SYLLABUS

SYST 530 - Systems Management and Evaluation

Fall 2002

 

Professor:

Dr. Phil Barry

Work Phone:

(703) 883-7826

FAX:

(703) 993-1706

E-mail:

pbarry@mitre.org

Office:

GMU:  Science and Technology II

Mailbox Location:  Science & Technology 2, Room 111

Office Hours:

By appointment

TA:

Danyi Wang

TA-email:

dwang2@gmu.edu

Course Description:

Provides the necessary techniques for evaluating the cost and operational effectiveness of system designs and systems management strategies.  Performance measurement, work breakdown structures, cost estimating and quality management are discussed.  Configuration management, standards, and case studies of systems from different applications areas are discussed.

Course Hours:

 
Tuesday 7:20 pm– 10:00 pm, Robinson A111

 

Text:

Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling, 7th edition (2001); Harold Kerzner. John Wiley and Sons ISBN 0-471-39342-8

 

Grades:

15% - homework

 

 

35% - group case study

 

 

25% - paper

 

 

20% - midterm

 

 

5% - class participation

 

Class Website:

Notes will be posted to the website.  URL is http://www.mason.gmu.edu/~dwang2

LATE PAPERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED!

 

Grade Element Discussion

SYST 530 - Systems Management and Evaluation

Fall 2002

Homework

Students will be given homework assignments most weeks from the end of the chapter(s) discussed during class. 

Group Case Study

The Group Case Study is the focal point of student effort within this course. Groups may meet during class time, but individual preparation may be expected outside of the classroom. There will be groups of several people self-formed during the second meeting of the class.  On the assigned weeks, a different group will be assigned as the discussion leader for the case study.  The group lead is responsible for sending out the presentation materials for the case study to the class and the instructor two days prior to presentation.  For more detail please see the page entitled Case Study Guidance in this packet.

Paper

Each student will be required to write a paper on an area pertinent to this class (e.g. leadership, performance measurement, etc.). There will be two deliverables for this paper.  The first deliverable will be a summary of the paper including an annotated outline for the paper.  The final deliverable will be due near the end of the semester.  The final deliverable must be at least 10 pages long, using 1 1/2 line spacing, with at least 10 references.  The paper will be graded based on the original contribution of the author.  It will not be satisfactory to just document leadership styles, for example.  The author would be expected to compare and contrast leadership styles and give an opinion on the subject.  You will be expected to use a professional format such as one used in an IEEE journal.  Do NOT turn in 10 pages of uninterrupted prose.

Exam

The exam will be in-class and will cover relevant material in the course.  The exam will be in-class and open book.

Description of Case Study

We will be tracking two case studies throughout the semester.  The case studies will explore various facets of elements we will discuss in the lecture segment.  Students will form into groups and will be responsible for weekly assignments that explore the aspects of the case study.  The weekly assignments will be collected in a case study notebook that the students will maintain and turn in at the end of the semester.  The professor will also provide problems within the case study that will require the students to use the techniques discussed in class to best learn the tools and techniques of project management.

Students will also be required to make several presentations in class.  The presentations will focus on the homework assignments given in the previous week.  The students will be required to present the problem, identify all of their relevant assumptions, discuss the approach taken, identify elements of uncertainty, and explain why their approach is the best approach that can solve the problem.  The students will then lead a discussion with the rest of the class to solicit the views of their colleagues and explore angles that perhaps were not considered during their analysis of the problem.

There will be two case studies examined during the semester.  Half of the groups in the class will work the first case study while the other half of the students will work the second case study.  Collaboration between groups will be strongly discouraged; independent work will be rewarded.  The students will be required to periodically bring their case study notebook to class.

Each member of the group will be required to participate in the oral presentations.  Part of your class participation grade will depend on your participation in the oral presentations.  Additionally, on the final day of class all groups will make a presentation of their case study; the specific format will be TBD.  Obviously, differing approaches to the problem are expected in that there is in fact no right answer.  However solid engineering approaches based upon the lectures that we have discussed in class will be expected.  We will talk more about the final presentations as the semester progresses.  The professor will handout the outlines of the case studies next week in class. 

We will also explore putting the results of the case studies on the class web page.

       Additional Sources

SYST 530 - Systems Management and Evaluation

Fall 2002

Additional Sources:  There is a wealth of quality literature available on the subject matter of this course. 

·        Harvard Business Review (super for the leadership and management portion of the course) and an excellent source of case studies

 

Note that there are three main bodies of knowledge that intersect in this course:  systems engineering (INCOSE, IEEE), leadership and management (Harvard Business Review), and project management (PMI). 


 

CLASS SCHEDULE

SYST 530 - Systems Management and Evaluation

Fall 2002

Week 1>

27 Aug

¨      Background and Introductions

¨      Lecture: Systems Engineering Life Cycles and Processes

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 1

 

 

 

Week 2>

3 Sep

¨      Lecture:  Requirements Engineering

¨      ADDIS Game

¨      Form Groups

¨      Introduction to the Case Studies

¨      Homework:  Define Requirements for Case Studies

 

 

 

Week 3>

10 Sep

¨      Lecture: Planning the Technical Effort

¨      In-class exercise: Project Overrun (pg. 635) led by Instructor

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 2

¨      Homework:  2-1, 2-5, 2-6, 2-7, 2-11

 

 

 

Week 4>

17 Sep

¨      Lecture: Scheduling

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 11, pgs. 549-600

¨      Homework: 11-2, 11-11, 11-18, 11-19, 11-36

 

 

 

Week 5>

24 Sep

¨      Lecture: Budgeting and Cost Estimation

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 12

¨      Homework: 12-2, 12-7, 12-11, 12-13, 12-20

 

 

 

Week 6>

1 Oct

¨      Lecture: Monitoring and Information Systems; Technical Performance Measurement

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 14

¨      Homework: 14-1, 14-7, 15-2, 15-10, 15-11

 

 

 

Week 7>

8 Oct

¨      Lecture: Project Control; Design Review and Evaluation Process; Test, Evaluation, and Experimental Design, Configuration Management; Data Management

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading Chapt. 11, pgs. 601-670

¨      Homework: 11-27, 11-30, 11-31, 11-45

¨      Annotated Paper Outlines Due

 

 

 

Week 8>

15 Oct

¨      Columbus Day Recess

 

 

 

Week 9>

22 Oct

¨      Lecture:  Quality Management

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 23

¨      Homework: Develop a Quality Program for Your Case Study

 

 

 

Week 10>

29 Oct

¨      Lecture: Integrated Product-Development

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 4

¨      Homework: 4-2, 4-9, 4-14, 4-34, 4-37

 

 

 

Week 11>

6 Nov

¨      Exam

 

 

 

Week 12>

12 Nov

¨      Lecture: Risk Management

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 17

¨      Homework: 17-3

¨      Course Evaluations

 

 

 

Week 13>

19 Nov

¨      Lecture: Organizational Design

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt 3

¨      Homework: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

               Send results to Professor by 26 Nov 02

 

 

 

Week 14>

26 Nov

¨       No Class

 

 

 

Week 15>

3 Dec

¨      Lecture: Myers-Briggs personality test

¨      Case Study Presentations

¨      Reading:  Chapt. 7

¨      Papers Due – NO LATE PAPERS

 

 

 

Week 16>

10 Dec

¨      Group Briefs and Presentation of Case Study Notebooks