Today I meant to write about Platforms, Product Lines, Product Line Architectures, and so on... I was especially fueled to do so after a particularly fruitful day back at the office, where I and a few other engineers at Raytheon NCS attended a rather interesting presentation describing a joint effort between Raytheon (my employer) and Microsoft termed "ASPEN" (Advanced Software Productivity Environments, I believe.) I hate to be a tease - but since it is almost all company proprietary, all I can tell you is that it had me thinking all day about
toolkits, platforms and product lines... As if I needed that, after a week during which: a) "Mr Platforms" himself, Marc H Meyer (author of "
The Power of Product Platforms" and "Fast Path to Corporate Growth") was a guest lecturer in one class. b) I started reading professor Cusumano's book, "
Platform Leadership" c) Also started writing a paper related to software toolkits for
Von Hippel's class "User Centered Innovation in the Internet Age."
But since I can't share my Raytheon-related thoughts with you, you're just going to have to trust me that it's some really cool stuff. Instead let me turn my ramblings towards the
System Design & Management program (SDM) and try to start answering the question, nay cliff-hanger, I closed
my first blog post with... It had to do with why I picked SDM -- Let me start with three simple facts:
1) System Design & Management is co-sponsored by the MIT Sloan School of Management and the School of Engineering (SoE), and resides within the Engineering Systems Division.
2) SDM is not an MBA program, but a program that offers a master's in engineering *and* management.
3) SDM Fellows can take advantage of the best of all worlds via a rich curriculum in engineering and management provided by Sloan and the SoE and even the Harvard Business School.
