SIP?

The week after the first midterms you'd like better spend your time celebrating and going out rather than attending classes. In this scenario SIP is a good option.

SIP (Sloan Innovation Period) is a week where you attend to ad-hoc classes (or better, seminars) on various topics, ranging from Introduction to Strategy to Leadership Style (...). Even more interesting, if you bid wisely for your classes you can arrange your schedule so to get everything done in two days and then leave for a long weekend!

Here I'll briefly comment the classes I've taken. Most of them looked like pitches to attract students in their spring course and this can be useful to start making up your mind about next semester.

1. Introduction to Strategic Management This class provides some fundamentals of strategy, especially useful for those preparing for the consulting interviews. Structure was good, few frameworks provided but used extensively on real world cases. Nice pick.
2. IT Savvy: Implementing Business Strategy with IT As for Introduction to Strategic Management, also IT Savvy was kind of a repetition for me. In fact I've encountered most of the issues presented there when working in Booz&Co.; however this is a good overview of the related spring class.
3. The Competitive Edge - What You Must Know About the Physics of Business Processes This class is about Operations. First hour and half we played with a simulation of manufacturing company (very like the Beer Game I've cited few posts ago) and then we commented the results in terms of plant sizing, order management and lead time of production. Also we looked at some process redesign projects carried out by the Operations group. This was really a good session and I'm looking forward to the class.
4. Leadership Presence: Communication Skills for a Lifetime Even though this class sounds fluffy it's my favorite. Completely unrelated to spring classes, this 3-hour seminar is about communication/storytelling techniques for managers, taught from a former actor now part of the Ariel Group, specialized in communication trainings.

Unfortunately the week passed quickly and now other midterms are approaching... looking forward to IAP now!

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