MBA students at USD help renovate a home. (photo/Scottphoto.net)

On the first day of Barbara Withers’ fall project management class, the USD professor walks in wearing a hard hat. The headgear and blueprints she carries represent the group project that MBA students will undertake. Their coursework culminates in “Thanksgiving House,” the renovation of a Linda Vista home. Students spend the semester planning the refurbishment that will be done during two weekends.

A project manager is selected, someone who will organize the schedule and monitor it with the goal of bringing the project in on time. Students form teams for tasks like plumbing. The scope of the project determines the group size. One person may comprise the electrical team and serve in another group with two or three other students.

Withers hears questions like “If the paint job isn’t good, will that affect my grade?” She replies that class time is dedicated to obtaining the tools and techniques to accomplish the tasks. In one course, a team spent class time attending a Home Depot tiling class. Students seek materials and may ask family members to volunteer. After all, if two students paint from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., the work is finished earlier with more painters.

The renovation brings a shift in class format. Withers recorded lectures as PowerPoint presentations. During class, she serves as a consultant to individuals and teams. Withers says Thanksgiving House is an example of experiential learning. “Students learn more by doing.” The project “makes the course content very relevant to them. They learn how to plan and do this good deed.”

Some business schools require a group project for the capstone, the final course where students demonstrate their knowledge of what they learned in graduate school. At CSU San Marcos, the capstone is a group effort, says Keith Butler, MBA director of college operations. “We feel so strongly the need for students to excel in groups, we made our capstone a high-stakes group project.”

A three-member group could include someone who works at a company or owns a business. That person may propose a work-related idea for the project. Butler says the arrangement provides good access to data. It could lead to rewards outside the classroom.

Ideas Become Reality

Chris Graham is director of Aztec Business Alliance, the College of Business Administration organization at SDSU that matches teams of three to four students with companies. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

A Hunter Industries engineer had an idea for a product for his employer, a San Marcos irrigation equipment manufacturer. He handled engineering for the project. Another team member worked on the financial aspects, and the third person did marketing. Butler says that Hunter decided to go with the product. The engineer was promoted, and the marketing person was hired a year later.

At Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University, groups of two to three students do “top-to-bottom” projects for the capstone, says Warren Henderson, Electronics and Computer Technology program director. Students “come up with a concept” they want to market and create a business plan for a product like a U-turn signal for vehicles. The group spends the semester on the project. The final phase of the project is an approximately one-hour presentation similar to the session where entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to venture capitalists. Students address a panel consisting of the instructor, center dean and one or two others.

SDSU MBA students fulfill a course requirement by serving on consulting teams for clients including Qualcomm, SAIC, the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Symphony. Repeat clients include General Atomics, which ordered 33 consultations, says Chris Graham. He’s director of the Aztec Business Alliance, the College of Business Administration organization that matches teams of three to four students with companies. The consultation done during the last semester is a “culminating experience” for students working on projects like business plans, feasibility studies and market research. “The biggest challenge is the timing of meetings,” says Graham. The experience brings lessons in how to be a cohesive team. Students may also learn a new industry, says Graham. As an SDSU student, his MBA team worked with an Israeli wireless technology company.

At UCSD, students take on a major project during the “Lab to Market” sequence that spans several quarters, says JoAnne Starr, Rady School of Management assistant dean. The project is required for professionals in the part-time Flex MBA program and full-time students. They may do work-based projects for employers or develop products that teams decide to market.

“It’s a great way to work on something internal. It shows the employer added value: ‘Here’s what I learned; here’s what I did with it,” says Starr. She adds that the school brings in experts from the business community to provide advice.

Before the capstone, students may examine issues like their organization’s supply chain in classes. When major projects are assigned, instructors allocate class time for the project. FlexMBA students may also work on the projects during the weekends they’re on campus.

Alliant International University’s business school is now the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management. The name reflects Alliant’s emphasis on “bringing in human interaction to all business courses,” says Ali Abu-Rahma, associate dean of the school’s Division of Business and Management. Goldsmith, a renowned executive coach who teaches at the school, symbolizes the university’s focus on achieving success by knowing how to work well with people.

In Alfred Lewis’ classes, Alliant students typically conduct a strategic diagnosis of businesses and nonprofit organizations in the San Diego area and international locations. The professor serves in a coaching capacity and may “act as referee on the rare occasion involving team/group conflict. An essential part of the process is for individuals to work with other students, akin to the real world,” says Lewis.

Barbara Greenstein, owner of Human Resource Prescriptions LLC, teaches a ‘Team Building’ course at Chapman College. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

Group activities are key to Barbara Greenstein’s “Team Building” course in Chapman University’s Organizational Leadership program. Students complete a team project for their final. Working in a group of four to six people, they plan a team-building simulation for the rest of the class. “In class, we go through many aspects of being on an effective team and different ways to build synergy,” says Greenstein, owner of Human Resource Prescriptions LLC.; a performance consulting business.

She encourages team members to create standards for working together, assign roles to each member and to come up with a project mission to guide the team. “Any team has its challenges. However, when some planning takes place at the team’s inception, and team members are held accountable for their work, it usually makes the team experience a great one,” says Greenstein. She adds that students often present their simulations to their teams at work.

Group projects are required in some courses in Point Loma Nazarene University’s Fermanian School of Business. In adjunct professor Mike Oslovar’s technology course, teams of two to four students create business plans to improve or replace existing technology. The project usually applies to the firm where the student is employed. It could focus on an area like supply chain management.

The greatest challenges for projects “are the coordination of getting team members together and agreeing on what portion of the project each will complete,” says Oslovar, director of Software Quality Assurance for Intellidot. “However, those issues are part of the learning experience for the project that includes a presentation and written submission. Coordination, delegation, setting priorities and synergies are the basic skills an MBA must master. Being able to make recommendations in a clear and brief format is paramount to assisting senior management in making sound business decisions.”

Randy Ataide, PLN entrepreneurship and management professor, requires group projects in his “Contemporary Management in a Competitive World” course. Teams of three to four students give an approximately 45-minute presentation on a Harvard Business School case study or journal article. Their talk features a PowerPoint presentation about the case.

“What I like best is that you see emerging from the presentations the strengths of each individual such as in preparing the presentation, preparing graphs or technical analysis, oral presentation and (answering) impromptu questions.”

Don Schwartz, interim dean of National University’s School of Business and Management, says students in the MBA Project class work individually or in small groups. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

In National University’s MBA Project class, students work individually or in groups. Team size depends on the size and nature of the project. “By working in small groups, each group member may have expertise in a different major functional area such as marketing or accounting/finance,” says professor Don Schwartz, School of Business and Management interim dean.

Some students do employer-defined projects; others write research papers. Most develop business plans, with some created for employers. Many plans are for potential businesses.

University of Redlands MBA students work in teams on case studies and the capstone project, says Jerry Platt, dean of the School of Business. Recently, a team did work for the city of Yucaipa; a pilot MBA program partners the university with a Redlands-area flight training school. The program is aimed at the university’s recent Arts and Sciences undergraduates. They many not have relevant work experience and will have “significant consulting roles with business collaborators,” says Platt. The curriculum is a project that could include a spring field trip to Japan. Platt says the university plans to develop similar relationships with other businesses in the area.

At University of Phoenix, learning teams are part of every course in the version of the MBA program that started a year ago. Teams of three to seven people come from professions including government and the profit and nonprofit sectors. “The intent is to replicate the real world” where people work in teams, says Michael Reilly, San Diego chair of the College of Business.

Each course includes two problem-based scenarios that are tackled by teams. Members work in areas like research, analysis and writing. They give a team presentation on their solution. Teams may stay together in other courses. The groups are self-managed and have the option to “remove people who don’t pull their weight,” says Reilly. A habit of nonparticipation could lead to rejection by other teams. “That happens in the real world, too.”

This month, USC launches its local executive MBA (EMBA) program at La Costa Resort and Spa. The approximately 45 people enrolled include entrepreneurs, the military and people working in professions including biotech, technology and financial services, says Cherie Scricca, EMBA associate dean for the Marshall School of Business. “It’s a good mix,” she says, adding that it’s not known whether coursework for the local program will feature the two group projects required in Los Angeles.

When a group project is required, how do business professionals fit it into their schedules? “Easy, they have no home life,” quips Oslovar. Reilly saw that from the spouse’s perspective. This year, his wife, Teddi, completed the new Phoenix MBA, a program that he was instrumental in developing. “It quite dramatically altered our lives,” he says.

Technology helps with time management. Platt says that Blackboard and chat rooms helps Redlands students connect. Starr says that UCSD business teams have collaborative space on a server. Students work on documents online, and the business school has a conference phone for talking to a team member who is traveling or lives out of the area.

Group challenges include differing work styles. Some people start immediately on a project and others thrive on deadlines, says Butler.

Group projects bring education that extends beyond coursework. The give-and-take of group projects helps dispel the myth that “individualism is the true mark of an effective leader,” says Ataide. “The emphasis in the presentation is on team skills. They all receive the same grade, meaning they are as good as their weakest link.”

Schwartz says that “Group projects require the development of an action plan and timeline, delegation of responsibilities to accomplish objectives in accordance with the timeline, teamwork on the part of all of the members of the group and the ability of the group leader to motivate and settle disputes — many such lessons that students will put to practical use later on.”

The group experience is cited by Alliant students as an important lesson, says Lewis. “The group project brings an international and cross-cultural experience.”

Diversity can extend to professions. Starr says that the most diverse team may be the most difficult to get going. However, diversity “makes great results.” In the first FlexMBA class, a project involved wireless technology and healthcare information.

Greenstein of Chapman also advocates diversity. “I always suggest that students embrace the differences. (Doing so) allows everyone to play to their strength area and provide an outstanding performance for their organizations.”

Group projects, whether for a presentation or a renovation, are an education in interpersonal relationships. Withers says, “Obviously, they have to learn to work together very quickly. It’s like a workplace – you can’t run to the teacher.”