About the Management Program

The Management Program focuses on developing participants' organizational management skills, particularly those related to managing one's interactions on the campus and to managing other people. It provides a foundation of management skills that are essential to the successful motivation and deployment of people. This program, in particular, is of benefit to those who manage functions within central campus information resources organizations, those who are relatively new to management, and those who may be relatively new to higher education.

General Sessions

The Changing Face of Information Technology Management

This session is an overview of the major factors impacting the use of information technology in higher education and how IT managers can manage this changing environment.

Higher Education and Information Technology

We will examine the major trends in higher education and how these trends are impacting information technology departments on campus.

Managing Time and Priorities

This session will examine approaches to prioritizing your tasks and getting them done. We will discuss how to focus on the right things at the right time, and share ideas on how to avoid procrastination and manage the inevitable stress that arises in our jobs today.

Emotional Intelligence

Researchers have recognized that while IQ has been a good predictor of academic success, many exceptionally bright people remain remarkably ineffective and unproductive in their professional lives. This session introduces the concept and key components of emotional intelligence (EI), provides an assessment of individual EI competencies, and illustrates the impact of EI on successful leadership.

Topic Sessions

Effective Teams

This session will review the concept and characteristics of a team and the process of building team cohesiveness between information resources organizations and their customers. Specific attention will be paid to the unique challenges of projects and cross-functional teams.

Interpersonal Communication Skills

The single most costly breakdown that occurs in today's workplace is a collapse in communications. This session will examine keys to good communication, including understanding how communication happens, knowing your communication style, diagnosing the communication needs of others, and being sensitive and aware of those needs.

Performance Management

Participants will be given an overview of the basic concepts of performance management with suggested techniques for handling performance appraisals, establishing professional development plans for staff, and motivating IT professionals.

Managing Projects for Success

Project management is both an art and a science. In this session we will review the technical components of project management and focus on the human aspects of managing projects that are crucial to success in delivering projects on time and on budget.

Career Management

Information technologies are changing at an exponential rate and careers of those of us who work in this field rise and fall more quickly than planned or imagined. Nevertheless, "career management" is not an oxymoron. This session will explore an approach to thinking about your career in new ways to further personal objectives. Career management needs to become a proactive part of our job descriptions-not a description of something that happens to us in our jobs!

Developing a Positive Organizational Culture Using Appreciative Inquiry

High quality customer service has become a common expectation within our increasingly "consumer driven" world. The perceived success of an organization often depends upon its ability to integrate improvements of service quality into all of its activities. Appreciative Inquiry is a dynamic and simple tool that can be used to help an organization function at its best. Applied to the subject of service, Appreciative Inquiry has the potential to help an organization vastly improve the quality of the customer experience.

Situational Leadership

We will discuss approaches useful in influencing an individual or a group in efforts toward achieving goals, adopting effective leadership styles, anticipating customer needs, and building effective campus IT organizations.

Team Study Participants

Team study participants are divided into small work groups for a highly interactive problem-solving activity. On the final day of the Management Institute program, groups will present their solutions in creative and innovative ways.