The 3 day cycle

When we attended the Pre MBA, a session mentioned the 3-day cycle. Some of us did not understand then how important a 3-day cycle would be and how it would turn out to be more than just a tool. Now after over four weeks of the programme we can reflect back on that session that the past MBAs had given.
What is 3-day cycle?
It is a system that helps us organize our workload so that all the necessary lecture preparation gets done ahead of time. This system only covers preparation for lectures and does not cover class tests, WAC’s, etc. It helps facilitating the learning team process and is divided into 3 stages:
- personal preparation
- learning team discussion and preparation
- lecture
What does it deliver?
By going through each piece of work 3 times we gain a thorough understanding of what is being taught. It enables us to discuss the subject matter, both in our learning teams and in the lecture room. Thus, any questions that we may have should be answered by the end of the cycle. It also ensures that Fridays and weekends allow us to catch our breath, prepare reports, revise for class tests, do WAC’s and play sport. The 3-day cycle is tried and tested, and it works!
What it looks like?
Let us look at it backwards. Say, we have a class of Subject X on Wednesday. Simply put, it is every individual’s task to study the session of the subject on Monday (personal preparation) and discuss the topic in learning team meeting on Tuesday. This will prepare each of us for the lecture on Wednesday.
Reality check?
Inevitably, we may fall behind. This is not without reason. The 3-day cycle is a very critical tool for our learning and proves to be a very demanding step. Many students have partners and families with them on campus. It is not unfair to give them some time also. Hence, the entire schedule is quite exhausting (no wonder the Cranfield MBA is called “intensive”). So there are high chances of a student or a team falling behind on the cycle. The proverbial will hit the fan at some stage, but we will get through. All that is required is prioritising, focussing, seeking support of your team and being honest and open with them about falling behind. You will be, by no means, the only person to fall behind.

We had an operation today

Every single MBA student converged in the sports hall early on Friday morning. Was it a Sports Day? Wrong!
It was a simulation exercise in Process Flow Design, as part of the Operations Management course. Basic guidelines and details of the simulation were provided in our case packs, and each team received a kit a few days ago. This kit comprised of tools and components of the final product. It appeared to be a simple exercise, although I had never studied engineering in my life.
But that was only till the early hours of this morning...
Everything was real about this exercise. There were technical specifications for everything: length of wires; design of three different models of product; conditions for orders and delivery; price and quality of final product; cost for components; work in progress and inventory holding. We had to indent every component to manufacture the products.
We finalised our strategy last night and chose the most appropriate process flow, in our opinion, for manufacturing.
Our team (Red 7) had been merged with a few others to ensure that there were equal numbers in the teams. Maria (Colombia) and I joined Red 3 team with Marieke Van Houwelingen (Netherlands), Herbert Kamuntu (Uganda), Kartik Ranganath (India), Andrew Weatherall (Britain) and Simon Clarke (Britain).
We were pitted against Blue 7 - Nobuhiro Hase (Japan), Ian McDougall (Britain), Gautam Sharma (India), Robin Cassidy (Britain), Andy Holloway (Wales), Jana Villa (Germany).
We had our first shot at manufacturing the orders. The objective was to manufacture maximum orders profitably. While one team worked as Manufacturers, the other team played the role of Auditors. We received an order every 30 seconds and we had to deliver the orders in the sequence they came. A quality failure would mean disrupting the entire sequence of events. We were very confident that our plan would deliver the best results. But only time would tell.
We started the manufacturing, armed with our tools and guide posts. After a nervous start, we ended up manufacturing 17 pieces in 20 minutes. Compared to the average ordering speed of 30 seconds, we had not done well enough. The tragedy was that we hit small bottlenecks in our process and had messed up.
Once the table was cleaned up, Blue 7 had their go at manufacturing, while we audited. Much as we would have liked to believe that Blue 7 had learnt from our experience, it would be unfair to take away the credit from them. They were well prepared and it showed in the end result. They made 23 pieces. There were flashes of learning for me during the whole exercise - how a link in the chain can impact the overall goal, how a micro view about one’s own function can lead one to miss out the overall picture, how important cash flow can be. After all, we had delivered 17 pieces but had negative cash flow. This was not only because we had produced less, but also because we had too much stock as work in progress. This was the overwhelming message of the entire simulation.
A tea break later, we discussed our observations as auditors with the other team. All teams were then suggested to have one more round at manufacturing and they were free to modify their approach. The group recommended that Blue 7 take the challenge again and pick up our particularly expert assembler to modify the roles. They swapped one of their members for Herbert (Uganda) and it worked. Blue 7 made a whopping 43 pieces this time.
Post lunch, we all assembled in the lecture room where the winners of the two rounds got bottles of champagne – Blue 1 and Green 2. We also studied and analysed the relation of theory and practice that we had experienced first hand. But the true taste of the exercise was in the compliment our batch got from the two professors – “Your performance in this simulation was the best in the history of Cranfield MBAs”.
This was action – or Operations Management!

The Alums came calling!

Every year the Career Development Team at SoM hold various events. This year they began early with the current students getting an opportunity to hear from five alums who joined together to share their perspectives on different experiences.
The Alumni Evening is sectoral based and tonight it was Finance / Banking / Insurance. The lecture theatre was packed to capacity signifying the keen interest in the careers of alumni. We had five distinguished alumni who shared their Cranfield MBA experiences and how they have shaped their careers since.
Mr Ian Drew, an alum from the 1983 batch of Cranfield MBAs, shared his views on how we should be approaching the post-MBA career path. He retired in 2003 as Board member & Chief Credit Officer of UBS Investment Bank and is among the most distinguished alumni of Cranfield.
Stella Donoghue (2000) expressed her insightful views with a liberal dose of wit and humour. She is now a Portfolio Finance Director of her own venture. We also heard from Bill Toong (2003), Gary Innes (2002) and Jason Downer (2002).
Following the talks, everyone flooded the forum to interact with the alumni and to put specific queries, etc. It was a very useful evening and we all look forward to similar events that will be taking place in the coming months!

Learning Writing skills from Journalists

A huge turnout for the Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) was not a surprise for anyone, given the popularity of Steve Carver. We, however, were curious to find out who the two new faces were in the class. Steve introduced to us Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer as multi-faceted personalities actively involved in journalism, consultancy, ghost-writing, editorial coaching, etc. Des and Stuart work very closely with Cranfield and almost 50% of their work is published in the USA alone.
Incidentally, Des is one of the journalists we shall face later during the year in Term 2 as part of the ‘Crisis Management Session’ in PCS (and from the preliminary information we have received, it will be one of the most challenging moments in our Cranfield experience).
When the workshop began, my initial thoughts were: “I have spent 13 years in industry and written enough memos and reports. Do I really need to go through this?” I was also wondering whether any other colleague in my class felt similarly or not. After all, a Cranfield student has an average of 8 years work experience and writing is an integral part of everyone’s career.
The trouble with illusions is you only know you have them when they are broken. I am glad I didn’t mention my thoughts to anyone because Des and Stuart had some very interesting observations about writing skills. They shared the mantras as “12 habits of effective writers”. The surprising element was that their principles weren’t from rocket science books – these were basic, common sense concepts that are more often than not overlooked by many.
Overall, it was a good note to end the day. The more I reflect back on the notes I made, the more I realise the, as yet, unseen flaws in my writing. I also feel good to get such experience at Cranfield and wonder, “Do other schools of management provide such an opportunity to its students?” I really wonder…

Perform your role - Get your voice in control!

Today we had a very different session on `Voice` as part of PCS (Personal Communication Skills) and I invite you to reflect on the following statements:
“We are all performers, whether Actors or Managing Directors!” and “There is no business without show business!”
Profound statements, I would say. These were spoken by Diana Theodores, Visiting Lecturer at Cranfield and Fellow at the renowned Dartington College of Arts, South Devon. She is a choreographer and theatre director and has staged many productions at the Abbey Theatre and a number of others. Her consulting practice proposes that the creative processes at work in the arts are transferable, and beneficial, to the world of business.
Also present was Josie Sutciffe, another Visiting Lecturer at Cranfield and Business Fellow at Dartington. She too, leads workshops with union negotiators and managers in collaboration & co-operation techniques, team building, facilitating change and presentation skills.
In the first half of the workshop they shared the conceptual framework on communication skills and the role of our voice. For the first time in my life, I felt conscious of “voice” in my speech. They went on to explain how voice is so critical to the impact that a person can make. But this was the first time I was really focusing on MY VOICE.
Diana and Josie gave us a number of exercises to do – a few might consider these quite strange, though! For example, we had to blow up a balloon and feel our breath come out of it. For some it was great fun, but for a few, it was kind of awkward to begin with. The child in a few of us was awakened too with all of the balloons around, but the serious end result was that we were all more aware of the influence of our voice and what we needed to do to enhance its positive impact.
This session was an introductory session to be followed up by one on one voice tutorials in the next few days. As I walked out of the lecture room, all I could say was: “What a surprise!”
At the end of the day, this is what Diana and Josie had to say: “Your voice is a gift, cherish it, look after it, nurture it.”

Diversity power

Today, I take the opportunity to introduce the DIVERSITY Rep’s for the three streams:

Green Stream: Seema Padman (India). In her own words:
“I am from Kerala (God’s own country), India and have been living in the UK for about 4 years. I have a Masters in Human Resources Management & have been working in the area of HR for 4 years. I am married & have an adorable son who is 10 months old. My hobbies include photography, travelling, reading & classical Indian Dance”.

Red Stream: Rola Mikati (Lebanon). In her own words:
“I grew up in Saudi Arabia where I was enrolled in the French School of Riyadh. I went back to Lebanon at the age of 16 to obtain my French baccalaureate and pursue undergraduate studies at the American University of Beirut, majoring in economics. I then joined PricewaterhouseCoopers in Beirut and worked as an auditor for around 4 years, when I decided I needed a change in my career and opted to pursue an MBA at Cranfield. I like travelling, reading and yoga and I am interested in impressionistic and modern arts, theatre and astrology.”

Blue Stream: Matijas Meyer (Switzerland). In his own words,
“I am 34 years old and married. I did my M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and specialised in robotics Worked for 8 years in the semi-conducter business as project manager. In my last project, I led the development of a new dispensing robot for chip assembly machines, as well as its world-wide market introduction and integration in the mass production line. My main interests are travelling and interacting with people from different cultures. I can speak German, English, Spanish, French and Croatian. Football, skiing and dancing are my passion.”

With 33 countries represented in our batch of 126, it is not surprising to see three distinct individuals to be elected to the positions of Diversity representatives. Good luck to them.

Stream Reps

Today, I introduce to you the Stream Reps of our batch of MBA 2004/05.

Green Stream – Neil Marshall (Britain) is 34 and has studied BA Honours from Birmingham University & PGCE (teaching qualification) from Bristol University. In his own words now:

“I started life as a History teacher, first in London then in Kenya as head of department. In two years in Nairobi directed or produced 3 musicals and spent a night in a car in the Serengeti surrounded by Hyenas! I moved back to the UK as IT Co-ordinator of an inner-London school, helping plan the move to a new building and spent 2 years in Peru as Gerente Tecnico (technical manager) of an ID company before coming back to the UK as an IT Manager for the two years leading up to coming to Cranfield.”

Blue Stream – Ammar Waqqaf (Syria) is 32 and has studied Civil Engineering in Damascus, Syria. His professional background has been across Civil Engineering, Entrepreneurship, International Development Agencies. He is a very soft spoken person who can catch the attention of anyone with his tall, good looks. He is a Chevening scholar and is here on campus with his lovely wife Hind.

Red Stream – Tom Keohane (Britain) is 31 and married to Sarah. Before coming to Cranfield, Tom lived in Maidenhead (to the west of London). He has been a Business / IT consultant for over 7 years. He enjoys music and plays the drums and loves sport too. In his own words, “ I am doing the MBA to learn a lot, have a good time and get a great job”.

Au Revoir………..till we meet again

It is surprising how time can change and change you too. Just five days ago 126 of us had begun a journey. And already, in these five days, bonds have started to form - not just confined to our batch mates, but also with the orienteers. Prior to the start of the course, none of us could have imagined that 16 outgoing MBA’s were busy working out a complete orientation schedule for us. By the end of “O” week (O for orientation), the orienteers had become a symbol of the Cranfield experience to us. But of course, on the morning of the last day of O-week, we were still to realize this…….

The day started with elections for Sports Rep and Social Reps for all three streams. And it seemed that our stream would continue giving faster heartbeats to all candidates. There was once again a tie between three candidates for the Red Stream Social Rep positions – Roy Masamba (Zimbabwe), Antonio Topham (Britain) and John McIntyre (Britain). This time the stream decided to have three social rep’s instead of the usual two – after all more social reps would mean more parties and more social events!

We were all dressed to kill in smart business suits for the Class photo session scheduled today. After the elections, we all moved to the King Norton Library theatre where representatives from the Cranfield Trust / Disability and Learning Support gave us a talk encouraging us to look at non-profit sector for project assignments as well as careers. The next session was by the legendary Steve Carver who introduced us to the Presentation & Communication Skills (PCS) workshop. PCS is a non-assessed subject that continues over Term 1 and Term 2, BUT it is the course most highly rated by Cranfield MBAs year after year. Steve is an amazing speaker with a natural flair for capturing the audience completely…no wonder he has been consistently rated by students as one of the top faculty of the school.

The entire batch then proceeded outside for the year photograph. The photographer was about to shoot when all the orienteers (who were till then making faces from across the road so that we would have natural grins in the photograph) started singing “Happy birthday to you……” for Nikki Mellor (Britain) - one of the students in our batch.

But the day belonged to some others too.

Post lunch we all assembled in the Forum again with John Glen and the orienteers to officially close the O-week. The entire team of sixteen orienteers and three partner orienteers’ stood before us. I think this Diary of MBA 2004/05 would be incomplete without reference to each one of them. So here goes (in alphabetical order):

Adam Campbell (Britain)
Claire Priest (Britain)
Daniel Nisser (Sweden)
Fergus Drake (Britain)
Isobel Rea (Britain)
Jan Wemmel (Germany)
Jean-Michel Maltais (Canada)
Kai Chan (Britain / Hong Kong)
Kofi Atuah (Ghana)
Namrita Mahindro (India)
Paddy Radcliffe (Britain)
Rachael Wilson (Britain)
Rob Lanham (Britain)
Rob Whitehead (Britain)
Santi Mayo (Spain)
Stella Yuan (China)

And the partner orienteers were:
Jennifer Lanham (partner to Rob L)
Dominic Herring (partner to Rachel)
Suzette Tacoteau (partner to Kofi)


The long hard journey of this incredibly talented team was coming to a close. The applause from all of us went on and on. Our entire batch, with their hands raised, continued clapping for each and every orienteer. No one wanted to stop………and the clapping was not enough. Many amongst us with moist eyes, could not have found words that would have conveyed our feelings adequately. But the eyes gave us away. For these sixteen, it was time to bid a formal goodbye to us and the school….

Strangely enough, the last session of the day was titled “Lift-off” – lift off for the 11 month-long flight that would make us the Cranfield MBA batch of 2005. It was a subtle message from the orienteers, “now get on with the task ahead of you”. We first saw a video film on Geese and how we should learn team dynamics from these birds. Then, each of the orienteers shared some personal insights with us and quietly walked out…while we were still immersed in watching another special presentation, with a great song playing in the backdrop. This last presentation gave numerous insights into life at Cranfield and the messages were pearls of wisdom for all of us.

To the orienteers, this is what I have to say: “Fly as high as you can; the height you attain will show the strength of your wings!” (Anonymous).

We salute you, our dear friends. If “you” is what I can become through the Cranfield experience, I am proud to be here.