Why focus on Practicing Management? 

After a year at MIT Sloan and a summer internship, you've learned and practiced analyzing problems, generating solutions, and making recommendations. Yet the most effective managers go further: they know how to actually get things done. In 15.990: Practicing Management you'll develop, apply, and refine the skills, tools, and approaches essential for doing just that. The centerpiece of the course is a real-world project that offers the ideal laboratory for you to become more effective as a manager.

How is 15.990 different from GLab?

Like GLab, 15.990 students work with teams of peers on a real-world project, dedicating three weeks of IAP to onsite work.  Unlike GLab, which sends students to host companies all over the globe, 15.990 projects are with companies in greater Boston.  This is a critical difference, since 15.990 projects are designed to go "beyond consulting."  With locally-based hosts, 15.990 projects allow for multi-stage engagements, where students develop and execute mini-experiments, to gather data and advance real learning at their host organization.  Their work over IAP informs continued engagement with their host in spring H1.  GLab projects, on the other hand, tend to be a one-stage engagement, without expectation of ongoing involvement for student teams.  GLab students conduct an analysis and make recommendations---possibly developing a business plan, market analysis, or new-market-entry strategy for a foreign firm.  This is essential a one-off consultative approach, where GLab projects are scoped such that all work for the host may be completed by the end of IAP.  During Spring H1, GLab students deliver final presentations to their professors and peers, reflect on their learning, and speculate on the potential impact of their recommendations (if their hosts follow through).  During Spring H1, 15.990 students remain intimately engaged with their host companies. They develop and execute additional mini-experiments, and make a strategic hand-off, so that hosts take ownership of student work, and take it to the next level.  

Can you tell me what a 15.990 project might look like?

 
Here's a hypothetical example. An MIT Media Lab group has developed a new toy they believe has immense potential to help middle school students tackle algebra.  A 15.990 project team designs and implements pilot tests of the toy.  They collaborate with local non-profits providing after-school programming, such as Young People's Project and Citizen Schools.  During IAP, the 15.990 team conducts a pre-test with students, tests the toy with them, then gathers feedback and ideas.  They also conduct a post-test.  During Spring H1, the 15.990 team work with their host to incorporate student feedback/data into design modifications, to capture student impacts for future marketing and lay the groundwork for a second test.