On-Campus Course Schedule for Spring 2023

Agile Frameworks for Lean Ent

Agile organizations quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner. This course explores merging life cycle approaches, which lead to greater organizational agility, and provides an in-depth examination and evaluation of Lean-Agile principles and values and the drivers behind becoming a more agile organization. Students learn how organizations can achieve agility at scale by funding ecosystems of teams that deliver large initiatives, allowing decentralized financial decision making within the portfolio, and continuously prioritizing their backlog of activities within each agile project. Learning objectives for this course include the ability to achieve true end-to-end business agility by utilizing industry standard agile frameworks (such as Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe); establishing the strategic themes that guide an organization's strategy and investments; determining and funding the relevant value streams; defining and prioritizing cross-cutting portfolio backlog epics; and monitoring the performance of the portfolios using applicable Lean portfolio, program, and team metrics. Students learn how to link an organizational strategy into relatively small investment increments called epics, study the breakup of epics into features that can be delivered by program teams, and explore the decomposition of features into user stories delivered by single teams in individual sprints. This course also explores organizational factors that impact the use of agile approaches, such as culture, readiness, business practices, and the role of the PMO.

Agile Project Management Funda

The course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of Agile Project Management Fundamentals. The course not only teaches students how to manage projects with an adaptive approach, but also allows students to understand the differences and similarities between agile and traditional project management. Throughout the course, students acquire the essential knowledge on agile values, principles, practices, tools, and benefits of applying a lean-agile approach to Project Management. The course also provides students with the tools necessary to select an adequate approach to project management while considering degree of uncertainty and complexity. Through simulations and demonstrations of agile concepts, students gain experiential learning and acquire essential Agile PM skills to operate in an agile setting. By the end of the course, students can apply insights on how to blend linear, incremental, and iterative approaches in a traditional, agile, or hybrid environment.

Agile Project Management Funda

The course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of Agile Project Management Fundamentals. The course not only teaches students how to manage projects with an adaptive approach, but also allows students to understand the differences and similarities between agile and traditional project management. Throughout the course, students acquire the essential knowledge on agile values, principles, practices, tools, and benefits of applying a lean-agile approach to Project Management. The course also provides students with the tools necessary to select an adequate approach to project management while considering degree of uncertainty and complexity. Through simulations and demonstrations of agile concepts, students gain experiential learning and acquire essential Agile PM skills to operate in an agile setting. By the end of the course, students can apply insights on how to blend linear, incremental, and iterative approaches in a traditional, agile, or hybrid environment.

MPTM Capstone

The Capstone Course is the culmination of the student's academic and professional experience in the Technology Management program. Over the course of the semester, students will be asked to apply the knowledge gained during the program to a project. With a focus on technology for social good, students will incorporate the skills necessary for analyzing key issues, thinking creatively, and making sound decisions in order to develop and execute plans. Projects will address global and local challenges. During the semester in which students are enrolled in the Capstone Course, it is strongly recommended that they only take one additional course along with it. Students must earn a grade of B or better in the Capstone Course in order to graduate.

Note: Core course requirement for Tech Mgmt students. Registration requires department approval. Students must earn a grade of "B" or higher in the Capstone course. Capstone is taken in a student's last semester in the program.

Competitive Intelligence Organ

Competitive intelligence analysis is the process that agencies and organizations use to assess their institutional strengths and weaknesses relative to peer organizations. Students in this course gain insight into how competitive intelligence informs and supports an organization’s ongoing strategy. Throughout the course, students examine case studies and the history of competitive analysis in both government and industry. By the end of this course, students will be able to gather organizational data, interpret relevant data, and evaluate and recommend organizational strategies based on their research. The course places a strong emphasis on the development and application of data analysis and presentation skills.

Ethics in Technology Management

The Core Course in Applied Ethics provides a firm foundation of essential concepts, skills, and strategies to allow for informed decision-making and effective leadership. The course emphasizes ethical responsibilities and core values endemic to the professional world, cutting across several disciplines but focusing particularly on the connections between applied ethics and areas such as technology, business management, and law. You will explore real-world dilemmas and the framework for reaching ethical decisions. Topics will include intellectual property rights, government regulations, privacy, information security and cybercrime. Professional guests from various fields—such as business, law and government—will present case studies representative of their experiences. In addition to other requirements, students must earn a grade of "B" or higher in the Ethics course.

Financial Analysis for Technology Managers

Provides theories and practical techniques related to acquiring, accounting for, and allocating an organization’s financial assets. It analyzes basic business problems that managers face as they make technology decisions for their organizations. Some of the topics include return on investment, theories of portfolio management, financial statement and discounted cash flow analysis, interest rate determination, capital budgeting methodologies, concepts of risk and return, asset pricing, and valuation models. You will apply the knowledge you gain to issues you face within your work environment and to real-world examples through business cases and case studies.

Lean & Agile w/Scrum & Kanban

This course provides students with a solid foundation and a good understanding of practicing Agile with Scrum and Kanban. Scrum is a framework for designing, developing, and delivering products, services, and/or solutions of the highest value incrementally. Scrum is also known as a popular agile method in the computer software industry for addressing unknown and complex requirements iteratively and incrementally.. Scrum implementations require the use of self-organized teams who are flexible individuals willing to adapt quickly to change. Students will learn about the rules of the game specific to Scrum events (the sprint, sprint planning, daily Scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective), Scrum artifacts (e.g. product backlog, sprint backlog, and increment), and the importance of the definition of done. Kanban is another lean framework for developing and delivering products and services by balancing demands with available capacity, and by improving the handling of system-level bottlenecks. Students will also learn essential lean principles and discover how to use a Kanban board to help them visualize workflow and prioritize work items more effectively.

Management of Technology

The Management of Technology course provides theoretical and practical experience in using information technology to support organizational decision-making processes. You will examine the requirements of an organization to optimize its competitive strategy and core competencies. You will learn different tactical, strategic, and organizational factors relative to various information systems, as well as how to gauge the effectiveness of an organization’s information system. The course addresses some of the unique issues in managing different types of IT professionals, from senior-level architects to junior-level infrastructure support personnel. You will explore tools and techniques related to hiring, developing, assessing, and retaining staff—as well as theories/methods of managing remote workers and virtual teams.

Note: This is a foundation course that is required for the TM students.

Perspectives in Addressing Cybersecurity & Critical Infrastructure: A National Challenge

From the electrical grid, to medical infrastructure, to transportation systems, and to water distribution networks, this course explores the nature of and the technologies underpinning the critical infrastructure. There will be a strong focus on operational technologies, to include the similarities and differences between operational technology and information technology, and the cyber threats and vulnerabilities that exist within these infrastructures. This course will examine at least six of the critical infrastructures established by the United States Department of Homeland Security. Students will present multiple case studies.

Strategies for Managing Digital Products

This course takes a look at strategies for managing digital products and services. To be successful in the world of digital products and services, one must start with strategy. Effective corporate strategy demands an in-depth understanding of the various technologies that enable digital business. In this course, you will examine how a strategic approach to emerging trends—in telecommunications, search engines, security, portals, websites, user interface design, fintech, digital download features, mobile commerce, cloud computing, custom database design and pervasive computing—can impact competitive dynamics.

Systems Requirements

Gives you a strong understanding of the system development life cycle (SDLC). You will learn methods of gathering, analyzing, and prioritizing business requirements with a focus on the ease of use for IT staff and end-users alike. The course covers many of the specifics of gap analysis through correctness and completeness methods, the use of case models, process and data modeling, database design principles, and more. In addition, the course covers SDLC models, Unified Process and CASE tools, Rapid Application Development methodologies, Package Evaluation and Selection, and more. Finally, the course will be well-grounded in practice through the coverage of relevant requirements standards (IEEE Standard 830) and current government practices for requirements management (i.e., System Requirements Specifications (SRS).