “ahdf;ldsajlfkdasdfhioew” you’ll know I passed out and my head landed on the keyboard.

The social stuff

2009-08-01T12:14:00.001-07:00

LGO is not all work, we get to have a good time too. As part of our summer bonding we have thrown a number of happy hours, picnics, parties, and other excuses to forget about homework.

Boston and Cambridge both have some great bars and with most of us living in the city getting together after class or on the weekends is easy. None of the social events are required and people go to the ones they can make.

Cool things we’ve done this summer:

Watched the 4th of July fireworks at the MIT sailing pavilion on the river.
Small groups of people took weekend trips to New York City and Cape Cod, and other New England spots
Celebrated a number of birthdays in many different ways
A handful of Saturday picnics (there’s one today)
Happy hours with our class, and mixers with people in the SDM program, and people in the MBA program
Free concerts at the hatch shell on the river
Variety of different “theme” parties
Lots of other stuff I’m forgetting

Taking the time to hang out outside of class has helped us get to know each other and keep our sanity.

A day in the life

2009-07-29T19:51:00.001-07:00

The only thing on the internet that I read religiously is Bill Simmons – The Sports Guy columns on ESPN. He frequently runs a minute by minute diary during major sporting events.

While I won’t bore you with that much detail I thought some people would find it helpful to know what a typical day in the LGO program is like so here you go:

July 29th, 2009

6:45AM – Finally get out of bed after hitting the snooze button five times.

6:50AM – Walk Charlie Murphy around my neighborhood, Porter Square in Cambridge. One of the reasons we chose to live here was because of the trees and grass that make it easier to have a dog.

7:00AM – Check my Littlefield plant. Littlefield is an internet simulation of a manufacturing plant. For Operations Management class, teams of three people make decisions in order to run a Littlefield manufacturing facility. We compete against other people in the class to maximize cash over a sped up 268 day period where every hour is one system day. It’s an interesting game and it can be addictive to see how much money you’re piling up.

7:25AM – Leave the house to walk to the T (Boston’s subway system). I’m lucky that I live only a 3 minute walk from the nearest subway station.

7:45AM – Arrive on campus for my first class of the day.

8:00AM – Check Littlefield again

8:05AM – My first class is Operations Management. Today we talk about various types of planning and scheduling techniques including MRP (Materials Resource Planning), JIT (Just in Time), ConWIP(Continuous Work in Process) and others.

9:25AM- First class ends. MIT operates on a time schedule so that classes start 5 minutes after the half hour or hour and end 5 minutes before the half hour or hour. This gives everyone a chance to get from one class to the next.

9:30AM – Check Littlefield again

9:35AM – Our next class Systems Optimization begins. Today’s topic is how to determine confidence intervals for the results of a simulation model. Fancy stuff.

10:55AM – End of Systems, time to check Littlefield again.

11:05AM – Probability and Statistics, the last class of the day, begins. We talk about the Taguchi method and analysis of residuals. One word, “Awesome”.

12:25PM – After Stats it’s time for lunch, and another chance to check Littlefield.

1:00PM – Today we have an LGO program town hall. We use these class meetings to review important information and update each other on the activities of smaller committee subgroups. Today one of my committees, the internship committee, is reviewing dates and events everyone needs to be aware of over the next several months.

2:05PM – My summer team reviews our Systems Optimization project with our professor and teaching assistant. One of the assignments for this class is to develop a solution to a real world operations problem using the tools we have learned in class. My team chose to create a mixed integer optimization model for the daily staffing process at a plant where I used to work. We built a spreadsheet and wrote a program in ILOG OPL software that determines the best method to place people into jobs based on their skills and the production needs of the day. Our model also has the “News Team, Assemble!!!” sound clip from Anchorman when you push the run button which we find hilarious and our French Professor doesn’t really understand.

2:30PM – Meeting with my summer team to plan out the last few weeks of the semester. We have a number of plant tours, final projects, homework assignments, and one final test to fit into the next twenty days.

3:00PM – I meet with a subset of my summer team to review a case for one of our classes on Friday. The case is based on an internet advertising company that is struggling to turn a profit during a time of rapid growth in the late 90’s. We diagram the business processes discussed in the case and try to come up with improvements.

5:00PM – I leave campus and jump on the subway to go home.

5:40PM- As sometimes happens in Boston the subway was having “service interruptions” so it took about an extra twenty minutes to get home. I try to take advantage of my time on the train by reading for classes. Due to the delay I was able to finish all of my reading for tomorrow.

5:45PM – Charlie Murphy and I take our afternoon walk.

6:00PM – Chillaxin

6:30PM – Kerin calls to say that the subway problems have slowed down her commute too so I start dinner. Tonight is pork chops from an awesome little grocery / meat market in Davis Square. One great thing about living in Boston is being able to walk to such a wide variety of cool little shops and restaurants.

7:15PM – Kerin and I eat dinner while watching Arrested Development. We never got into the show while it was on the air but lately we have been watching the old episodes and loving them.

8:00PM- We drive to a Target in nearby Watertown to pick up a few things. We brought a car (actually two) with us to Boston and it has been helpful once in awhile when we need to go to a store that’s not within walking distance. Watertown is about ten minutes away and has a Best Buy, a small mall, and a Target.

9:30PM – I forgot to mention, I checked Littlefield about 15 times between the last time I mentioned it and now. Tonight for homework I cover two cases that are due on Friday. One is a continuation of the internet advertising company that I started with my team earlier and the second is a medical supply company trying to improve their finished product distribution and warehousing strategy.

10:45PM – I’m done with homework for tonight. Time to watch some TV with Kerin and then read for awhile before bed.

The summer so far - classes

2009-07-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

We’re almost done with our first semester on campus. I thought it might be helpful to describe the classes we take and some of the other academic related stuff associated with our first experiences in LGO.

All first year LGOs get to campus in early June to begin classes. The MBA students don’t show up until the Fall and there aren’t many classes during the summer for students in other programs so we have most of the campus to ourselves. We all take the same classes together so it’s a good opportunity to bond and get to know each other.

We take a total of six classes:

Building and Leading Effective Teams (the universe within) – this is the only class we take our first week on campus. It is meant to speed up the process of bonding, starting to build team skills, and our first exposure to the leadership curriculum.

Engineering Probability and Statistics – this class provides some tools for problem solving and working with data sets. It introduces the laws of probability and builds to statistical tools like linear regression.

Systems Optimization and Analysis – another class for analytical problem solving. This one focuses on optimization models like linear and integer programs.

Organizational Leadership and Change – in this class we focus on a variety of leadership topics including case studies of various leadership methods and styles.

Introduction to Operations Management – this class covers concepts like basic inventory theory, process metrics like utilization, flow time, capacity, and others.

High Velocity Organizations- this class used to be called “Lean / Six Sigma”. It provides an introduction to many of the tools and operations concepts of highly successful organizations.

Our summer curriculum also includes a number of speakers, outside the classroom activities, and group projects. We have class everyday but our schedule week to week varies. I will cover a typical day and week for this semester in a future post. It is certainly busy through the summer but it’s also a good reintroduction to college for those of us who have been working for the past number of years.

The introduction

2009-07-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

To get us started, my first post will be answers to questions I think you’re likely to ask.

You: Why should I read this?

Me: You probably shouldn’t unless you fit a pretty specific profile. If you want to learn more about the Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program from someone who’s currently enrolled, that’s a good start. If you think my particular perspective is relevant to your background, foreground, or middle ground, that’s good too. If you don’t know enough about me or the LGO program to answer those questions, then at least read the rest of this post.

You: What is the Leaders for Global Operations Program?

Me: If you somehow found this blog without knowing the answer to that question I recommend you check this page out for way more detail than I’m willing to type. If you prefer the short version it’s a partnership between industry and academia involving a number of companies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Students who graduate from the two year program earn a Masters Degree in the engineering discipline of their choice, an MBA from the Sloan School of Management, and complete a six month internship with one of the partner companies.

You: Who are you and why are you writing this?

Me: I’m writing this blog because when I was deciding whether or not to apply to LGO the information in the student blogs was the best resource to help me make up my mind. Now that I’m in the program I would like to assist others in the same way. I also hope this blog becomes something to help me reflect on and remember my time in grad school for purely selfish reasons.

Now the who am I part. On the personal side I’m 29 years old. I’ve been married for almost five years to my wonderful wife Kerin who has been incredibly supportive and sacrificed a great deal so I could have the opportunity to join LGO. I have an older sister, a younger brother, and my parents live in Albuquerque, NM. I also have a dog named Charlie Murphy.

I grew up in Central New York near Syracuse, then moved to Rochester for college and have since lived in Vermont, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, California, and now Cambridge, Massachusetts. I enjoy traveling, hiking, photography, sports, and lots of other things in small doses.

I went to college the first time at the Rochester Institute of Technology (I have a thing for institutes of technology) and got a BS and an MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering. While in school I interned for five different companies in a variety of industries including automotive, semi-conductors, electronics, and industrial products. After college I worked for General Mills for six years in the Yoplait Division in jobs like Team Leader (shift supervisor), Startup Manager, and Program Manager.

You: Why did you choose LGO?

Me: That’s a long answer for another post, but for now I think it’s important to know that I spent about three years making up my mind before deciding to apply, and six weeks in I couldn’t be happier.

I’ll do my best to keep this blog useful and current. I plan on posting information and details that don’t show up in the brochures but are important parts of the LGO experience. I also take feedback well so email me if you have suggestions or specific questions I can help with.