This program helps executives understand how continuous improvement strategies, sustained over a long period of time, affect core business metrics and business development strategy and contribute to the success of the organization. This course equips managers with a fundamental understanding of how visual management—as well as their own approach to management—can be improved to create competitive advantage.
Visual Management for Competitive Advantage: MIT’s Approach to Efficient and Agile Work
Certificate Track:
Technology, Operations, and Value Chain Management
Location:
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Tuition:
2019: $3,900 (excluding accommodations)
2020: $4,100 (excluding accommodations)
Program Days (for ACE Credit) 2
This program — built on a foundation of highly adaptable principles and methods called Dynamic Work Design — provides practical tools and methods for sustainable improvement efforts of any scale, in any industry, and in any function.
Proceeding from principles, not practices, is a key to sustainable change, allowing integration with current culture, and processes, while delivering fast results with little overhead of training or major initiatives. The method has proven to work in businesses as diverse as oil/gas, DNA sequencing, and engineering/innovation - and works at the scale of discrete problems or organizational-wide strategic efforts. Improvement begins to happen in rapid and natural ways; results begin showing up almost immediately.
Dynamic Work Design was co-created by Nelson Repenning and Don Keiffer after a combined 20+ years of integrated industry practice and academic investigation, and further refined with insights and expertise provided by Sheila Dodge. Participants will learn how to implement this technique in their own organization directly from two of its creators. Through the process of visual management, they will discover how to identify the value-added elements of their own work and of their organization and more importantly, identify opportunities for improving and how to get started based on a framework of principles and methods.
Please note: The title of this program has changed. The program was previously named "Implementing Improvement Strategies: Dynamic Work Design."
The main purpose of this program is two-fold: one is to help participants understand how continuous improvement strategies, sustained over a long period of time, affect core business metrics and contribute to the success of the organization, from bottom-up and top-down perspectives; and the other is how to change the way managers see work and their own roles as leaders in the culture of improvement. This program will enable participants to:
The program is intended for executives, senior managers, and leaders from every sector. Managers at any level of responsibility will benefit from this program, but it's the senior leadership that should be able to embrace and champion the principles of improvement for the benefit of the entire organization. Here are some indicators that this program will be of value:
Sample Schedule—Subject to Change
| DAY 1 SAMPLE | |
| 8:00AM - 8:30AM | Registration and Continental Breakfast |
| 8:30AM - 9:00AM | Introduction and Program Objectives |
| 9:00AM - 11:00AM | Key Concepts |
| 11:00AM - 12:00PM | Practical Applications |
| 12:00PM - 1:00PM | Networking Lunch |
| 1:00PM - 6:00PM | Principles and Science of Dynamic Work Design |
| 6:00PM - 7:00PM | Reception |
| DAY 2 SAMPLE | |
| 8:00AM - 8:30AM | Continental Breakfast |
| 08:30AM - 9:30AM | Recap and Discussion |
| 9:30AM - 10:00AM | Introduction to Problem Formulation |
| 10:00AM - 10:15AM | Break |
| 10:15AM - 11:45AM | Problem Formulation Exercise |
| 11:45AM - 12:45PM | Networking Lunch |
| 12:45PM - 2:15PM | Introduction to Visual Management |
| 2:15PM - 3:30PM | Visual Management Exercise |
| 3:30PM - 4:00PM | Case: Broad Institute |
| 4:00PM - 4:10PM | Adjournment |
Nelson P. Repenning is the Associate Dean of Leadership and Special Projects at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Professor Repenning also serves as the faculty director for the MIT Leadership Center.
Nelson’s early work focused on understanding the inability of organizations to leverage well-established tools and practices. He has worked extensively with organizations trying to develop new capabilities in both manufacturing and new product development. He has also studied the failure to use the safety practices that often lead to industrial accidents and has helped investigate several major incidents. This line of research has been recognized with several awards, including best paper recognition from both the California Management Review and the Journal of Product Innovation Management.
In 2003 he received the International System Dynamics Society’s Jay Wright Forrester award, which recognizes the best work in the field in the previous five years. Building on his earlier work, today Nelson focuses on developing the theory and practice of Dynamic Work Design--a new approach to designing work that is both effective and engaging—and Dynamic Management Systems, a method for insuring that day-to-day work is tightly linked to the strategic objectives of the firm. In 2011 he received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He is also a partner at ShiftGear Work Design and serves as its Chief Social Scientist.
Sheila Dodge is the General Manager of Operations and Development for the Genomics Platform at the Broad Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. She directs a team of more than150 scientists, engineers and laboratory technicians who develop and run DNA sequencing production processes. She oversees daily operations of the Labs, IT, and Engineering as well as new project and new process execution that keep this organization at the front edge of an industry where changing technology and speed are critical.
She has a BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Boston University, a Masters in Biology from Harvard and an MBA from MIT. She is also Six Sigma, Black Belt certified and works across many boundaries between the science, technology, process development and operations applying her expertise in Visual Management systems and Dynamic Work Design.
Steven A: Great application to my work. Visual work design was great. Liked the approach of professor and business instructed.
Egon Bajc H: Interesting topics and the professors answered all my questions. The learning experience is always special at MIT and I enjoy myself there.
Stephen H: Useful, hands on learnings that I can apply immediately.
Rogelio M: A transformative experience. The material es superb and it applies to all areas of knowledge work. The best class I have taken at MIT
Matthias G: This is a great program, very inspiring. Go further than only Lean and Six Sigma, learn about implementation and how to make Change real. A great experience, thank you!
Felipe T: Great course. Dynamic Work Design helps attendees understand how highly productive factory work techniques such as Lean Sig sigma can be applied to other areas like Marketing, Sales and Product Development
Marcus-Minh B: good course. I learned a lot in two days.
Carmen C: This one was one of the most fascinating and useful programs I took at MIT! If you want to improve or fix any process, or you have a problem at your company or organization then this is the program you should definitely take! “It’s not a people problem, it’s a design problem!” I learned to identify opportunities for improving, and how to use methods to do it! I’m in love with postick exercise and still use it at my organization. It has helped to reduce so much workload and confusion! Don’s way of teaching was amazing. He would get involved with the participants, which was great. He even gave me an appointment to talk about my company and how I could apply dynamic work design there. It has been really useful. His openness is one of the reasons I am now applying for the two-year MBA program. The faculty at MIT is something I have never experienced before in my life.
Mohammed H: Lecture started with how an individual human brain works and ends with bunch of strangers working together in a group trying to solve a particular project problem. I found this fascinating. Class was very engaging and lots of experiance were shared along with theory most of which i could instantly relate to. Some examples were related to other type of industries whic other students might found interesting. But not a dull moment. I felt it was a well blend of theory and practice. I plan to introduce some of the concepts into my orgamization slowly. Food selection was great. I personally avoid meat from four-legged animals, still I had plenty of choices.
Abolaji O: The program gave very good insight into creating an efficient and production work environment and processes.
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Dynamic work design allows knowledge-based employees to find and fix issues and make improvements in real time, just like on the factory floor. Using four underlying principles, it defines two distinct types of work for both physical work and intellectual work: “Factory” and “studio.”
Best practices and multilevel organizational charts rule the business world. But in their quest for smart work design, executives typically forget one fact: “In real life, things almost never go as planned,” says Nelson Repenning. His research, instead, has long focused on what happens when employees get bored or frustrated or overwhelmed and deviate from the best-laid plans.
"A very good blend of practical and theoretical faculty. Prof Nelson Repenning delivers the theories behind Dynamic work design while Don Kieffer adds the flesh to the bones with practical content. Kieffer's practical approach to improvement strategies are well worth the course alone. Everybody are able to take something back to apply day 1 back at work." -
Clas W.
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