15.668 | Fall 2010 | Undergraduate

People and Organizations

Calendar

SES # TOPICS KEY QUESTIONS KEY DATES
1 Introduction and overview What challenges can I expect in my first job?  
2

Work and careers: Past, present, and future

What do I want/expect from my work/career? How is this similar or different from what my parents and grandparents wanted and expected?

 
3

Leading and facilitating teams: An engineering team exercise

How can I make my team work well?  
4

Organizations: Past, present, future

How did the modern organization evolve and where is it going?

 
5

Organizational analysis: Strategic design lens

How do I analyze and make sense of the organizational structure in which I am working?

 
6

Organizational analysis: Political lens

Who will share my interests and who won’t? Who has power, and how will it affect what I do?

 
7

Putting the political lens to work: Influencing upward in organizations

How do I sell my great idea to higher authorities?

Organization selection for individual paper due

8

Organizational analysis: Cultural lens

What traditions matter in an organization, and how do they affect what goes on?

 
9

The cultural lens in action: The Lincoln Electric case

Why has Lincoln Electric’s incentive compensation system worked for decades while most others’ have failed?

 
10

Applying the three lenses: BP and lessons from the Gulf Coast disaster

   
11 Teams in organizations    
12

Team processes: Strategies for building a high performance team

   
13 Midterm exam    
14 Introduction to negotiations

How do I negotiate when it looks like I have no power?

Topic selection for group paper due

15

Recruitment and job offer negotiation

What should I ask for? What should I offer?

Individual paper draft due

16

Interest-based bargaining in action: Riggs Engineering case study

Can I put the internet-based tools of Fisher and Ury to work in a real life negotiation? How do I sell this agreement to my “constituents” or superiors?

 
17

Leadership and change: Introductions

   
18

Leadership and change (cont.)

   
19

Leadership continued: The Big Dig, Part 1

   
20

Leadership continued: The Big Dig, Part 2

   
21

Organizational change: MassDOT case

What structural, political, and cultural challenges have to be addressed to integrate multiple agencies into a single efficient transportation organization and system?

 
22

Managing the innovation process

How do ideas move from the laboratory through the organization to the marketplace?

 
23

Corporate responsibility in global supply chain

What purpose(s) should corporations serve? Should Nike and other global corporations be held responsible for the practices of their suppliers? If so, how?

 
24

Team reports on change project

  Individual paper due
25

Inventing the future: Wrap-up

 

Team paper due

Course Info

As Taught In
Fall 2010
Learning Resource Types
Lecture Notes
Written Assignments