Students

Students learn to see the big picture when training for competition

They might spend most of their undergraduate hours going deep into a major like Computer Information Systems (CIS), but on the job, students will have to marshal an array of knowledge and skills to solve problems. Professor Ajay Vinze uses the case competition model, a new class offered through the Department of Information Systems is teaching students how to think outside their major, to pull on all of the knowledge and skills they have acquired to analyze a business issue, and to present it effectively.

2011-10-05

They might spend most of their undergraduate hours going deep into a major like Computer Information Systems (CIS), but on the job, students will have to marshal an array of knowledge and skills to solve problems. Business students do master the other functional areas of business, but most of these classes tend to bear down on the topic at hand rather than focusing on the way the parts fit together. This fall a new class offered through the W. P. Carey School’s Department of Information Systems is teaching students how to think outside their major, to pull on all of the knowledge and skills they have acquired to analyze a business issue, and to present it effectively. Taught by Professor Ajay Vinze, CIS 494, “Technology and Innovation Management,” uses the case competition model to train students how to think holistically. [podcast id="1"] Transcript: KnowIT: They might spend most of their undergraduate hours going deep into a major like Computer Information Systems (CIS), but on the job, students will have to marshal an array of knowledge and skills to solve problems. Business students do master the other functional areas of business, such as finance and marketing. But most of these classes tend to bear down on the topic at hand rather than focusing on the way the parts fit together. This fall a new class offered through the department of information systems is teaching students how to think outside their major, to pull on all of the knowledge and skills they have acquired to analyze a business issue, and to present it effectively. Taught by Professor Ajay Vinze, CIS 494, “Technology and Innovation Management,” uses the case competition model to train students how to think holistically. The course is the result of some insights gained last spring, when a team of CIS students coached by Vinze came back from CaseIT 2011, an international IT case competition for undergraduate business students. It was the W. P. Carey School’s first time at this competition, and the team did well. At home, the team and their coach debriefed. Ajay Vinze: The more we discussed the more we realized that while our team didn’t land in the top three, they certainly placed very well, and quite clearly what they were good at doing was the technology end of things. So this is CaseIT, with all the cases focused on technology and innovation. They could certainly handle the technology nuances and the technology complexities in the case. Where our team sort of came up short was the notion of how do you formulate the technology problem in business terms. KnowIT: At the undergraduate level, Vinze explained, business students study IT, accountancy, finance, etc in what you might call a “siloed” fashion. But the case competition requires teams to look at IT issues with an across-the-business orientation – integrating those disciplines. Vinze: They’re very good with the technology. They certainly understand the accounting and they understand the finance. When put under time pressure, what they have difficulty with is how do you pull it together from a strategic perspective? KnowIT: The students noticed that other teams at CaseIT were from schools where the competition had been integrated into the curriculum. And so, the students asked the department develop a course that would prepare them to compete — to think about IT from the perspective of the business. Vinze: They actually urged me and said, you know, we ought to put a course together that actually allows us to pull on these disparate things we have learned and create this notion of how do you do technology management and how do you do innovation management, and it’s not only about technology. It could be business process innovation and could be business model innovation, it could be technology innovation, it could be anything! But all of these have an impact on business from an IT perspective. KnowIT: Defying the usual clockspeed of universities, the IS faculty and staff designed the course and got it scheduled in time for students to register for the fall semester. And so, every Monday evening the students meet in a classroom at the Computing Commons for three hours. For each class they are required to scan the Wall Street Journal and The Economist for information on business events and trends. Learning to read the current business environment is part of the curriculum, and is step one in preparing for a case competition. Vinze lectures, but the students partner in the learning process. Vinze: There’s an on week and off week. “Off” weeks I’m on, and I lecture on what are the different frameworks they can look at? What are the current events that are driving innovation and management? What are the business issues they should absolutely understand in order to construct a holistic question? How do you do a situational analysis? How do you look at destructive innovation? These are the things we talk about. KnowIT: The following week the students are “on.” Students are grouped into teams, and every other week the teams have a different role: On any given Monday, three teams will present a case, using the skills of analysis they have learned from Vinze and their other professors. [Classroom sound bite] KnowIT: That evening, another team will have written briefs dissecting various aspects of the case – they are expected to ask probing questions during the presentation. Then one team acts as discussants – standing in front of the class to formally evaluate the teams that presented. Although every student does a written critique of every presentation, one team is named the discussant every week, presenting their critiques. And critiques must be specific and constructive. [Classroom sound bite] KnowIT: Every team presents a case three times over the course of the semester, which means that students have time to improve. And students testify that they have improved. That’s all to the good, because this month the department is conducting an intramural case competition, in part to choose the next W. P. Carey CaseIT team. Vinze: What we want to do is field our brightest into this competition. So to do that we spawned this internal case competition. KnowIT: Students have been forming their own teams, and they are free to recruit students from other majors to round out their capabilities. On Oct. 7 the teams will receive a business case with IT implications — just like the international CaseIT competition — and they will have four days to prepare. The team that wins will represent the W. P. Carey School at the 2012 CaseIT in Vancouver. Vinze: While this will serve as a way for us to choose a team to that we will field into CaseIT in the future, what it also does is that all of the teams that participate will listen to them and give them immediate feedback as well. KnowIT: Students say the class fills out their education by giving them the chance to take the broader, strategic view of business. Susan Eckman is an accounting and finance senior who is taking the course. Susan Eckman: For me I think this class has really allowed me to take a step back from my traditional major, accounting and finance, you know I’m all into the nitty gritty of working through the numbers and building models, But you don’t really take time within the major to deal with the fundamental analysis, the industry, the disruptive innovation, what’s really going on and the overall strategy of a business. And so this is a really great opportunity for me to really delve into that, and look at the broader implication, while also looking at the financials. KnowIT: T.J. Wey, a CIS major, sees a big connection to careers, especially as young professionals move up the ranks into leadership. T.J. Wey: I would have to say this course is really more of a big picture view on business. It provides us with a lot of skills that leadership really needs to have, when they get up to the upper management level in a company and they have to be able to understand industry trends and their own company’s strengths and weaknesses and where the growth lies. KnowIT: T.J. also likes that the course tackles current issues. Wey: I think it’s really exciting that we get to discuss the new technologies that are arising or any business changes, like when we were doing our Net Flicks case it just so happened to coincide with all of Net Flicks’ changes about changing to Quikster and any Microsoft changes, and just in general we get to keep an eye on up and coming technology, because while I can read maybe 10 articles a week on what’s new, combined with the 15 student s of the class there are so many articles and so many resources where people have been pulling information, that you hear things you might have missed, or you never would have heard otherwise. KnowIT: Susan and T.J. are on a team that will be competing at the department’s CaseIT competition. Presentations will be on October 12th. Here’s Susan again. Eckman: This class has been an opportunity to put it all together. I know that I’m going to look back on this class experience and say, thank you! It really has been such a great opportunity for growth, and I’m really looking forward to the upcoming case competition.

KnowIT