Duc Pham, Mechanical Engineering, The University of Birmingham
One of the first tasks I undertook at my previous institution in the late 1980s was to set up a new postgraduate Masters programme. At the time, Masters programmes tended to be aligned with the research interests of teaching staff. Because I was researching in intelligent systems - see “Could a Little Technology be a Dangerous Thing?” CMM, Vol 9, No 4, August 2016 - my choice of subject for the new postgraduate course, unsurprisingly, was applied artificial intelligence.
As I have since realised, that proved not to be the best choice from the point of view of creating a robust MSc programme. Rather than hinging on the developer’s personal interest, a successful and sustainable postgraduate programme, like any educational or other product, must fulfil a genuine and lasting demand for it. Unfortunately, neither condition applied in the case of my programme, not because there was no need for training in applied artificial intelligence, but because that need had already been met by existing course providers.
Another related lesson – which should have been obvious to me - was that viable Masters programmes are never delivered by one or two individuals but by a team. However, in addition to me, there was just one colleague in another department really working, and able to teach, in the core areas of the programme. When that colleague announced he was leaving for another university, I became the only person totally committed to the project. The other people who had been helping me to develop the programme, but who were not specialists on the subject, wanted to give up and the project very nearly had to be abandoned.
The reason for those colleagues feeling dejected was that they thought our capacity to deliver the best possible course in the country had been severely damaged. I had to convince them not to aim to be the top course provider immediately. Rather, they should first try to produce a course that was fit for purpose and then gradually improve it. Through persistence and persuasion, I managed to rebuild the team, attracting specialist input from different departments, including one from another institution. We also obtained internal approval and external sponsorship for the course which we finally launched after two years of intensive development – the long duration being mainly due to our sequential development approach.
The course was successful for the first five years. Although it had small numbers of students, they were generally of good quality. Some of them went on to complete doctoral degrees and became teachers of the subject in the UK and abroad. Others found relevant employment in industry, applying the knowledge gained to solve real problems. However, as mentioned earlier, there was competition from established providers; the supply of students dried up and eventually the course had to close.
During the initial years of the course, I was assisted by a highly dedicated colleague – one of those perfectionists whom I had convinced to persevere with our project. As well as teaching on the course, he also looked after all administrative chores associated with organising, starting, running and continually developing it. I believe a factor contributing to the decline of the course was his resignation as course administrator, after his efforts had gone unrecognised by the School in successive promotions and salary review cycles.
The School argued that my colleague did not need any special reward because he was only doing a job for which he was already being paid. As part of the School management team, I cannot absolve myself of all responsibility for the situation; my problem was that I had not adequately defended his case. The lesson from this for me was that one must protect and give due credit to people who selflessly undertake tedious administrative tasks so the rest of us can pursue our research interests.
Upon re-joining my current institution almost twenty-five years later, I again found myself embarking on a project to create a new Masters programme. However, on that second occasion, as Head of School, I could adopt a more strategic approach, drawing on the lessons of the first programme. I started the project with a market analysis to ensure there was a real and enduring demand. I also based the new programme – generically titled Advanced Mechanical Engineering - on the work of the whole School to guarantee we had a strong team of people able to deliver it.
Rather than aiming to dominate the market with a perfect product from the beginning, we were prepared to develop and refine the programme incrementally. We also adopted a “concurrent engineering” approach whereby I took charge of strategy and appointed a committed programme director working in parallel to handle operational matters. Of course, this time, I made sure that the efforts of our programme director were duly recognised.
The programme is now in its third year and it may be premature to claim success. However, the early signs are extremely positive. We created the programme and launched it in just six months – a record time for introducing a new postgraduate course at any higher education establishment. From a standing start, the course has already become one of our most popular Masters programmes, attracting as many students as several other more established programmes combined.
I am cognisant of the need for the course, like all living systems, to evolve to continue prospering in the long term. We will have to respond to changes in external and internal conditions to ensure that our offering is attractive in an increasingly competitive market. The School was recently reorganised, but I am sure the new management is also fully aware of this and will be supportive of our new jewel in the crown. I am optimistic about the future of our programme.
There you have it - the story of my two Masters. However, did I not mention three?
Indeed, there are three Masters in the story. To find out about the third one, let me take you back to the Management Control Systems class that I attended as a postgraduate student at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand forty years ago. The course was devised and given by Professor Henry McCallion, then the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. He taught us all the lessons cited here as well as many others, but in an engineering management context: a product must satisfy a need; a strong development and delivery team is critical to success; team members must be fairly rewarded for their contribution; how concurrent engineering can speed up time to market; seek to control a system before trying to optimise it; evolution is essential for the survival of all organisations.
I remember thinking that those ideas were self-evident when I first heard them. I also remember Professor telling us that people often overlook the obvious. How correct he was, as I turned out to be one of those people having to rediscover his simple principles through hard experience. For his knowledge, wisdom and vision, he is the third, but also the only true, Master in this story.
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/engineering/mechanical-engineering/index.aspx