--- Draft --BPS 6360.501 Management and Organizational Consulting Fall 2010 Padmakumar Nair, MBA, Ph.D., Dr.Eng.

& Jeff Hicks, MIM, Ph.D.

Day and Time: Wednesday; 07.00 to 9.45 PM

Place: SOM 1.102

Instructor: Padmakumar Nair, SOM 2.422 (The Leadership Center) Guest Speakers: Usman Ghani, Jerry Hoag, Mr.
Telephone: 972-883-6264

Email: padmakumar.nair@utdallas.edu Office hours: 10.00 to 11.30 AM and 6.45 to 7.30 PM on Mondays or by appointment Books: 1. True Professionalism by David H. Maister, Free Press (2000) 2. Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help by Ed Schein, Berrett-Koehler Publishers (February 1, 2009) Readings: Readings can be downloaded from the library website (go to eJournals: http://www.utdallas.edu/library/resources/journals.htm )
COURSE OVERVIEW

This course will provide required theoretical background in the content and process areas of Management Consulting to help you become a scholarly practitioner in the area of Organizational and Strategy consulting. In addition, this course will help you develop skills to apply well-developed theories in the areas of Strategy, Organizational Behavior and Learning & Knowledge Creation to real world situations. Special attention will be given to bridge the theory versus practice gap in the practice of management consulting. About 80% of the time will be devoted to in-class activities, role-plays or company visits. There will also be several in-depth discussions around interesting readings. I will try to find experienced consultants to talk with students and answer questions related to practical aspects of management consulting. There will be two assigned books for this course. Other readings could be obtained from our Library eJournals database. 1

Prerequisite: OB 6301 or consent of the instructor COURSE OBJECTIVES The course has multiple objectives that include the following: 1. To develop a context centered mindset for helping clients. 2. To understand the importance of balancing between the expert-centered and context-centered approaches. 3. To develop skills in using your ability to co-create knowledge to come-up with practical and innovative solutions, together with your clients, to actual problems those are being experienced by todays organizations. 4. To understand the challenges of knowledge transfer / co-creation in client-consultant interactions.

Achieving the Objectives You will be required to complete several activities in order to achieve the identified objectives: 1. Contribute to in-class discussions of cases and readings by exhibiting (a) an understanding and articulate analysis of the information presented and (b) skills in the prerequisite course areas required for registration. 2. There will be readings and role-plays to practice the concepts and ideas discussed in the class. 3. Attendance is required at all class sessions to fully make use of and participate in all class discussions. That being said, I recognize that, at times, professional and personal emergencies may arise which may prevent one from attending class. Overview of the Assignments Within the first three weeks of the class 10 to 15 teams with 3 members each will be formed for the group assignments. Please self-select into your groups. Please do not rely too much on the Internet for your research. Spend some time in the librarythere are greater opportunities for insightful reflection and reading!

Assignment (group)-1 Real Life Consulting with Ericsson / Burns Controls / HygeiaTel, Inc. /
Dynamex / Oztern / Junior Achievement of Dallas / Headwaters Construction Materials / North Texas Honey and many more The purpose of this assignment is to develop Consultative Problem Solving skills (both process and content skills), which are essential part of general management.

Assignment (individual) 2: Individual Reflection Paper (about 1500 words) November 30th.

You should write about the project. The following questions should be discussed in your reflection paper: 1. What did I learn? i. Consulting process ii. Content 2. How did the project go? 2

GRADING The grades in the activities in which you will be participating will be combined to determine your final course grade. Please note that items 1 and 2 below will be multiplied with a peer evaluation multiplier (if necessary) to get your effective grade. The relative weights are as follows: 1. Class Participation (Cases, Discussion etc.) 20% 2. Major consulting assignment 50% 3. Midterm Exam 20% 3. Reflection Paper 10% Total 100% Week/Day Week 1 August 24th 2011 Week 2 August 31st 2011 Week 3 September 7th 2011 Week 4 September 14th 2011 Week 5 September 21st 2011 Week 6 September 28th 2011 Week 7 October 5th 25th 2011 Week 8 October 12th 2011 Week 9 October 19th 2011 Week 10 October 26th 2011 Week 11 November 2nd 2011 Course Content COURSE OVERVIEW / EXPECTATIONS / OBJECTIVES Introduction to consulting practice: Life cycle of consulting project Problem Framing ---Problem Identification and Definition (JPC reading) Assignment of consulting projects Becoming a professional Client-consultant relationships Problem Structuring and Presenting---Situation-Complication-QuestionHypotheses Team Presentation of Consulting Projects I History of Management and Organizational Consulting Origin Development Approaches Approaches to consulting practice I: Main stream Approaches to consulting practice II: Alternative Views (Murata case) Consulting-in-Practice Workshop I Team Presentation of Consulting Projects II Consulting-in-Practice Workshop II

3. Would I approach this differently if I am given one more opportunity to do a similar project? 4. Overall feeling about the success of the project

Week 12 November 9th 2011 Week 13 November 16th 2011 Week 14 November 23rd 2011 Week 15 November 30th 2011

Consulting-in-Practice Workshop III Midterm Exam (tentative date) Reflections Team Presentation of Consulting Projects (Final) FINAL DAY OF CLASS