Introduction to Operations Management

Introduction to Operations Management was the title of just one of the classes I took this summer (15.761) at MIT, but it may well have described my entire experience this summer.  I spent 3 months taking 5 courses (15.761, 15.064: Engineering Probability and Statistics, 15.066: System Optimization and Analysis, 15.317: Organizational Leadership and Change, and ESD.60: High Velocity Organizations) with 46 other people in the class of ’11 (Snake-Eyes class). Needless to say, it ended up being a ton of work, more than maybe I expected. But when there is a ton of work, that means there is usually a lot of accomplishments, and this was no exception.

One of the classes I really enjoyed (not including the probability stuff in 15.066 – Arnie Barnett is the man!) was the Systems Optimization class, taught by Jeremie Gallien. This class (really well taught) focused on the use of linear optimization techniques (including Integer and Mixed Integer Programs) to solve various types of problems, including planning problems, network flow problems (max-flow, transportation) and scheduling problems. The class, being taught as part of Sloan, was more about problem formulation and applications, rather than the algorithms to solve them. I appreciated this approach, because I took a class as an undergrad that was called Intro to Operations Research where we just did the Simplex algorithm by hand over and over and over again, and I got basically nothing out of it. By contrast, this class had a lot of real world examples that Prof. Gallien presented from his experience consulting for companies. In addition, we did a final project as part of the class where we applied the techniques we used in the class to a real life Operations problem, at the Pre-Admissions Testing Clinic (PATA) at Mass General Hospital, which ended up being a great success, thanks to our collaboration with Kelsey McCarty, a Sloan ’10 who was interning at PATA for the summer (read our final report here). Our team, with Prof Gallien, is continuing to collaborate with the managers at PATA as a follow-on, and there is a good chance our model will help them make decisions about how to schedule patients and providers in the future to reduce patient waiting times in the clinic, which is pretty cool.

Maybe some of the most important things I learned was about what it means to work on a team in a high-pressure environment. I had 4 other people on my summer team, Five-Alive, and we did basically all of our work together. We also did a lot of team building exercises including Outward Bound and a really cool Leadership Reaction Course (obstacle course with water – I didn’t get wet) at Camp Edwards, an Air National Guard base on Cape Cod.  I learned a lot about teamwork from all of these experiences, but one key takeaway was that one of the most critical traits of a leader is to listen – not only in the sense of not talking when somebody else is, but to really concentrate on what others are saying and converse. It sounds simple, and maybe it is, but I noticed that we tended to stop doing that as work kept piling up and that led to a lot of re-work, wasted effort, and frustration.

In the end, all our hard work paid off (I think we consistently produced some of the best work in the class), and through all our time we spent together, I got to know four other awesome people with really interesting backgrounds and perspectives.

I’m looking forward to fall semester (orientation starts tomorrow) but I hope it doesn’t kill me – if I thought 5 classes were bad, I’m taking 7 this fall!