        
     
|
The 2006 Howe School Alliance for Technology Management Advisory Board meeting will take place on Wednesday, November 15, at 1:00 PM in the Babbio Center on the Stevens campus. It will be devoted to a brief review of HSATM activities for 2006 and a discussion of plans for 2007. As is our custom, the Advisory Board meeting will be immediately followed by the November Roundtable meeting, during which selected Howe School faculty members will present highlights from their current research and discuss the business implications. This year we will hear from Professors Patricia Holahan, Peter Koen, and Aaron Shenhar. Please plan to attend the full combined meeting and to partake in a buffet luncheon from 12:00-1:00 PM. Patricia Holahan’s research explores successful product development practices that discriminate among three types of innovation projects -- incremental, more innovative, and radical -- using data gathered from 96 business units. Although commonly accepted that incremental and radical innovation should be managed differently, the results of this study suggest that best management practices for new product development activities may be more similar across project types than previously thought. Peter Koen’s work has focused on the “front end” of the innovation process, and he will present the findings of an industrial-academic team that has been studying success factors since 1998. Best practices, methods and tools used in the front end which consistently increase the value, amount and success probability of concepts entering the new product development funnel will be presented, based on the practices of over 180 companies. Aaron Shenhar will discuss his recent research on project management. Since projects are initiated for business objectives, the mindset of project management must shift from just meeting time, budget, and performance goals to achieving expected business results. Based on this concept he will present a model that assesses a project according to (1) how well it is focused on business results and the right strategy, (2) how well structured the process of planning and execution is, and (3) how much the project’s leadership is focused on the human side of motivating and inspiring the team. The model can be used to assess where organizations are today in the maturity of their project management processes and to set specific goals for improvement. This annual meeting with faculty has always been one of our most stimulating and well-received Roundtable meetings of the year. Please confirm your attendance with Sharen Glennon (sglennon@stevens.edu or 201-216-5381). Dress code is business casual. |
