Life outside TMMBA « TMMBA Talk

Life outside TMMBA

Learn From My Mistakes: Getting Ready for the MBA Program

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Kalpesh Shah, TMMBA alumnus (Class of 2009)

Class of 2011, welcome to the great TMMBA program. There are certain things I wish I had done differently when I was going through the program. I am listing these things hoping that you learn from my mistakes as you prepare yourselves for the grueling schedule of the next 18 months.

The first quarter: Welcome to your worst nightmare, the first quarter. I am sure you have heard that the first quarter is very challenging/hectic/difficult. Let me assure you that every one of those stories is correct. This program is front loaded with a lot of content covered during the first quarter. This is by design as a lot of things you will learn during this quarter will be handy later in the program. This quarter might be even more challenging for people who are new to financial accounting and economics. The sooner you accept this fact, the better you will be able to prepare yourselves to face this challenge. This brings us the next point.
Prepare yourself: The best way to get the most out of the program is to be prepared for every lecture. The rule of thumb is two hours of preparation for every hour of lecture. There are a number of things you will need to do to be fully prepared. Most important of all is to complete all the reading assignments before the lecture, take down notes and questions while doing your reading. This will help you better understand the concepts discussed during the lecture. The other advantage is you will be prepared if the professor cold calls on you with a question.
Prepare your loved ones: With all the time spend on lectures and preparing for the lectures, you won’t have as much time for your loved one as before. Therefore, it is very important that you manage their expectations right from the beginning. If possible, use them as sounding board for your ideas/assignments. This will make them feel more invested in your studies and you will have more time with them.
Prepare your study team: Your study team will have a very big influence on how much you get out of your program. I was extremely fortunate that my study team was in sync with our goals as individuals and as a team. Try to come up with a plan to meet regularly to discuss your team assignments. Some of the students use the dinner time before the lecture for networking with people outside of their study team. I would suggest that you use that time to discuss your thoughts on the day’s lecture. This way you can hold each other accountable for completing the reading assignments for that days lecture and get more ideas to share while discussing a topic during the lecture. You can still network with other students during the break time.
Early Start: Although this might be easier said than done, try to get an early start on your individual and team assignments. This will help you overcome unforeseen obstacles. Yes, there WILL be many obstacles along the way.
Professors: TMMBA program’s professors are not only brilliant, but also very accessible. You can make appointments with the professors to help you with any topics you are struggling with. Every professor has a different schedule, so check with them for times when they are available for these appointments. Similarly, you can get a lot out of the TAs.
Workout: Even if you do it only for 10 minutes a day, try to make your favorite workout a daily part of your day. This will give you some time away from the daily grind of going through a MBA program while having a full time job and keep your mind and body feeling more energetic.

The most important thing is to enjoy the wonderful experience of being in a room full of brilliant minds. Good Luck!

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They said that???

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Scott Hannah, TMMBA Student

Do you feel like your team meetings are going nowhere? Too much discussion, and too little progress. It’s much like that in the real world too.

Here is a list of meeting quotes compiled by Peter J. Weertman, head of Boeing’s Commercial Aviation Services:

Top Meeting Quotes for 2009

Are we balancing by numbers or egos?

In the worst case scenario, you end up in a Mad Max world where all you need is a pointy stick and a water filter.

We’re paralyzed, so the process is working.

I appreciate the opportunity to brief these awful charts.

Subtracting adds to our performance.

It’s easier to develop a new process than to hold an old one accountable.

I feel like I’m the key on the end of Benjamin Franklin’s kite.

This presentation is a lot like the grieving process.

They are not encumbered by facts.

Over-promise and under-deliver—that was the old plan.

Are we going to have a PowerPoint war?

Risks have a tendency to get together and talk to each other.

It will be a little clearer and a little more complicated later.

Marketing can calculate things we don’t allow engineers to do.

Directors are like icebergs—you know they’re moving, you just can’t tell.

Facts will never stop me.

You have to add it in the budget so you can take it out.

We want to make the livestock comfortable as they fly to their imminent demise.

We’ve had more than one centralized location.

If she went any farther away, she’d be closer.

I’m practicing so I can say that with a straight face.

Let’s deal with factual data.

This system is better because we don’t have to make up as many numbers.

We’re having a technical meeting on his feelings.

The depths of our leadership competencies know no bounds—at least lower bounds.

No sense in shooting off ammunition when you don’t know whom you want to kill.

When you look around the table and can’t find the sucker…the sucker is you.

There’s been change, but nothing’s different.

Do we have a Help Not Needed chart?

It wasn’t ever really a schedule; it was more tracking what had happened.

It’s really just takes looking good in a suit without drooling.

We are way too busy to look at the risks.

Overviewistic.

The altars are flipping so fast I don’t know which idol is up.

Feels like we’re being pecked to death by a duck.

I get requests every day; sometimes a lot of them, sometimes none.

Dismay seemed optimistic.

No turn unstoned.

Sometimes I’m in my best form when I’m ignorant.

It includes an appropriate amount of inaccuracy.

We are fat, dumb, and happy with a parasitic layer on top.

This slow death is killing me.

The numbers haven’t changed but everyone’s opinion of them has.

———————

More than a few of these feel like familiar comments. Lessons that class 10 can take from these are; work at building your teams early on, communicate with your team members, and be prepared prior to meeting on a project. If you’re not prepared to discuss the project at hand, you’re taking precious study time away from yourself and your teammates.

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365 days of TMMBA

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Reetu Gupta, TMMBA student

Today marks the one year anniversary of our TMMBA start. Wow! What a year!

When I look back, I see overwhelming number of lectures, discussions, case studies, assignments, presentations, team meetings, mid terms and finals and camaraderie with classmates. Best of all – tons and tons of learning and fun.

It all started with Semiahmoo on January 4^th,2009 and since then it has been a high speed race. Race between me and time. There is always too much to do and too little time. Racing with time to see who runs faster. How much can I do in 24 hours. It seems like I have been running a marathon for a year without any rest break. Well, there were few breaks in between but those came with a stack of books and binders to be read. Looking back reminds me Karma’s macro economics, Ali’s micro economics, all the accounting and finance classes as well as leadership and strategy classes. We absorbed like a sponge (with a hope that it sticks). With both qualitative and quantitative courses, I don’t think there is any part of my brain, that was not exercised during past one year. Additionally, personally for me, it was a unique experience. This was my first experience with American graduate education system and to say the least, it was all worth it.

All the professors so far have done justice to their jobs and our TMMBA class. Classes have been lively and interactive. Case studies have been a tremendous tool to apply the text book knowledge in real case scenarios. So far it has been a very enriching program.

Surprising part is now that finish line is in sight; it’s sort of making me sad. In some ways, I’m glad that I’ll be done with almost 30 hours of grueling every week (in addition to job and family). In other ways, a bigger part of me has accepted my team, class and TMMBA staff as extension of my family and it hurts to think of not being in constant contact with them. I guess that is life. We still have two quarters to go. And I’m sure these won’t be any slower than any previous quarters.

Now off to marketing case on Kodak for first class next Saturday!

Reetu Gupta.
Almost there – class of 2010 TMMBA

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Littlefield – Preparing you for the BIG field

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Reetu Gupta, TMMBA Student

We just finished 3^rd quarter – another fast speed, full of excitement and awesome experience. All three courses this quarter were very interesting but in my mind crown goes to Littlefield game. This was a game that Kamran Moinzadeh put in as part of out Operations and Supply Chain Management course.

Kamran prepared us well for the game. We went thru queuing theories and inventory management before the game was kicked off on Nov 22^nd. Game lasted exactly one week. It gave an opportunity to apply the text book concepts into an almost real scenario without doing a real damage. I’m sure you won’t give your factory to a new MBA graduate. But this game gave us that opportunity.

There are some key interesting points about this game exercise. I think biggest being the competition among the teams. It was a very healthy competition. Every one was watching every one and trying to figure out other teams’ moves. Sometimes it felt like Chess. I remember figuring out the inventory order of 2 teams above ours and wondering what they are doing. Every team was trying to earn big money and come out as the winner. But Sysphis team beat us all. Though we argue that in long run our team would have easily taken them over since we have better revenue stream coming in because of our bigger investment in machines.

In next class while discussing the learning and lessons from the game, we found that each team took the similar approach for attacking the problem. Almost all created a humongous spreadsheet and we all share the love of excel.

With the learning gained from playing the game, some of us are looking for another opportunity to play again. Apparently there is a national competition on this hosted by MIT. We’ll see if that happen in 2010.

Now off to 5^th quarter. Once someone told me in the EEC hallways “Death comes in 5^th quarter”. We’ll see how well we survive that one.

In the mean time Happy Holidays!

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Remembering the most impactful leader in my life…

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

Reetu Gupta, TMMBA Student

September 27th, 2009…one of last lazy Sunny Summer Sundays…

Next Friday I get to go to the Leadership Immersion. I’m really excited about that. Part of the reason is I want to see what kind of leaders have impacted my class mates. This was one exercise we are supposed to do. Talk about some one who has been most influential in our life stream so far.

I have been thinking about it for past few weeks. Finally today I sat down and wrote about the most influential person in my life – my mom. After I wrote what I’m going to share with my class, I thought of sharing that with other perspective students too on this blog. While writing about that I realized that I would have been a totally different person if my mom was not who she is. In addition, I also suddenly became aware that whatever I do is also influencing others in positive or negative way ( I hope not this way though..). Here is what I’m going to share about most influential person in my life.

Leadership Impact – how are you impacting others?

I don’t think I have come across a leader that was perfect in all aspects. Each one had his or her own strengths and weaknesses. Each leader also had his or her unique style. As a follower I’m sure I have picked up various attributes of different leaders but I would say most impact has been made by my mother.

My mom is one person I characterize as energetic, result oriented and high achiever and mainly with a high degree of perseverance. She is someone who thrived thru tough times in her life. She was always determined and struggled thru a male dominated society where women were still is a role of house maker. Having career was sort of unheard of. If any women were to do that, she had to do that in her own time after completing her other society dictated responsibilities. My mom went to high school against her parent’s wishes. She went to college without knowledge of her parents. She did her masters while she had two kids and without any help from her family. Finally she started an elementary school in 1980 which she ran for 25 years before she retired. There were over 350 kids in her elementary school. She demonstrated to me that “Where there is a will, there is a way”. This has been my mantra too. She always taught us that only person you can really rely on is you. You need to have the confidence in your abilities and once you know what you want to do, it’s only a matter of going after it.

She also always have opinions about things. She is an active volunteer in society. She was active in politics. She ran for two political campaigns at the district level. On one of her elections, I acted as her campaign manager. This was after my masters in engineering. That was one time that I worked closely with her and came to know how she connected with people on a more personal level. During this interaction, I learned the people always have a need for personal bond and if you can create that bond, as a leader you can be much more influential than otherwise.

Of course my bond with her is at a much deeper level and I don’t need any physical object to remind me of her. But to share with you all, I brought with me here this box that she got in her wedding. This is a great memory from my childhood and when I moved here 10 years ago, she gave it to me.

I just hope that I can be a role model for my daughters and some day they give a talk remembering the positive impact I made in their lives.

Enjoy the sunshine…

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Halfway!

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Teagen Densmore, TMMBA Student

It’s September 15 and I’m enjoying my month off of school. Well, almost a month off. We have two assignments due: one for our leadership immersion weekend and one for our decision modeling class. Oh, and we have to read a book and there is probably also a fair amount of reading I need to do to prep for the first day of class in each subject.

Oi, I’d better get cracking!

Despite these assignments, September does feel remarkably restful and I’m appreciating every moment. I’m trying to schedule as little as possible, so that it actually feels like a month of rest: just seeing friends and family, going for runs and taking time to sit and watch the sunsets.

The last three quarters have been a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun and very rewarding. It’s inspiring to know I’ve made it this far, I hope I can manage another three quarters!

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Summer after TMMBA Graduation

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Tom Mackey, TMMBA Alum

Some of you current TMMBA students are probably wondering what you will do with all that free time after graduation. In my case, at least, the question is “What free time?” Heh — it is amazing how fast it gets filled in with bits of vacation, household tasks, the J.O.B. that helped fund your studies, and both new and old personal pursuits. Two weeks after graduation found us in Eastern Washington, specifically, taking a tour of the Hanford Site. They open up tour dates in April and the slots fill up in just a few hours. We have wanted to take a tour for several years, and this was our “post-grad” treat. Our roses and other landscaping had really suffered for the last 1.5 years, and this summer I have spent a lot of time getting things pruned, watered, fertilized, and watered some more. The hot spell this year made it extremely challenging to keep things alive without running up the water bill too much. It seems I’ve spent just as much time on the computer as before, only now instead of writing papers, I’ve been researching more personal interests and discussing possible business ideas with Marilyn. And finally, I’ve started back into painting the final interior pieces of our house, and I’ve already been informed that the laundry room, one of the first things I painted when we moved in, will have to be painted a different color soon! It reminds me of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco — when they finish painting it they shift back to the other end and start all over!

So what bits of knowledge from the TMMBA program have I been using lately? The things that come to mind, in no particular order are:

Macro Economics — the knowledge we got from Karma helps every day in understanding what I hear and read in the news. It’s nice to be able to explain what is really happening when we hear that the “Fed is printing money”. And did anyone see the article in the March 21-22 Wall Street Journal titled “Fed Doesn’t Need a Press to Print Its New Money”? I now keep it at work to show folks the difference between Federal Reserve notes and the overall money supply.

Wall Street Journal — I renewed my subscription on the student rate. If not offered next year, I’ll switch to electronic. I try to read it every day, but often have to skip all but the first section and then try to skim through the rest on the weekends.

Negotiations — I have to say that the Negotiations class was only a primer — I am getting my real education from Marilyn as we plan a purchase of an Airstream Travel Trailer in which to further explore this great country we live in. The one thing that she has made clear to me that the class did not is that as soon as you make contact with a new car or RV dealer, you have engaged in a war over the contents of your wallet. Pure and Simple, everything you say, and the way you say it, will be used against you if at all possible. Luckily we have some time before we get serious, so with one possible exception, my initial dealings have not had an impact on our wallet. In that one case, we will probably choose to exclude that dealer from our possibilities as he will probably remember a comment I made and know that we have a vulnerability in one area. More on this topic in a later post…

Leadership — Well, that’s something we can all improve upon, right?

Managerial Accounting — Has helped convince me even more that getting our home paid off is the best use of any extra cash we happen to have. Where else can you get a guaranteed 5% return on your money right now? And it sure is nice to see that “Interest Charged” amount go down with each extra payment made!

Marketing and Entrepreneurship — Every day Marilyn and I discuss possible business ideas — does it play to our strengths? How would we market the goods or service? Is it worth the time and effort required to make it work? So far, we have not come up with a winner, given our particular circumstances, but it could happen on any given commute, our normal “brainstorming” time.

Hi to TMMBA Alums. Happy Summer break to Class 9. Welcome to incoming Class 10+. Comments welcome!

-TomM

Tags: Economics, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Marketing, Post-Grad, WSJ
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And Life goes on…

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Reetu Gupta, TMMBA Student

We are almost at the end of 2nd quarter. I can’t believe it. Time flies no matter how busy life is.

Actually 2nd quarter wasn’t so bad. I went back to watching “Lost” live on TV. It may be because after 1st quarter, you become a more seasoned student. You learn better time management tactics. You also learn how to skim instead of reading and trying to retain everything. You learn to compromise on quality when you have four different assignments due within a week’s period. These may sound like bad things but if you are a perfectionist like me, believe me, these habits bring you closer to reality.

Anyway, one thing to remember is that you don’t get discount in life just because you are in TMMBA program. Life’s ups and downs still happen. Nothing stops in outside world even if you lock yourself in a classroom. At the very beginning of 2nd quarter, my family got hit by recession lightening. My husband’s company shut down and he lost his job. Now I had one additional assignment of helping him find a job and keeping his morale up. My 5 year old got prescribed with eye glasses and gave me first shock of parenthood. My company announced a pay cut and let few people go. In a nutshell, these were hard three months that hit me and my family close.

Interesting part was, TMMAB helped me maintain my sanity. It helped me in some very unique ways. I contacted my classmates and alumni for my husband’s job. I was glad to see that finding a job for my husband became a group project. I have never so much support from so many people. In addition, knowledge I gained in corporate finance and accounting, I immediately applied to personal finances. I was able to maintain my cash out flow with only 45% cash inflow. Using newly acquired Marco Economics skills I was able to read various indices and was able to set my expectations accordingly. “Green shoots” in economy gave us hopes and labor index monitoring told us it may be a while when labor market improves.

I think going through an MBA program during a deep economic recession made it very fruitful and interesting. It’s perfect combination of theory and its use in practice. I think it was a once in a life time opportunity for me. Not that I’m crazy about economic recessions but if I was going thru MBA in a normal timings I probably wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the gravity of management skills.

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Dialogue

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Lucas Perin, TMMBA Student

This is a rip-off from a Brazilian writer named Luis Fernando Verissimo. He is describing a couple’s whole life using a dialogue. My first attempt at translating and adapting it is below:

- Shall we dance?
- Thank you.
- Do you come here often?
- I do.
- Are we dating?
- You need to talk to my father…
- I did already, now we just need to set the date.
- July 26th?
- Right.
- Don’t forget the rings…
- Do you love me?
- I do.
- I do.
- I can’t believe it, we are married. It all happened so fast!
- Were you nervous?
- I was not. Was it good?
- It was.
- I’m pregnant.
- It’s a boy!
- Looks like you!
- Where are you going?
- The baby is crying.
- Come here…
- Sweetie?
- Hmm?
- I’m pregnant again!
- It’s a girl!
- What’s up with you?
- Why?
- You seem distant…
- It’s my job…
- You’re having an affair!
- That’s silly.
- Yes, it is. Do you forgive me?
- Come here…
- Not here… the kids…
- Junior left, he had a date.
- Did you talk to him about…
- Yes, he knows exactly what to do.
- What? Did you tell him?
- No, he knew better than I did. This generation knows everything. I just had to teach him how to use the wrench.
- What!?
- Oh, do you mean… I thought it was the car. And what about Liz?
- It’s getting serious…
- With the software engineer?
- Yep, by the way…
- They are living together! I knew it!
- She’s going to the hospital.
- Already?!
- They’ve got twins!
- You know… you’re a cool grandma…
- Who would’ve known?
- Come here…
- Not here… the kids…
- What kids?
- The twins… Liz left them here.
- Aw.
- What?
- I feel a pressure in my chest.
- You have to take care of yourself. You’re in the dangerous age.
- Already!?
- Liz is pregnant again.
- Twins again? That software engineer must be using the binary system.
- Must Junior’s band use our garage? This is hell.
- And the name of the band? Terror and Ecstasy?
- They’re going to wake up the twins.
- Aw.
- What? Your heart again?
- Don’t worry. Hey, this ballad they’re playing… I sort of like it.
- Shall we dance?
- No way! Don’t you remember what happened last time?

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Mother’s Day

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Lucas Perin, TMMBA Student

When you join the TMMBA, you need a constant reminder that you need to plan ahead. If you don’t, it bites you back. The current example: we have a class on Saturday where we will learn something about the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC), and we have to prepare two cases for Monday. In between, there is Mother’s Day. Most people in our groups have mothers (or children), and that becomes a little problematic. To add up, we also have a final paper for Global Management due on Monday and a Macroeconomy exam due on Thursday, plus everything I’m essentially forgetting about, such as the pre-reads.

If we detected the problem a month ago, we could have try to learn the subject on our own, or maybe we could have asked for an extension. Now we are in the risk zone. Come to think about it, the class this Saturday is about risk. It all makes sense now: in the TMMBA, you have learnings that you can apply directly to your life. It just may not be in the way you expected.

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