Download SDM Pulse, Summer 2010 as a PDF - MIT SDM

The newsletter of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

System Design and Management Program 

Vol. 5 No. 2 summer 2010 

1 

in this issue 

1 Systems Innovation at EMC 

2 Welcome Letter 

3 SDM Diagnostics Project 

4 Product Design and 

Development 

6 Companies Reap SLaM 

Lab Benefits 

9 SDM and Health Care 

12 Students Connect to Industry 

14 Mitigating Systems 

Obsolescence 

17 Technology Strategy 

18 SEAri Research Summit 

19 SDM Conference 

21 New SDM Codirectors 

22 Recruiting SDM Grads 

24 Calendar 

SDM helps EMC build 

bridge to innovation 

By Burt Kaliski, Rob Masson, and Rahul Pradhan, SDM ’09 

Editor’s note: In this article, two executives from EMC 

Corporation—Burt Kaliski and Rob Masson—team up with EMC 

software engineer and SDM student Rahul Pradhan to describe 

how the company works with and benefits from its association 

with SDM. 

As a company founded in Massachusetts, EMC has long-standing 

partnerships with universities in the Boston area. One partnership 

we’ve particularly benefited from is with MIT’s System Design and 

Management Program (SDM). Over the years, nine employees from 

EMC have completed the program, bringing valuable skills in 

technology management into the company at the systems level. The 

knowledge gained at SDM not only serves to advance the individual 

employee’s career, but also helps the company as a major producer 

of hardware and software systems for managing information. The 

participants, in effect, build bridges between MIT SDM and their 

organizations to transfer new insights about systems thinking into 

the company. 

EMC’s philosophy is that a company needs a strong bridge to 

external knowledge communities, including university research, 

if it is going to be successful in deriving value from what those 

communities are learning about changes in the technology 

landscape. Bringing in top students is one of the ways a company 

can increase its connections—indeed, every hire of a recent grad 

represents an infusion of new knowledge and relationships into the 

company. Another way is to send employees into the university 

programs, such as SDM, as students or collaborators. 

Last June, the company took another step forward in connecting 

with the Boston area’s knowledge communities when it launched 

the EMC Research Cambridge initiative. Anchored to a corporate 

sponsorship at the MIT Media Lab, the initiative brings together a 

“virtual research team” of business and technology leaders from the 

company’s Boston-area offices with local academics to expand the 

company’s knowledge of emerging technologies. 

EMC Research Cambridge is part of the overall EMC Innovation 

Network and as such seeks ways to apply new knowledge to the 

> continued on page 20 

Burt Kaliski, director, 

EMC Innovation Network 

Rob Masson, director, 

EMC Research Cambridge 

Rahul Pradhan, SDM '09 

and software engineer, EMC

2 summer 2010 sdm.mit.edu 

Welcome 

We begin this edition of the SDM Pulse with a compelling look at EMC’s strategic 

approach to ensuring the flow of innovation into its corporate structure by making 

connections with universities. One of its critical linkages is with MIT’s System Design and 

Management Program (SDM) via its strong contingent of experienced EMC personnel 

enrolled in SDM’s master’s program. You will meet some members of EMC’s team along 

with key management facilitators as they discuss their rationale for working with SDM. 

You will also find a fascinating story about a capstone project completed by engineers 

from the Instrumentation Laboratory who are members of the SDM certificate program. 

Vincent Balgos (who is now in the SDM master’s program) will describe the project, which 

evaluated the in-vitro diagnostics market. This project has real-world implications and is 

aligned with his company’s goals. 

Vol. 5 No. 2 summer 2010 

Copyright MIT, all rights reserved. 

Publisher: John M. Grace, MIT SDM 

Industry Codirector (Retired) 

Editor: Lois Slavin, MIT SDM 

Communications Director 

Managing Editor: Kathryn O’Neill 

Contributors: Vincent Balgos, Michael 

Davies, Jeff Davis, Jaime Devereaux, 

Sahar Hashmi, Matthew Harper, John 

Helferich, Qi D. Van Eikema Hommes, 

Burt Kaliski, Rob Masson, Rahul 

Pradhan, Donna Rhodes, Hank Roark, 

Ritesh Shukla, Carrie Stalder, Dan 

Sturtevant, Helen Trimble 

Photography and Illustration: 

Andrei Akaikine, Vincent Balgos, 

Jeff Davis, Stuart Darsch, James Enos, 

Jaime Devereaux, Matthew Harper, 

Sahar Hashmi, Carrie Stalder, Kathy 

Tarantola, Matthew Thompson 

Design: Stoltze Design Inc. 

Layout: Janice Hall, TTF Design 

Printer: Arlington Lithograph 

MIT’s SDM program is cosponsored by 

MIT Sloan School of Management and 

MIT’s School of Engineering. SDM 

resides within the MIT Engineering 

Systems Division. 

For further information on MIT’s System Design 

and Management Program, visit sdm.mit.edu. 

Hank Roark, a strong industry practitioner of the design process who works at John 

Deere, discusses his team’s experiences with Product Design and Development (PDD), 

one of SDM’s foundation courses. The team conducted market research, developed a 

prototype, and evaluated its performance, as in other PDD classes. But, a new and 

exciting twist was added this year: the PDD class was linked with SDM’s real options 

course to help teams evaluate uncertainty in making their products’ business cases. 

We also continue our series about the SLaM Laboratory (begun in the last issue) by 

examining the projects of three teams. One explored how Nokia could win the hearts and 

minds of US developers, a second helped WiTricity, an MIT startup involved with distance 

charging of electronic devices, and a third centered on creating a strategy for Venture 

Café, a new company dedicated to bringing together inventors and investors. 

Sahar Hashmi, a medical doctor and SDM student, writes about the diverse opportunities 

she’s been exposed to as an enterprising SDM student—enriching her knowledge base 

while developing her thesis research. And, Jaime Devereaux gives a great example of the 

level and depth of SDM research through a discussion of her thesis on obsolescence. 

Devereaux presents a system-level, full-life-cycle framework for determining a systems 

optimal obsolescence strategy. She also applies it to a weapons system example. 

Matt Harper provides an overview of some of the important and ambitious activities of the 

student-led SDM Industrial Relations Committee. You will read about the group’s efforts to 

develop additional links to industry through alumni contacts, a speaker series, selected 

marketing projects, and career development activities. 

John Helferich, a very experienced and senior executive who is retired from a food 

products company, leads us through Professor James Utterback’s courses in technology 

strategy and disruptive technology. Helferich comments on the insight he gained into the 

dynamic nature of strategy planning as well as the impact of working with teams whose 

members are highly knowledgeable and experienced professionals from his SDM cohort. 

You will also be treated to a peek at the lineup for SDM’s annual Conference on Systems 

Thinking for Contemporary Challenges, scheduled for October 21–22, 2010. The 

speakers are outstanding and will be exploring cutting-edge topics and mind-expanding 

systems perspectives. 

We are also pleased to present to you the two new faculty codirectors for the program: 

Professor Steven D. Eppinger of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Professor 

Warren P. Seering of MIT’s School of Engineering, both of whom hold dual appointments 

with the MIT Engineering Systems Division. These two individuals are of the highest 

caliber and both are longtime strong supporters of SDM. 

SDM Director of Career Development Helen Trimble will provide a view of the unique 

capabilities that SDM graduates bring to their employers and share why companies are 

hiring self-sponsored SDM students to help compete successfully in today’s ever-changing, 

complex global marketplace. As always, your comments and thoughts are encouraged. 

John M. Grace 

Industry Codirector (Retired) 

MIT System Design and Management Program 

jmgrace@mit.edu

3 

SDM certificate project evaluates 

in-vitro diagnostics market 

By Vincent Balgos, SDM ’10 

Editor’s note: In this article, Vincent Balgos, SDM ’10, outlines the major points covered in the capstone project 

he completed to earn his Systems Design and Management Program (SDM) graduate certificate in systems and 

product development. The certificate program is frequently used as a jumping off point for the SDM master’s 

program, which Balgos has since joined. 

Vincent Balgos 

SDM ’10 

The increasingly complex US health-care system poses 

several unique challenges for product developers; risks 

include disruptive technologies, emerging industry needs, 

and evolving regulations. Employing “systems thinking” 

can both manage the inherent complexities and 

interdependencies of the system and can accommodate 

future uncertainties—which is critical in the case of 

products that directly influence human health and welfare. 

As suggested in Clayton Christensen’s book, The 

Innovator’s Prescription, an emerging trend toward 

decentralizing hospital care and testing could prove 

disruptive to the incumbent system of centralized lab 

testing. This is further supported by a 2007 study by 

the Point of Care: Journal of Near-Patient Testing & 

Technology, which indicated approximately 70 percent to 

80 percent of the hospitals surveyed performed point-ofcare 

(POC) testing, and showed continued growth in this 

market. Clearly, changes are under way that will affect the 

in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) market space. 

My SDM certificate sponsor and employer, Instrumentation 

Laboratory (IL), develops and manufactures POC 

diagnostic analyzers for the dynamic IVD market. For my 

SDM certificate capstone project, I had the unique 

opportunity to help develop a new universal POC blood 

analyzer to address this market uncertainty. I found this 

exciting as I had the chance to apply my SDM skills to 

a project with real-world implications, aligned with my 

company’s goals. Together with other SDM certificate 

students (David Abichaker, Guy Criscenzo, Duc Vo, 

Sassan Zelkha) and IL, I formed a team to undertake 

this complex, yet engaging project. 

We soon realized the project scope would be immense 

and decided to focus on the first three stages of the 

systems engineering “V model” (see Figure 1): defining 

customer attributes, establishing system requirements, 

and developing an initial systems architecture for the 

project. 

Since Instrumentation Laboratory is a leader in the IVD 

market with POC analyzers, several in-house experts 

were surveyed to determine market trends, customer 

needs, and the future of POC analyzers. An external 

interview of a lead user at a well-known local hospital 

was also conducted to help refine the realistic POC 

needs. Next, the team performed a value flow analysis 

using the techniques taught by Professor Edward 

Crawley in SDM’s system architecture course. Our value 

map (see Figure 2), defined the priority needs from all 

stakeholders throughout the POC ecosystem, allowing 

the capstone team to recognize the variety of needs from 

different stakeholders and how they interact. The value 

map provided a holistic view of all values and their 

interdependencies so that we could prioritize the project 

needs. 

Figure 1. In this systems engineering V model, the blue circle indicates 

the areas of focus for Vincent Balgos’ capstone project. 

We determined that the primary POC needs are: 

• Flexibility and adequacy of testing for all POC 

locations 

o Test menu flexibility and breadth 

o Portability for ease of transport 

• Affordable cost 

• Simple and easy-to-use interface 

o Safe and fully automated system with little user 

dependence 

> continued on page 10


SDM students learn what it takes 

to market successful products 

By Qi D. Van Eikema Hommes, research associate, MIT Engineering Systems Division 

Research Associate Qi D. Van Eikema Hommes teaches 

Product Design and Development. 

Excitement, drama, and laughter filled the Bechtel 

Lecture Hall on May 7, 2010, as 14 judges from industry, 

venture capital, and academia watched students from the 

Product Design and Development (PDD) class showcase 

such creations as a new adhesive, a new grill accessory, 

and a new chef’s tool—the 

results of a semester of hard 

work in this required course 

in MIT’s System Design and 

Management Program (SDM). 

The judges were impressed by 

the quality of the products that 

the students developed, and 

so was I. As the lead instructor 

for this class and a new faculty 

member of the SDM program, 

I felt very proud of what our 

students had achieved. I can 

see how SDM provides the 

interdisciplinary knowledge 

and experiences that students need to meet the 

challenges in today’s world—and that’s very exciting. 

PDD is an interdisciplinary class that gives students a full 

experience of designing and developing a new product. 

Many SDM students come from technical backgrounds 

and are good at solving technical problems or designing 

technical systems. However, many do not have significant 

experience in considering user and market needs. The 

most important lesson that students take away from this 

class is that a product is only successful when it answers 

real unmet user needs. The class teaches them how 

to look for unmet needs, collect user and market 

information, and allow the knowledge of both users 

and markets to guide product design and development 

activities. 

For example, one team in this year’s class started out 

with a technology—an RFID tracking device—rather than 

a need. Team members wanted to design a web-based 

system to track everything from documents to parts and 

information. In class, the students were urged to find out 

why the world would want their system. Using techniques 

learned in class, they interviewed and observed people, 

ultimately identifying a need among parents who 

sometimes lose their young children in busy areas. 

The team felt that these parents would like anyone who 

finds their child to be able to contact them quickly. Based 

on this need, the students developed an attractive RFID 

bracelet for kids and a companion web-based tracking 

system. The team is now exploring the possibility of 

collaborating with Verizon to produce such a system. 

As a new member of the SDM faculty, I was impressed 

by the degree to which the diverse backgrounds of SDM 

students greatly enriched the learning for everyone. The 

group’s industry experiences and real-world knowledge 

has brought all class discussions to a higher level. Some 

students knew more about marketing research and were 

able to use more advanced marketing research 

techniques and tools to help pinpoint product attributes 

their team needed to consider. Others contributed 

expertise from manufacturing sectors, helping their team 

build realistic prototypes. Some students brought 

software and web skills to the class and developed 

websites and iPhone apps for their products. This 

diversity of skills and backgrounds enabled teams to 

move quickly through every stage of the product design 

and development process, starting with understanding 

customer and market needs, ideation, then prototyping, 

manufacturing, and advertising. 

In addition, students gain a wealth of knowledge from 

seeing so many different projects developed and 

presented. Through midterm and final presentations, 

the whole class is able to follow the evolution of a 

fascinating mix of products through the process. 

As in past years, many of products designed in this class 

have high potential to become commercial successes. 

Several teams are planning to pursue intellectual property 

rights to their creations. 

In summer 2010, I will be teaching SDM’s systems 

engineering class. After experiencing all phases of the 

design and development of a small product in the PDD 

class, students will learn about what to do when the 

product is a large and complex system. The class will 

showcase the latest systems engineering research and 

teach students to think critically about existing methods 

and tools.

5 

PDD team sharpens skills designing 

chef’s tool 

By Hank Roark, SDM ’10 

Hank Roark, SDM ’10, demonstrates the chef’s tool he and his team 

created in SDM’s course in product design and development. 

I was attracted to MIT’s System Design and Management 

Program (SDM) because of its focus on product design, 

systems engineering, and entrepreneurship. To augment 

my professional experience in software and new product 

development, I enrolled in Product Design and 

Development this past spring. 

The course centers on a semester-long project in which 

small teams identify potential markets, select a target 

market, identify user 

needs, and design a 

product that satisfies 

those needs. The 

class has both a 

strong emphasis on 

the practical 

application of market 

research methods 

and systems 

engineering. 

Furthermore, each 

student works in a 

small team with 

others whose 

experiences run the 

gamut, mirroring 

a commercial 

environment. 

The goal of the course is to build a business case and 

prototype product within a set budget and time frame. 

The course concludes with team presentations to a panel 

of judges. Each team’s work is judged for understanding 

of the user needs and the market opportunity, the 

product concept, the quality of the prototype, viability of 

the business case, and quality of the final presentation. 

My team (Candice Johnson, SDM ’09, Michael 

Schlichtman, SDM ’09, Jared Bernstrom, SDM ’09, 

Yujie Zhang, SDM ’09, and I) considered three markets, 

including health-conscious but sedentary professionals 

and avid bike riders, before settling on the needs of the 

home cook. This first step was challenging in that it 

required five people with different interests and 

experiences to decide on a target market. We used 

several market research methods taught in class to help 

us make this decision. These research methods included 

interviewing potential users from each potential market 

segment, observing them using existing products, 

interviewing lead users, and quantifying the potential 

market size. The home cook won out as the market size 

was appealing and there were clearly articulated needs 

that interested the team. 

Our next step was to conduct additional user research to 

define the needs of these users. This included additional 

interviews and additional observations of users while 

cooking. From there we had to select the top needs we 

were going to address. Because almost everyone on 

our team works in electrical engineering or software 

development, we intentionally looked for needs that 

could be addressed without electronics or computers. 

The safe environment of the classroom allowed us to 

experiment and to build skills and knowledge in areas 

with which we were unfamiliar. 

After selecting the top needs we looked at the 

competitive landscape, researched existing intellectual 

property, preformed various exercises to develop 

concepts, and developed the product attributes that 

would meet the user needs. Along the way we did 

various user surveys and interviews to guide our 

development. 

In the end we developed a product that would make it 

easier for users to cut items with a kitchen knife when 

two-handed knife operation is required. It was important 

to users that the product was easy to clean and store, 

suitable for the dishwasher, safe and comfortable to 

operate, and did not damage knives. Each of these 

criteria required design trade-offs that led to the 

development of multiple concepts. 

To aid in determining the ultimate design we developed 

various prototypes that allowed us to test both the look 

and function of the product. Some of the prototypes were 

“looks like” prototypes (made from Play-Doh, in our case) 

and some were “works like” prototypes (in our case, 

made from scraps of lumber and plastics). These quick 

iterations proved valuable as we honed the functional 

interface of our product. We were also able to use these 

prototypes as a way to get feedback from potential users 

and the faculty as we progressed toward a final 

prototype. 

Our team benefited from a wide range of experiences 

and backgrounds. Geographically dispersed across the 

United States, our team was well-placed to consider 



New and established companies 

reap benefits of SLaM Lab 

By Kathryn O’Neill, managing editor, SDM Pulse 

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of articles introducing the new Systems, Leadership, and 

Management Lab. 

In fall 2009, MIT’s System Design and Management 

Program (SDM) launched the Systems, Leadership, and 

Management Lab (SLaM Lab) to give students hands-on 

experience focused on using system architecture and 

technology strategy skills while working on real business 

problems. 

The first class began with team formation. Students 

completed Belbin Team Role assessments to learn about 

their different work styles, then evaluated how best to 

create teams with a range of strengths and skills. This 

step was important, according to senior lecturer and 

course instructor Michael Davies, because leadership is 

less about the qualities of the individual than about 

organizing groups of people to work together. 

Some background: Although Nokia is a world leader in 

the cell phone market, with about 40 percent market 

share, and as high as 80 percent or 90 percent in some 

parts of the world, the company has a very small 

presence in the United States—less than 10 percent 

market share. While smart phones are a hot commodity, 

and America has emerged as a leading player in this field, 

most Americans don’t even think about buying such a 

phone from Nokia. This lack of mindshare is also present 

within the emerging mobile developer community in the 

United States. This is a concern because it means that 

the next generation of innovation is not being created for 

the Nokia platform. 

“The nature of most business work is, it is done 

effectively in some kind of team,” said Davies, who is the 

founder and chairman of Endeavour Partners, a boutique 

consulting firm focused on technology businesses. Davies 

described the class process of team-building as “a very 

close analog for a classic managerial project.” The 

students, like business leaders, had to consider such 

questions as: How do we organize ourselves What are 

the mixture of skills needed and Which combinations of 

people will work together effectively 

Next, students were given overviews of about half a 

dozen potential projects, ranging from creating a 

marketing strategy for a fabric that heats up to analyzing 

the standards landscape for an MIT startup. All projects 

presented systems challenges, related leadership or 

management challenges, and real-world impact. The 

three selected and pursued (based on student 

preference) ranged from a major global company to a 

nascent startup, still at the concept stage. The projects— 

for Nokia, Witricity, and Venture Café—are detailed below. 

Nokia 

Project described by team member Ritesh Shukla, 


SLaM Lab team members met with Isaac de la Pena, 

head of Internet Strategic Initiatives for Nokia. The 

challenge posed to the team was: How can Nokia 

reach the hearts and minds of US developers 

Some members of the SLaM Lab Nokia team pose with their cellphones. They are, 

from left, Andrei Akaikine SDM ’09, Sahar Hashmi SDM ’09, Ashok Dhiman SDM ’08, 

and Ritesh Shukla SDM ’09. 

The SDM team therefore set out to investigate who is 

developing applications (apps) and what might interest 

them in creating apps for Nokia. They determined that 

developers could be split into four groups: 

• Hobbyists—Those who create apps for fun and 

aren’t necessarily motivated by cash 

• Individual software developers—More serious 

developers who want to earn alittle extra money or 

build their resumes; some members of this group are 

also interested in social rewards, such as the kudos 

that come from writing a cool app 

• Revenue-motivated companies—Gaming companies 

and others that expect to make real money from 

applications

7 

• Service companies—Facebook, Yahoo, Fandango, 

and others that don’t expect revenue for an app, but 

use cell phone applications to reach their markets; in 

these cases, the app is a means of delivering a service 

Next the team surveyed mobile developers, conducted 

interviews, and researched relevant literature. One key 

finding was that writing an app that can run on the 

various Nokia models is fairly involved and much more 

difficult than writing one for Apple’s popular iPhone. Also, 

there are several limitations on who can publish apps on 

Nokia’s official app store. 

In addition, they found that the higher one goes up the 

cell phone value chain, the less relevant platform specifics 

become. The business of writing applications is what 

matters. Though Nokia has a richer development 

environment, it has not been able to cash in because 

other factors hamper the motivation for writing apps. 

In making its final presentation to Nokia, the SLaM Lab 

team closely followed the teachings of Edward Tufte, a 

noted expert on presenting information graphically. They 

created a single slide that showed the developer 

segments, their interests, Nokia’s current status, the 

relationships between the various interests, and the 

ideas/suggestions for Nokia. The presentation also 

included a prioritized list of recommendations. All this 

dense information was presented parallel in space rather 

than sequentially, as in 

traditional presentations. 

Team members then 

presented their 

recommendations to Nokia 

senior management. The 

presentation format fostered 

a rich discussion because it 

allowed everybody at the 

meeting to have all the 

relevant information on one 

page. The content of the 

presentation as well as the 

presentation format was well 

received. 

WiTricity 

Project described by team member Jeff Davis, SDM ’09 

WiTricity is an MIT startup founded to enable distance 

charging of electronic devices. The company’s technology 

creates a beam of electromagnetic radiation which is in 

resonance with the receiver system spreads out to cover 

a distance of up to a few yards, allowing devices such as 

cell phones to recharge wirelessly. 

The company is small and still working on its intellectual 

property (IP). It’s also not the only company working to 

provide wireless charging, and some of its competitors 

have been trying to create standards that could affect its 

business. WiTricity therefore asked the SLaM Lab team to 

assess the standards landscape in interfaces for wireless 

charging. The fundamental question was: Should the 

company spend time now helping to create standards for 

this burgeoning industry, or table that concern until its IP 

portfolio is complete 

To address this question, team members examined the 

standards options under consideration, evaluated 

WiTricity’s IP portfolio, and researched the competition. 

They then laid out a decision tree (a tool taught in SDM) 

to evaluate various options—walking through a number of 

scenarios from decision to result. Using skills learned in 


“The Nokia team’s result was 

outstanding,” Davies said. 

“[The managers at Nokia] 

were delighted; it gave them 

a whole fresh perspective on 

what’s going on.” 

This chart shows the mobile phone ecosystem WiTricity hopes to enter. In order for wireless charging to expand into the 

traditional power cord business, either an industry or de facto standard will need to arise. The WPC is the first standard, 

but no products are currently available.


New and established companies 

reap benefits of SLaM Lab 

Venture Café opened its alpha 

location on the 11th floor of 

One Broadway in Cambridge 

this spring. 

> continued from page 7 

SDM’s engineering risk benefit analysis class, the team 

also analyzed the probability of various outcomes and 

their consequences. 

Through this process, the team determined that it’s 

unlikely that standards will be passed that are 

incompatible with WiTricity’s technology. Furthermore, the 

stronger the company’s IP portfolio is, the more likely it is 

that any standards passed will accommodate their 

technology. The team therefore recommended that the 

company focus its efforts on developing its IP. 

The WiTricity team presented its recommendations to 

company CEO Eric Giler. “The CEO’s response was, ‘This 

gives me a better way to explain what’s going on here 

than anything else I’ve seen,’” Davies said. 

Venture Café 

Described by team member Carrie Stalder, SDM ’09 

Of the three projects undertaken 

by SLaM Lab this year, Venture 

Café was at the earliest stage. 

Although some focus groups of 

potential users had been held 

the previous summer and a 

survey had been conducted 

about needs, the business was 

still in its pre-launch period 

when SLaM Lab got involved. 

The idea for the business was to develop a cafe in 

Kendall Square that would bring the area’s innovators 

and investors together in a physical space, while also 

providing a technological space for social connection 

among entrepreneurs. The SLaM Lab team was asked 

to help narrow down which business ideas the company 

should pursue going forward. 

The SLaM team began by using the SCQA (situation 

complication question answer) technique from Barbara 

Minto’s “Pyramid Principle.” That helped the group to 

structure its thinking and get to the point of creating a 

framework that would help the cafe make decisions 

about which features to implement. 

The team also used system architecture tools to evaluate 

features, assessing how strongly each one would serve 

the cafe’s overall goals. 

“The project gave us a structured way to think about 

things, which was really our goal,” said Carrie Stalder, 

SDM ’09, who is also the manager of the Venture Café. 

The cafe launched its prototype gathering spot in March. 

“Our interaction with the SLaM Lab has been nothing 

short of amazing,” said Timothy Rowe, founder and 

CEO of Cambridge Innovation Center and founder of 

the Venture Café. “Three students—Carrie Stalder, Cyndi 

Hernandez, and Mario Montoya—sat down with us to 

map out the metrics that we should use to guide our 

planning and rollout. After developing these, they went on 

to take increasingly significant roles helping us actually roll 

out the concept, with Carrie emerging as the manager of 

the cafe, with Cyndi and Mario actively working alongside 

her to help get it off the ground. This is a great example 

of mens et manus, and is what MIT is all about.” 

Plans for SLaM Lab 

In reflecting on SLaM Lab’s first year, Davies said that the 

only thing that matters in this course is whether the client 

is happy—and each one was. “In every case, this year’s 

projects had a positive impact,” he said. “This is not an 

academic exercise; the motivation for this comes from 

the real world. You actually have to do this in front of real 

businesspeople.” 

“A very valuable part of the class was being able to 

connect with and learn about how the other teams were 

going through their process and using different tools to 

work through their problems, which may not be 

connected to ours in any way,” Stalder said. 

SLaM Lab will be offered again this fall, Davies said, 

adding that a pre-SLaM offering, SLaM Praxis, will also 

be offered this summer. “The plan is to make the lab 

more about projects and teams and put more of the 

decision-making into the summer course,” he said, noting 

that interested students are very strongly encouraged to 

enroll in the summer class. 

Designed to provide students with real, hands-on work 

experience, but in a supportive environment, SLaM Lab 

adds a key component to the SDM curriculum, he said. 

“These are the things that I found really helpful and useful 

in my 20 years experience—practical management skills,” 

Davies said. 

Stalder noted that SLaM Lab drew on tools from several 

SDM classes, including system architecture and product 

design and development. “It was a good capstone for the 

whole [SDM] program,” she said.

9 

Doctor finds multidimensional 

opportunities at SDM 

By Dr. Sahar Hashmi, SDM ’09 

Dr. Sahar Hashmi, SDM ’09 

Arriving at MIT as a systems thinker, I was immediately 

impressed by the diverse opportunities offered by MIT’s 

System Design and Management Program 

(SDM). SDM allows students to do anything and 

everything they can possibly imagine, with 

innovation and creativity. You can be an 

entrepreneur, a scientist, an engineer—you can 

even enhance your managerial skills to help 

improve the health-care system, which is my 

area of interest. 

I chose to learn data collection analysis and 

model-building skills by working as part of a 

team in Innovation in Health Care, a class 

taught by Dr. Stan Finkelstein and Institute 

Professor Joel Moses. 

Students participating in this course were 

assigned field work with doctors at Boston’s 

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). 

My team looked at planning for the 2009 H1N1 

flu pandemic at the hospital level and built a model to 

predict how many patients BIDMC could expect at the 

peak of the pandemic. 

We discovered that predicting and managing a potential 

H1N1 surge is a dynamic problem because data inputs 

change daily. Using the Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention’s H1N1 Impact 2009 model, which simulates 

the impact of the disease on the community, and the 

proprietary BIDMC filter, we were able to predict flu 

volume, flu spread, and impact on BIDMC. 

The model results did confirm reports that H1N1 has 

reached a peak in the United States, with top volume 

occurring between Nov. 30 and Dec. 7, 2009. On the 

other hand, the patient volume to BIDMC predicted by 

our model was less than the volume actually experienced 

by BIDMC, which suggests that the model assumptions 

may be conservative here. 

A comparison between our forecast and BIDMC’s actual 

visits for influenza-like illness (ILI) is show in Figure 1. 

Comparing our forecasts to benchmarks (Figure 2) 

indicate that our model is more conservative on total 

infections but aggressive on hospitalizations. (We must 

continually focus on the impact of our assumptions on 

the model’s fidelity.) The President’s Council of Advisors 

on Science and Technology (PCAST) published a study 

that predicted that 40 percent of the population could 

be infected, which was deemed too high by BIDMC. 

Our model in comparison indicates a 13.4 percent 

infection rate. However, our forecasted hospitalization 

rate of 1.5 percent is higher than benchmark forecasts, 

indicating that the 42 percent ILI and/or the 30 percent 

hospitalization assumption maybe too aggressive. 

Taking this class helped me realize that such prediction 

models could be very useful and give us some idea of the 

situation but we can’t simply rely on them. We have to 

take important preventive measures to slow disease 

spread in a pandemic or epidemic. I am currently looking 

at the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions at the time 

of pandemic H1N1 2009. I am interested in finding out 

whether or not the health policies at MIT Medical, the 

Institute’s health center, were implemented by the MIT 

students or not and find ways to improve them. 

Since education and awareness are important aspects of 

disease and health management, I also got involved in 

making a math flu video that teaches high school 


Figure 1. This chart reflects the SDM team’s comparison of its forecasts with actual visits 

to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital for influenza-like illness. 

Figure 2: This chart compares our model and benchmarks.


SDM certificate project evaluates 

in-vitro diagnostics market 


• Efficacy and quality of results 

o Precision and accuracy equivalent to central lab 

• Laboratory oversight and quality control 

o Data and quality control management 

o Integration ease with existing infrastructures 

System requirements were derived from the value map 

and needs using quality functional deployment methods 

such as the “house of quality” diagram taught in SDM’s 

product design and development (PDD) course. [For 

more on this course, see pages 4-5.] We particularly 

focused attention on requirements for the test menu 

system since it was a significant design driver. Awide 

variety of testing was needed for each department, so 

our central challenge was how to develop a single, 

universal system to address these disparate needs. 

For example, while the respiratory therapy department 

needed testing for blood gas, electrolytes, and Co-Ox, 

the neonatal intensive care unit requires an additional 

specialty test for their patients. In the operating room, 

two different coagulation tests are mandatory, whereas 

the emergency room particularly requires cardiac markers 

and pregnancy diagnostic utilities. 

Finding an innovative solution required several 

brainstorming sessions, during which we found it useful 

to employ many techniques from PDD, including visual 

illustrations, literature research, and reviewing feasible 

technologies, which ranged from optical to mechanical 

and electrochemistry technologies. After much research, 

we decided to treat these technologies as a “black box”— 

essentially an empty container to be filled in later—and to 

focus the project on the design of the whole system. 

Value Mapping/Stakeholder Analysis 

Figure 2. This chart shows the flow of value among stakeholders for the point-of-care analyzer.

11 

Several innovative concepts were generated, and by 

using the Pugh concept selection method from PDD, 

we were able to converge on a single design concept: 

modular system with multiple sample ports. 

The modular concept incorporated several important 

features. First, the main system was designed as a 

common platform with all the user and external 

interfaces. It was also designed to accept up to three 

specialized analytical test modules. This platform would 

supply standard interface configurations so the system 

could accept various analytical test modules for data 

acquisition. These modules would incorporate the 

“black box” technology previously researched, which 

would ultimately depend on the company’s goals and 

resources. Furthermore, these analytical modules could 

be made flexible enough to allow future technologies to 

be incorporated. 

Finally, each specialized analytical test module would 

require its own specialized consumable cartridge to 

carry out the tests. These cartridges would hold the 

necessary reagents, sensor technology, and waste 

management to provide users with a single solution to 

their testing needs. The cartridge could be custom-built 

to fit the unique needs of a specific user. For example, 

as seen in our systems block diagram (see Figure 3), 

the Emergency Department requires the largest breadth 

of tests, and the capstone project allows that flexibility. 

However, if a respiratory therapy requires large volume 

of blood gas testing, the system would be able to adapt 

by using multiple blood gas analytical test modules and 

large volume blood gas cartridges. 

In conclusion, the developed SDM capstone project 

provides several advantages in technological 

expandability, test menu versatility, and customizable 

solutions for the user. These flexibilities would allow the 

system to adapt to many different POC user needs and 

would mitigate some future market uncertainties. The 

systems thinking approach, coupled with the SDM 

certificate program tools, provided the holistic approach 

necessary to design a complementary system to fit the 

needs of many in a dynamic environment. 

Figure 3. This systems block diagram shows how the point-of-care analyzer could be integrated into the Emergency Department.


Student committee forges links 

between SDM, industry 

By Matthew Harper, SDM ’10 

Editor’s note: This article is one of a series highlighting the work of SDM’s Industrial Relations Committee. 

Matthew Harper 


Students in MIT’s System Design and Management 

Program (SDM) continually work to improve the SDM 

program through a number of student-led committees. 

The Industrial Relations Committee (IRC), which I 

currently chair, works to provide a link between the SDM 

community and the business world. 

The committee is off to a great start this year, primarily 

because of the excellent work done by last year’s 

committee members. Good systems thinkers all, they 

looked beyond their immediate tasks and realized that 

while planning their own activities was important, 

ensuring a smooth transfer to this year’s committee was 

equally critical. 

For those of you unfamiliar with our work, the IRC is 

generally responsible for enhancing relations between 

SDM and industry. We take a broad view and therefore 

undertake a wide variety of activities, including 

maintaining contact with alumni, assisting the cohort with 

career development, and working to engage companies 

in the SDM program. This last focus has become 

particularly important in recent years, as more and more 

SDM fellows have been self-sponsored. Past students 

have found that they learn most effectively when working 

on real-world problems, and so have been keen to involve 

companies in both their class projects and thesis work. 

The increased proportion of self-sponsored students is 

one reason this year’s committee has chosen to focus on 

defining and promoting what “system design and 

management” means. One of the tasks last year’s 

committee had hoped to accomplish was to develop a 

series of short “elevator pitches” that SDM students 

could use to describe the program and the “systems 

thinking” it espouses to people not familiar with either. 

But we realized that there is no consensus of opinion, 

even within our cohort, on the term’s definition. Now that 

so many students are joining SDM from industries not 

traditionally engaged in systems engineering, we have a 

bigger challenge on our hands than we expected. 

We have thus set out to answer three questions: Why 

are the systems thinking processes taught in the System 

Design and Management Program critical to managing a 

modern organization What organizations are most likely 

to be receptive to the systems thinking methodology 

and How do we clearly communicate the value of 

systems thinking We’re just beginning to consider how 

to address these broad, challenging questions. However, 

we’re confident that with a bit of effort and creative 

thinking we’ll arrive at a conclusion that will help us 

evangelize the system thinking message to the world— 

and raise the profile both of MIT’s SDM program and its 

graduates in the process. 

One of the great things about the committee this year is 

that we have had a very large number of students who 

Who’s who on SDM’s Industrial Relations Committee 

The following is a list of IRC members, their titles, company names, and industries. 

Vincent Balgos 

Systems Engineer 

Instrumentation Laboratory 

Health care and medical devices 

Karl Critz 

Product Manager 

Brontes Technologies 

Cleantech 

Management Program and Leaders 

for Global Operations Program 

Pat Hale 

Director 

MIT System Design and 

Management Fellows Program 

Senior Lecturer in Engineering 

Systems 

Charles Iheagwara 

CTO 

Unatek Inc. 

IT, security 

Jui Lim 

Patent Licensing 

IPValue Management 

Intellectual property management 

Arjun Shrinath 

System Integration Engineer 

Bose Corporation Automotive 

Automotive electronics 

Lois Slavin 

Communications Director 


Management Program 

Firas Glaiel 

Software Development Manager 

Raytheon NCS 

Air traffic management systems 

Matt Harper 


Prudent Energy International 

Cleantech, energy storage 

Rafael Maranon 


Mildmac Advanced Solutions 

Information technology 

Helen Trimble 

Director, Career Development 


Management Program 

Eugene Gorelik 

Senior Systems Engineer 

EMC 

Computer software and hardware 

Donny Holaschutz 

Associate 

Booz Allen Hamilton 

Consulting, aerospace 

Aravind Ratnam 

Key Account Technologist 

Cymer Inc. 

Lasers, semiconductors 

Charlotte Wang 

IT Management 

Washington State Government 

Public sector, technology policy 

Jon Griffith 

Director of Operations and 

Partner Integration 


Todd Reily 

Lead Human Factors Engineer 

MITRE Corporation 

Government, defense

13 

want to participate—about 30 percent of the cohort is 

involved in IRC activities. To streamline our efforts, we’ve 

divided the group into subcommittees, each responsible 

for one distinct aspect of the IRC’s overall mandate. So 

far this year there are four subcommittees that have been 

particularly active, focusing on the SDM speakers’ series, 

career development, marketing, and industrial 

engagement. 

Speakers series 

The speakers series team is tasked with incorporating the 

perspectives of industry leaders into the SDM program. 

With the summer business trip approaching, Charles 

Iheagwara, SDM ’10, has taken time away from his 

multiple software businesses and his SDM studies to plan 

an excellent lineup of speakers. The keynote address will 

be presented by Mamoon Yunus, a noted serial 

entrepreneur. And later in the week, a panel of experts— 

including Ajay Mishra, global head of innovation for Nokia, 

and Darren Hammell, cofounder and executive vice 

president of Princeton Power Systems—will discuss how 

young executives can best manage their career paths. In 

addition, we’re all excited for the fall business trip, when 

Ngozi Iweala, managing director of the World Bank, and 

Neil Snyder, executive director of systems engineering 

and program management at the National Renewable 

Energy Laboratory will be speaking. These events are 

open to all members of the SDM community. 

Career development 

The career development focus area is being headed by 

Donny Holaschutz, SDM ’10, an associate in systems 

engineering and integration from Booz Allen Hamilton. 

Working with SDM’s Director of Career Development 

Helen Trimble, this subcommittee focuses on giving 

current SDM students tools and experiences to help 

them search for jobs and build successful careers. 

Recently, a member of our cohort presented an excellent 

seminar on the value of strategic networking, and two 

half-day seminars are planned for the summer business 

trip—one on networking and interviewing and one on the 

case interview method. 

Marketing 

The marketing team, led by former laser scientist Aravind 

Ratnam, SDM ’10, has been working with SDM 

Communications Director Lois Slavin on a number of 

initiatives designed to increase awareness of SDM. First 

the team is continuing an initiative started last year to 

refresh SDM’s website. With the guidance of SDM 

student Rafael Maranon, SDM ’10, a web expert who 

represents the students’ input, the redesign is currently 

under way; the new site should be launched in August, in 

time for the late summer and fall recruiting season. 

The marketing team has also encouraged students to 

create their own blogs discussing, among other things, 

life as an SDM student. Several students are now actively 

participating, including SDM ’10s Azamat Abdymomunov, 

Firas Glaiel, Avi Latner, Ratnam, and Karl Critz, as well as 

SDM ’09s Ipshita Nag Deepak and Charles Atendcio. The 

SDM program blog on the SDM website links to these 

student blogs, as well as to blogs by SDM faculty and 


Figure 1. This mind map visually represents SDM’s Industrial Relations Committee and its many activities. The mind map is a useful tool, taught in SDM, that provides a much 

richer representation of a system’s constituent elements than indented lists or other more common descriptive forms.


SDM thesis addresses obsolescence 

mitigation in complex systems 

By Jaime Devereaux, SDM ’08 

Editor’s note: In this article, Jaime Devereaux, SDM ’08, outlines the major points covered in her SDM master’s 

thesis, “Obsolescence: A Systems Engineering and Management Approach for Complex Systems.” Devereaux is a 

manager in systems engineering at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. 

Jaime Devereaux 


Too often, obsolescence mitigation is only considered 

once obsolescence has become imminent. But such 

mitigation is an increasingly important aspect of large 

systems development and maintenance because the life 

cycles of components are often up to 10 times shorter 

than the life cycle of the overall system. 

Currently, recommended system-level obsolescence 

mitigation practices typically exist for the early design 

phase of new systems. Obsolescence mitigation slows 

the onset of obsolescence and makes systems flexible 

enough to change as necessary when obsolescence 

looms. Mitigation techniques include use of open 

architectures, standard interfaces, model-based 

architecture, and advance planning—that is, designing 

the system with potential future requirements in mind. 

Unfortunately, many large, complex legacy systems were 

rarely adequately designed for obsolescence mitigation 

as these techniques were not commonly used. For some 

systems, a choice is made not to use the design 

approaches above due to pressures related to the initial 

design cost and schedule or because the system is 

intended to be replaced prior to the onset of 

obsolescence. Many systems are in use longer than the 

life cycle of their components, due to the excessive cost 

and time needed to design a replacement system. In 

these cases, a different approach is necessary. 

There are many different types of obsolescence. 

Psychological obsolescence, for example, drives the 

consumption of products that rely heavily on styling 

(clothes, cars, etc.); these products can become “old” 

before the end of their physical life. Quality obsolescence 

drives the consumption of disposable goods such as 

razors and plastic silverware, which are designed for 

much shorter lifespans than their more robust 

counterparts. In my research, I focused on the role of 

technical obsolescence and manufacturing/maintenance 

obsolescence on large, complex systems. 

Technical or functional obsolescence occurs when a new 

product enters the market that performs better than 

anything that was previously available. Manufacturing or 

maintenance obsolescence occurs when there is no need 

in the current application for a product with increased 

function—and market demands do not support a 

Figure 1: This design structure matrix shows the system-level baseline for the weapon system Jaime Devereaux, SDM ’08, considered in the case study. Note that the specific row 

and column descriptions have been deleted to protect proprietary information.

15 

supplier’s continued production or support of the older 

component. 

Possible causes of obsolescence in large, complex 

systems include: 

• Use of commercial, off-the-shelf technology—while 

using such components reduces the kit costs 

associated with purchasing the component, outside 

components increase the number of influences on a 

system through vendor supply and support 

contracts, which may increase life-cycle costs 

• Increased use of electronics in modern systems, 

which shortens the life of many components 

• Market changes that make a particular component 

unavailable 

• Prohibitive costs for continuing to manufacture 

components based on older technology 

• Changes in the system’s environment that make the 

original function obsolete or suboptimal, requiring 

evolution or replacement of the system to meet new 

needs 

• Corporate management decisions that influence how 

much human intellectual capital can be leveraged to 

change a system long after its initial design 

Reactive obsolescence mitigation techniques tend to 

focus on identifying obsolescence in the hardware 

through supply chain monitoring, classifying the 

Figure 2. The above chart illustrates a systems engineering and management approach for 

obsolescence mitigation. 

obsolescence, and developing replacement solutions. But 

these efforts don’t fully acknowledge the impact of these 

choices on the rest of the project or system. On the 

whole, obsolescence mitigation approaches have not 

made use of the engineering change analysis techniques 

taught in MIT’s System Design and Management 

Program (SDM), including the design structure matrix 

(DSM) and change propagation analysis using the change 

propagation index (CPI). CPI in particular is useful for 

evaluating how components within a system propagate 

changes to other components in response to an external 

change. 

In my SDM research, I attempted to create a systemslevel, 

full-life-cycle mindset for determining a system’s 

optimal obsolescence mitigation strategy. By combining 

recommended approaches for obsolescence mitigation 

gained from a literature review with the experience I 

gained interviewing key experts for a real-world case 

study (see Figure 1)—and by incorporating SDM systems 

engineering techniques for dealing with change into my 

analysis—I was able to zero in on a more robust systems 

engineering and management approach for dealing with 

obsolescence. 

The proposed approach, shown in Figure 2and Table 1, 

allows for mitigating obsolescence in a large, complex 

system in both a reactive and proactive manner. Step 1 

requires the engineer to understand the system-level 

architecture before evaluating the impact of changing a 

component of that system. 

Figure 1 illustrates a DSM of the 

case study used in my research 

(a weapon system). The nth row 

and nth column have the same 

variable, in this case 

subsystem, under 

consideration. The matrix then 

shows how the element in the 

nth row and mth column are 

related using the legend table. 

Further, the specific row and 

column descriptions have been 

deleted to ensure the 

proprietary nature of the work 

can be respected. Once the 

system-level relationships and 

interfaces are understood, the 

relationships can be drilled 

down to the subsystem level 

and below if necessary. In 

addition, in Step 2 these DSMs 

can be modified to help 

calculate how likely it is that a 



SDM thesis 


change to a given component 

will impact other system 

components. The checklist is 

designed to help the systems 

engineer consider the many 

impacts that obsolete 

components can have on the 

overall system or program. 

As systems get more complex 

and the life cycles of 

components decrease, it is 

essential for companies to 

acknowledge the complexities 

surrounding designing for and 

adapting to obsolescence. The 

intent of this framework is to 

give engineers and program 

managers a starting point for 

inquiry and an approach for 

evaluating the impact an 

engineering change due to 

obsolescence may have on the 

system as a whole. By looking 

for these impacts before 

change is imminent, engineers 

can ensure that changes to 

the system are dealt with 

proactively rather than 

reactively. In addition, changes 

will likely be identified earlier in 

the engineering change life 

cycle, reducing possible 

schedule and budget impacts 

from “surprise” discoveries. 

For more information on the 

obsolescence mitigation 

approach described here and 

for references that can help 

you develop an obsolescence 

mitigation strategy of your 

own, please write 

Jaime@alum.MIT.edu for a 

copy of my thesis, 

“Obsolescence: A Systems 

Engineering and Management 

Approach for Complex 

Systems.” 

Table 1. Checklist for obsolescence mitigation

17 

SDM broadens thinking on 

technology strategy 

By John Helferich, SDM ’10 

John Helferich 


Several years ago, I tried to put together a global 

technology strategy for Mars Inc. I hired a consultant and 

held numerous meetings and conference calls across 

the corporation. It all culminated in a meeting in a 

Munich hotel room that ended with nods and yesses. 

Unfortunately things fell apart after that and we never 

did finalize a strategy. What went wrong Why couldn’t 

we create a strategy that could get global buy-in 

This nagged at me until I took Professor James 

Utterback’s technology strategy class this spring as a 

student in MIT’s System Design and Management 

Program (SDM). I expected to be assigned to write a 

technology strategy, and I planned to use the class to 

revisit my failed Mars’ strategy. To my surprise, Utterback 

argued that there is no prescriptive way to develop a 

technology strategy—each firm must find its own way. In 

other words, there is no one way for a firm to develop its 

approach to create and capture value. 

Utterback divided the course into three parts, beginning 

with lectures based on his 1994 book, Mastering the 

Dynamics of Innovation. The book was founded on the 

ground-breaking work on the dynamics of innovation by 

Utterback and his colleague Professor Bill Abernathy of 

Harvard. Beginning with the now-famous history of ice 

harvesting (a successful innovation snuffed out by the 

advent of refrigeration), Professor Utterback led us 

through the ins and outs of the dynamics of innovation. 

In the second part of the course, teams addressed key 

issues of strategy and innovation by developing a 

presentation based on a literature search of the topic. 

Topics ranged from innovation in services to dynamic 

capabilities. The teamwork, which involved conducting a 

thorough literature search and then agreeing on what it all 

meant, was good preparation for the back and forth 

needed to achieve a solid technology strategy. 

The third part of the course was the highlight for most of 

us. Utterback and his teaching assistant, Yukari 

Kuramoto (a graduate student at MIT Sloan School of 

Management), selected 12 books about innovation, 

strategy, and design. Each of eight teams then selected 

one of the books to read, review, and critique. Utterback 

put the icing on the cake by inviting the authors to 

appear in person or on video to answer questions posed 

by the team and the class. This was an excellent 

opportunity to see beyond the book and understand 

the thinking of the author first-hand. 

Besides the elements of technology strategy, we learned 

two important lessons. The first was always to consider 

the dynamics of strategy; a static analysis that ignores 

the changing nature of the corporation over time is never 

enough. Secondly, the only books worth considering 

are those based on significant research and not just 

conjecture. 

In his other class, Disruptive Technologies—Predator or 

Prey, Utterback took a similar approach with lectures, 

case discussions, guest lectures and, most importantly, 

student projects. 

The class, as the name suggests, is about helping 

students understand disruptive technologies, the effect of 

disruptive innovations on existing technologies, and how 

to identify and analyze new technologies that might prove 

to be disruptive. 

We studied how disruptive innovations have caused large 

companies and major industries to fail in the past—by 

looking at the invention of electricity and mechanized icemaking 

disrupting the gas lighting and natural ice industry 

as examples. We also learned about the differences 

between the effects of disruptive technologies in 

assembled products industries (like computers) vs. 

homogenous industries (like glass manufacturing) as well 

as the factors to take into account while trying to analyze 

the disruption potential of a new technology. 

During the term, we heard from fascinating guest 

speakers such as Joel Schindall, who explained his 

research breakthroughs storing energy in carbon 

nanotube ultracapacitors, and Irving Wladawsky-Berger, 

who talked about cloud computing and the growing 

importance of services in all industries. We also had the 

opportunity to discuss current innovations that might 

prove to be innovative with Harvard Business School 

Professor Clay Christensen, author of The Innovator’s 

Dilemma, as well as current mobile software platforms 

with Boston University Associate Professor Fernando 

Suarez, using the cases he has written. 

Finally, to put all the learning into practice, the students 

were asked to choose any technology they find 

interesting and explore it—in terms of current technology, 

research investment, patents, paper publications, and 

technology trajectories—and determine possible 

implications to the market dynamics that the particular 

technology might have. We looked at and heard about 

such technologies as cloud computing and thirdgeneration 

solar cells (which are well-known but perhaps 

not as well understood), as well as such radical 

technologies as hybrid aircraft, saltwater desalinization 

technology, and privatization of commercial space travel. 

Thanks to the group projects, we all appreciated the 

difficulties and work involved in analyzing the business 

implications of new technologies/innovations and learned 



SEAri plans annual research summit 

The MIT Systems Engineering Advancement Research 

Initiative (SEAri) will hold its annual invited research 

summit on Tuesday, October 19, 2010. The SEAri 

research group is evolving new approaches and methods 

for performing decision analysis and designing complex 

systems. The group also studies how engineering 

programs are performed, working to identify best 

practices and strategies for improvement. 

The summit is designed to bring members of the systems 

community together with MIT researchers and students 

for mutual benefit. Researchers share their outcomes, 

facilitating the transfer of research into practice. And, they 

simultaneously gain a better understanding of the needs 

of the practitioner community—information that will drive 

the focus of the research portfolio. This year, featured 

topics include the latest research on tradespace 

exploration methods; a new technique for enhancing 

early life-cycle operational requirements development; 

new studies on survivability and systems of systems; 

and leading indicators for human systems integration. 

The summit is a major influence on SEAri’s work, 

according to SEAri director and principal research 

scientist Donna Rhodes. “It provides us with insight into 

how we can ensure our research program is relevant 

and responsive to the real problems and concerns of 

the systems community we serve,” she said. Systems 

leaders who attend the summit gain insight into cuttingedge 

research and have the opportunity to influence 

research at an early stage. “Past year attendees have 

been especially influential through the student research 

poster session, where recommendations can have 

significant influence on a student’s research directions,” 

said SEAri lead research scientist Adam Ross. 

SEAri researchers will also be teaching two executive 

education courses in July. Value Driven Tradespace 

Exploration for System Design will provide attendees 

with the practical knowledge to perform multi-attribute 

tradespace exploration studies. And, SEAri researchers 

will offer a new course, Epoch-based Thinking: 

Anticipating System and Enterprise Strategies for 

Dynamic Futures. The development of this course was 

based in part on feedback from attendees at the 2009 

summit, which focused on this topic. 

For more information, visit the SEAri website at 

seari.mit.edu or contact the leadership team at 

seari@mit.edu. 

PDD team sharpens skills 

designing chef’s tool 


regional differences in our product design. Also, as a 

team we were able to leverage the skills each team 

member brought to the table, including experience in 

business case development, materials and plastics, 

manufacturing engineering, marketing, website 

development, modern computer-aided engineering and 

3D modeling, and prototype development. I personally 

learned about injection molding, computer-aided 

engineering, and the material properties of plastics. 

Further, I honed skills in how to leverage other team 

members’ strengths on the project. 

The course also included lectures on industrial design, 

sustainability, manufacturability, sourcing strategies, 

venture capital, entrepreneurship, and large-scale product 

development. The class is also augmented with Product 

Design and Development by Ulrich and Eppinger and 

outside readings. 

This year, to extend the cross-disciplinary theme, the 

Product Design and Development class teams were 

paired up with others in Real-Options in Systems Design 

and Management. This pairing helped us deal with 

uncertainties both related to the product and to the 

business case. For example, we had decided to use a 

contract manufacturer in the business plan for our 

product. The real-options teams developed plans that 

would enable us to best develop the contract based on 

expected uncertainties in product demand. This helped 

improve our overall business case and decreased the 

potential financial downsides of introducing the product 

to the market. For both teams this proved a safe 

environment and exercise in how to consult and how to 

accept consulting. 

I enjoyed the class: it brought me an integrated view of 

the multiple disciplines required for product design and 

development, presented a healthy environment for 

experimentation, and developed a renewed interested 

in entrepreneurship.

19 

SDM to sponsor systems thinking 

conference at MIT in October 

By Lois Slavin, SDM communications director 

MIT’s annual systems thinking conference, sponsored by 

the System Design and Management Program (SDM) 

showcases the new ways of thinking, working, and 

leading required to address today’s complex challenges. 

This year’s event will focus on complexity and innovation 

in energy, health care, sustainability, and service systems. 

Designed to provide practical information on how to 

integrate technology, management, and social sciences 

to achieve success, the conference will take place 

October 21-22, 2010, at the MIT Media Lab. 

MIT professors will frame the three-fold nature of systems 

thinking—technical, managerial, and socio-political—and 

outline how it is being applied in the critical areas of energy, 

health care, sustainability, and service systems. Industry 

leaders will describe best practices that demonstrate the 

challenges they face within and outside their organizations, 

how they apply systems-based approaches, the benefits 

achieved, and the lessons learned. 

MIT has chosen the speakers not only for their expertise 

in addressing complex systems challenges, but also for 

their role in leading the implementation of the day-to-day 

tasks that produce success. Speakers include experts 

from MIT and industry. As of this writing, they include: 

• Pat Hale, director, SDM Fellows Program 

• George Apostolakis, commissioner of the US 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Korea Electric 

Power Corporation professor of nuclear science 

and engineering and professor of engineering 

systems at MIT 

• Mark D. Jenks, vice president of development, 

787 Program, Boeing Commercial Airplanes 

• John Sterman, Jay W. Forrester professor in 

computer science and professor of system dynamics 

and engineering systems at MIT; director, MIT 

System Dynamics Group 

• Blackford Middleton, corporate director of clinical 

informatics research and development and chairman 

of the Center for Information Technology Leadership 

at Partners Healthcare System; assistant professor of 

medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard 

Medical School, and of health policy and 

management at the Harvard School of Public Health 

• Roberto Rocha, senior corporate manager for 

knowledge management and clinical decision 

support, clinical informatics research and 

development, Partners Healthcare System; faculty 

member, division of general internal medicine and 

primary care of the department of medicine at 

Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical 

School 

• Joseph Coughlin, senior lecturer, MIT Engineering 

Systems Division; director, MIT AgeLab and New 

England University Transportation Center 

• Richard C. Larson, Mitsui professor of engineering 

systems and civil and environmental engineering; 

and director, Center for Engineering Systems 

Fundamentals, MIT 

• Deborah Nightingale, professor of the practice of 

aeronautics and astronautics and engineering 

systems at MIT; codirector, MIT Lean Advancement 

Initiative 

The conference will provide significant opportunities to 

ask questions of our speakers, as well as to network with 

other systems thinkers attending the conference. An 

evening reception will be held during the evening of 

October 21 for all who hold full conference admission. 

Registration details will be available in early summer on 

the SDM website sdm.mit.edu/conf10. 

For information on corporate sponsorship, contact Jon 

Griffith, director of operations and partner integration, at 

jong@mit.edu, 617.253.3799. 

• Andrew Scott, professor, MIT School of Architecture 

• Bruce Beihoff, Global Leader Advanced Systems; 

senior principal technologist and director of 

innovation and technology—systems and process 

research, Whirlpool Corporation 

• Irving Wladawsky-Berger, consultant, innovation and 

technical strategy, IBM and Citigroup; visiting faculty, 

MIT and Imperial College


SDM helps EMC build bridge 

to innovation 


company’s research and development program around 

the world. This follows the network’s key principle— 

“Expand knowledge locally: Transfer it globally.” Indeed, 

one of the great things about applied research is that you 

don’t always know at the outset where it will prove useful. 

A network of connections creates more opportunities to 

find surprising applications. 

With EMC Research Cambridge in place, we’ve been 

looking for such surprises from our SDM fellows and 

asking where these EMC participants’ new knowledge 

might benefit the company in new ways. Conversely, 

what areas of interest to other parts of the company 

might the students benefit from exploring The answers 

to these questions will help make the bridges, now part 

of a larger network, even stronger. We’re still getting 

started making these connections, but the promise is 

already quite evident from looking at what the company’s 

talented cadre of SDM fellows is currently working on: 

Eugene Gorelik, SDM ’09, is a senior application systems 

engineer at EMC. He previously held software engineering 

and information technology (IT) positions at such companies 

as Panraven, BEA Systems, and SunLife Financial. Gorelik’s 

primary areas of focus at SDM are technology strategy, 

entrepreneurship, and product marketing. 

Rajesh Mishra, SDM ’08, is an embedded systems 

engineer within the Microcode Group of EMC’s 

Symmetrix Engineering Division, responsible for designing 

and developing firmware for remote data replication 

features. Mishra has more than 15 years of experience in 

embedded systems across a broad range of industries, 

including office automation, information systems, and 

health care, and in several technology areas, including 

digital signal processing, radio frequency identification, 

and data storage and analytics. His research centers on 

data visualization and predictive models of large data sets. 

Rahul Pradhan, SDM ’09, is a principle software 

engineer with EMC’s Unified Storage Division, responsible 

for designing and developing software for EMC’s nextgeneration 

storage systems. Pradhan has a master’s and 

a bachelor’s degree in computer science and more than 

10 years of experience leading product development 

teams in telecom and storage industries. As a researcher, 

he is interested in understanding the dynamics of 

competitive strategy and managing innovation in 

technology intensive enterprises. 

Sooraj Prasannan, SDM ’08, is a senior systems 

performance engineer with EMC’s Unified Midrange 

Storage group. His responsibilities include designing 

storage solutions for potential customers and proposing 

performance analysis methodologies for products under 

development. Prasannan has master’s and bachelor’s 

degrees in electrical and computer engineering and nine 

years of experience in system performance and product 

development. As a researcher he is interested in 

understanding the architecture of complex products and 

using it to guide product design, organizational layout, 

and business strategy decisions. For his SDM thesis, 

Prasannan proposed a macro-micro system architecture 

analysis framework and applied it to two industry-leading 

smart grid meter data management systems. 

Ritesh Shukla, SDM ’09, is a senior software developer 

working on the next generation of cloud optimized 

storage platforms. He has a master’s degree in electrical 

engineering (his research focused on wireless security). 

Part of the team responsible for releasing EMC’s storage 

virtualization platform, he led key projects for two Version 1 

products while at EMC. He is interested in identifying 

product gaps in the cloud ecosystem. Shukla is studying 

adoption patterns for cloud computing and strategy 

planning in and around cloud computing. 

Systems thinking is the only way to address the challenge 

of managing the huge volumes of information that 

organizations deal with every day. It is also a mechanism 

EMC can use to explore new areas of opportunity. Smart 

grid infrastructure is just one area of recent interest. Using 

the techniques and methodologies taught in the SDM 

program, Prasannan has been able to understand the 

various vendor offerings more quantitatively and thus 

provide insight into how EMC’s own software could better 

integrate with those offerings. 

Whether storing, securing, or deriving intelligence from 

the information—or managing the underlying IT resources 

that support these operations—a systems view helps an 

organization see how all the IT parts (both the 

“information” and the “technology”) add up to deliver 

business value. The projects these SDM fellows are 

exploring will help EMC and the industry as a whole 

understand the larger technology landscape, what 

changes may be coming, and how technology is 

managed for many years to come. 

About the authors 

Burt Kaliski, who received his bachelor’s, master’s and 

doctoral degrees from MIT in electrical engineering and 

computer science, directs the EMC Innovation Network, 

the global research program of EMC Corporation 

connecting its local research and advanced technology 

initiatives with external knowledge communities and also 

leads industry standards and technology community 

programs in the corporate CTO office. 

Rob Masson is the director of EMC Research 

Cambridge, the company’s research initiative in the 

Boston area, and is also an architect in the corporate 

CTO office’s Advanced Technology Ventures Group.

21 

Product development, design experts 

named SDM faculty codirectors 

By Lois Slavin, SDM communications director 

Steven D. Eppinger 

Professors Steven D. Eppinger and Warren P. Seering are 

the new faculty codirectors for MIT’s System Design and 

Management Program (SDM). The news was announced 

this spring by Dean Subra Suresh of the MIT School of 

Engineering, who is also the Vannevar Bush professor of 

engineering, and David C. Schmittlein, the John C. Head 

III dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management 

“We are thrilled that Steve and Warren will be leading 

SDM,” said Pat 

Hale, director of 

the SDM Fellows 

Program. “They 

are each 

renowned in 

their fields, both 

for their cuttingedge 

research 

and their 

expertise in, and 

commitment to, 

education. All of 

us here at SDM 

look forward to 

working with 

them both.” 

Warren P. Seering 

Seering, the Weber-Shaughness professor of mechanical 

engineering and professor of engineering systems, will 

become SDM’s faculty codirector from the School of 

Engineering. His prior positions at MIT have included 

head of the Design and Systems Division of Mechanical 

Engineering and codirector of the MIT Center for 

Innovation in Product Development. 

Seering has received numerous honors, among them the 

Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award from the Society of 

Automotive Engineers, the MIT Harold E. Edgerton 

Award, the Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation Design 

Commendation, a Best Paper Award from the American 

Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Design Theory 

and Methodology Conference, the Westinghouse 

Distinguished Lectureship at the University of Michigan, 

and the MIT Frank E. Perkins Award for excellence in 

graduate advising. Seering is a fellow of the American 

Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Design Society. 

He holds a PhD from Stanford University. 

Eppinger, the new SDM codirector from MIT Sloan 

School of Management, holds the General Motors 

Leaders for Global Operations chair at Sloan and has a 

joint appointment in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division. 

He served as deputy dean of MIT Sloan from 2004 to 

2009, as faculty codirector for SDM and the Leaders for 

Manufacturing programs from 2001 to 2003 and as 

codirector of the Center for Innovation in Product 

Development from 1999 to 2001. 

At MIT Sloan, Eppinger created an interdisciplinary 

product development course in which graduate students 

from engineering, management, and industrial design 

programs collaborate to develop new products. He has 

co-authored a textbook titled Product Design and 

Development, 4th edition (2008). In 1993, he received 

both MIT’s Graduate Student Council Teaching Award 

and the Sloan School’s Award for Innovation and 

Excellence in Management Education. He received the 

ASME Best Paper Award in Design Theory and 

Methodology in 1995 and again in 2001. He holds an 

ScD from the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. 

Hale said, “With this, SDM is passing another milestone 

of sorts, as we designate separate faculty codirectors for 

SDM from MIT Sloan and the School of Engineering and 

keep the original team for LGO (Leaders for Global 

Operations). We all thank Professors Tom Allen and David 

Simchi-Levi for their hard work and support in evolving 

SDM and wish them the best as they continue to be the 

codirectors for LGO and in all of their endeavors. Their 

support of MIT’s System Design and Management 

Program was much appreciated and we are grateful for 

their leadership and their service.”


Employers hire SDM grads for 

leadership, systems thinking skills 

By Helen M. Trimble, director, SDM Career Development 

Helen M. Trimble 

Graduates of MIT’s System Design and Management 

Program (SDM) are experienced professionals, 

representing a wide range of industries, who have 

received master of science degrees in engineering and 

management. This, coupled with their academic 

preparation in leadership, systems thinking, and 

managing complex systems, makes them ideal 

employees who can work effectively across organizational 

boundaries to solve enterprise-wide challenges. 

Unlike other academic programs, SDM has a flexible 

recruitment cycle. Companies can interview and hire 

self-funded candidates year-round by requesting resumes 

or visiting the MIT campus. We are happy to arrange 

interviews! 

There are no preconditions for companies to participate 

in SDM recruitment activities, and it is very economical. 

Career development professionals estimate that a search 

at key technical leadership levels—for example, for a 

manager or director—can easily cost 20 percent to 30 

percent of the position’s annual salary. Even with today’s 

increased transportation costs, airfare from your city plus 

lodging and food expenses for one to two days in 

Cambridge (approximately $325/day at a first-rate hotel) 

can still provide impressive savings. 

SDM ’07 Rehan Asad, associate director, AT&T 

Corporate Strategy, says that his company hired SDM 

graduates for the depth and breadth of technology and 

management skills that they bring to the table. 

As a member of the company’s corporate strategy team 

that works closely with the CEO, chairman, and business 

units leaders on the company’s strategic direction, Asad 

says his SDM education enables him to understand the 

holistic view in terms of “what’s happening in operations, 

technological evolution, and the overall industry dynamics.” 

He says SDM has also equipped him to work effectively 

with teammates from other areas of the company in 

helping evolve AT&T’s strategy for the next 5 to 10 years. 

SDM ’01 William Taylor III, principal of Tau Advisors Inc., 

a technical consultancy specializing in new product 

development, recruited SDM graduates for Eaton 

Corporation when he worked for that company. He says, 

“To execute on new technology programs, an engineer 

needs the ability to judge difficult situations that he hasn’t 

seen before. [Engineers] must also be willing to adapt 

their skill set to the task at hand. You don’t have to know 

everything, but you’ve got to be willing to learn anything. 

“That’s where the SDM degree provides the most value. 

The students graduating from MIT-SDM have experience 

in their field, a rich exposure to principles of risk 

management, product development, system architecture, 

and systems engineering. It takes this combination of 

experience and education to develop sound judgment. A 

systems engineer, with good judgment, who’s willing to 

learn new disciplines, is worth his/her weight in gold.” 

For information on SDM recruitment activities, contact 

sdmcareers@mit.edu. 

SDM broadens thinking on 

technology strategy 


that there certain indicators that might help in identifying 

the potential disruptors. But in the end, we all found that 

it is still very difficult to predict the future with any 

certainty! 

To close I would like to note the eye-opening impact that 

members of the SDM cohort had in each class on our 

collective knowledge development. Cohort members 

hailed from approximately 15 different countries and had 

an average of eight to nine years of experience in a range 

of firms, from startups to global operations. The collective 

wisdom they brought to class had an enormous impact 

on the range of insights we all made into the various 

problems addressed. Each of us benefited not only from 

our teammates’ experience but also from the knowledge 

other teams shared with the class. I think the SDM 

community really provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity for 

such dynamic knowledge development.

23 

Doctor finds multidimensional 

opportunities at SDM 


students how to protect themselves and the community 

from spreading infection. 

My involvement with the video illustrates one way in 

which SDM gave me opportunities to pursue all my 

interests in an amazing style. I had the privilege to 

meet and work with an inspiring couple, Professor 

Richard Larson and M. Elizabeth Murray, who have 

created an initiative to educate the world in an 

innovative and creative, systems-based way—though 

Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math 

Studies (BLOSSOMS). 

I learned about the BLOSSOMS initiative when I first 

joined SDM in 2009 and met Larson and Murray. I had 

been involved with educational projects in Pakistan and 

India that aimed to spread health awareness to minorities 

and to the general population. It was a natural follow-up 

to get involved in an initiative that spreads knowledge to 

developing nations. 

BLOSSOMS is a program sponsored by MIT LINC 

(Learning International Networks Consortium, 

linc.mit.edu), a group of educators from around the 

world who are interested in using distance and e-learning 

technologies to help their respective countries increase 

access to quality education. 

The vision of BLOSSOMS is to develop a large, free 

repository of video modules created by gifted volunteer 

teachers from around the world. It was seeded initially 

by MIT faculty members with partner educators in 

underdeveloped countries. 

I was privileged to participate with a team in developing 

and creating the flu math video module that was aimed 

at spreading preventive measures and awareness of flu 

pandemics in the community. Although it specifically 

focused on the H1N1 pandemic, we made sure to 

generalize the measures and knowledge for any type of 

viral respiratory infection. We even developed statistical 

math games and used an animated cartoon character to 

help keep the student viewers interested. This video is 

now available and can be downloaded at 

blossoms.mit.edu/video/larson2.html. 

We also created a flu website for the MIT community 

called “Flu101” flu101.mit.edu, which is now also part 

of the Engineering Systems Division website. It contains 

recent postings, games, and flu information. We’ve 

also collaborated with the “health map” team at Harvard, 

which uses Twitter as one way to disseminate global 

updates on various infectious diseases around the world. 

I hope that this illustrates the diverse dimensionality of 

SDM and the “infectious nature” of the program that 

allows students to create the path that’s right for them. 

In my case, “system design and management” implies 

designing systems to prepare for and respond to 

serious infectious diseases, such as pandemic influenza, 

and to manage those health systems well once they 

are activated. 

Student committee forges links 

between SDM, industry 


alums. In addition, a promotional video created jointly by 

SDM ’10 Tom Speller, SDM Logistics Coordinator Dave 

Schultz, and Slavin, is now available on MIT TechTV. The 

team is also working on a number of short videos 

describing the SDM program and its students, under 

Speller’s leadership. These videos will eventually be 

posted to the SDM site, to YouTube, and to MIT TechTV. 

Industrial engagement 

Finally, the industrial engagement focus area, led by 

mechanical engineer turned software architect Critz with 

the assistance of recently retired SDM Industry Codirector 

John M. Grace, has been busy developing a menu of 

ways that companies can get involved with the SDM 

program. Some, such as providing real-world projects for 

students to work on in class, dramatically enhance class 

learning while giving companies exposure to the rich 

talents of the SDM cohort. Extending that concept, 

sponsoring a student’s thesis work gives companies the 

chance to benefit from original research focused on their 

areas of interest. Planning ahead, we’re always looking 

for speakers, competition judges, and companies willing 

to host field trips. The IRC particularly hopes to expand 

its reach to industries that may be hiring SDM graduates 

but typically have not been involved with the program 

itself; examples include software, venture capital, 

cleantech, biotech, and entrepreneurial firms. 

We only formed four months ago, but the SDM Industrial 

Relations Committee is off to a great start. If you would 

like to get involved or comment on our activities, please 

write mharper@sloan.mit.edu.


SDM calendar 

summer–fall 2010 

If you or your colleagues are interested in attending any of the events listed, please contact 

Jon Griffith, director of operations and partner integration at jong@mit.edu, 617.253.3799. 

June 29, 2010 

SDM Information Evening 

Location: Boston Marriott Quincy 

Time: 6–9 pm 

September 14, 2010 


Location: Boston Marriott Burlington 


October 19, 2010 

SEAri Research Summit 2010 

Location: MIT Faculty Club 

Time: 8am–5 pm 






SDM Partners Meeting 

SDM industry partners are invited to review curriculum 

activities, hear from MIT faculty on relevant cutting-edge 

research, and develop opportunities for internships and 

theses. 


Time: 8:30 am–5 pm 


SDM Alumni and Student Mixer 

Location: R&D Pub, Stata Center 



2010 MIT Conference on Systems Thinking 

for Contemporary Challenges (Day 1) 

Location: MIT Media Lab 



SDM Conference Reception and SDM Best 

Thesis Award Presentation 




2010 MIT Conference on Systems Thinking 

for Contemporary Challenges (Day 2) 



Event information includes all details available at press time. For more current event information, go to sdm.mit.edu and esd.mit.edu.

Download SDM Pulse, Summer 2010 as a PDF - MIT SDM

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?