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Organisational Design, People Management and Innovation (Telecommunications and ICT)

  • 40 hours
  • 5 days teaching, 3 hour tutorial, (optional) assignment

Overview

This five-day course/module will address the principles of organisational design and the management of people as a resource within a set of effective processes. Its context is the modern global telecomms industry.

These principles will then be developed to consider the way that a company exploits its R&D activity and, in particular, the management of innovation from concept to product.

Areas covered include:

  • human resource management
  • organisational design
  • organisation and process transformation
  • self and team management
  • culture and leadership
  • innovation management
  • entrepreneurship

The course is run by UCL's Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering (EEE).

Who this course is for

This course is aimed at graduates working in, or aspiring to join, telecommunications businesses who want to deepen their understanding of people management and managing innovation.

Apart from a background appreciation of the industry you don't need any specific technical knowledge. However, you will need a good grasp of basic business principles.

Course content

1) Self management

The course begins by introducing the principles of managing one's self, with the appropriate learning styles and presentational skills. A number of techniques and models will be introduced, including the Johari Window, the Belbin model of people types and the Kolb model of learning styles.

You'll do a number of classroom exercises to explore the way the techniques are applied. This set of lectures concludes that various types of individuals contribute to team working and looks at how this variety should be managed and exploited.

2) Human resources management

These lectures cover the principles of HR management (HRM) and its application to industry today. Specific attention is given to defining an organisation's culture and leadership and its effect on business performance. 

You'll study the range of techniques and factors involved in successful operational and managerial HRM. Finally, the value of organisational, collective and individual development will be addressed. You'll consider a number of case studies and undertake group exercises to develop better understanding of the various facets of HRM presented.

3) Innovation management

This subject is addressed in a systematic academic way based on the wealth of case study and analytical body of work now available. The principles of innovation management will be presented using many of the latest examples from the ICT industry. Specific areas studied include how innovation can improve business performance, how to identify potential sources of innovation and the processes involved in exploiting these. 

You'll explore the application of innovation to the development of new product and service design and implementation in the ICT market. Finally, ways of successfully exploiting technology development through intellectual property management and company alliances will be examined.

4) Entrepreneurship

The importance of entrepreneurship in today's ICT market will be explored and the principles of successful identification and exploitation of opportunities presented. The lectures will include case studies of recent examples of good practice. You'll be given the chance to examine the factors contributing to the business success of these ventures.

Dates, assessment and certificates

The course runs over five days, with 6 to 8 teaching hours per day. This is followed by a three-hour tutorial and an optional written assignment.

Teaching will take place in person with some materials available online.

If you complete the course but not the assignment, you'll receive a certificate of attendance. 

If you take and pass the assignment you'll get a certificate stating this, which includes your pass level.

Benefits of taking this course

You can take this course as a standalone (one-off) course, or accumulate it as a module towards an MSc qualification (up to two standalone modules can be transferred towards the flexible MSc degree).

Benefits to employees
The programme offers the opportunity for professional people working in the telecommunications industry to develop their career, be able to respond to changes in their environment, and learn while they earn. It's also designed to give you the opportunity of working towards an MSc qualification from an academic institution whose quality is recognised world-wide.

Benefits to employers
Our flexible CPD courses are delivered by staff with experience both of general business principles and of telecommunications markets and technologies. They enable your company's staff to understand and gain advantage over the competition by tapping into world-leading research and UCL's world-class telecommunications and business expertise.

View the full range of related courses available.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, you should be able to:

  • understand the way that your personal behaviour can be analysed and categorised so that the management of your contribution to an organisation as an individual or team member can be maximised
  • apply the Johari Window and the Belbin models to yourselves and how to interpret the results
  • understand the principles of human resource management as applied to today's business environment
  • identify ways of determining how organisational cultures will affect the HR situation and how HR management should accommodate this  
  • apply your understanding of operational and managerial HR to various case studies 
  • identify the appropriate strategy for exploiting individual, collective and organisational developments
  • understand the key elements in managing innovation in an ICT company in today's business environment
  • identify likely sources of innovation and the necessary ways that a company can exploit these in new product and service development
  • analyse the opportunities for innovation and how intellectual property management and company alliances can contribute to this

    Course team

    Dr Clive Poole

    Dr Clive Poole

    Clive is the Course Director of the Telecommunications with Business MSc in UCL's Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. He has over 25 years' experience in the electronics and telecommunications industries and has held senior management posts at AT&T mobility, Jersey Telecom, VTech and SVI, as well as several start-ups. He holds BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering as well as an MBA. Clive is also a Chartered Engineer and Fellow the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET).

    Richard Pettinger

    Richard Pettinger

    Richard is Professor of Management Education in the UCL School of Management. He has produced over 50 books and numerous papers on every aspect of management. He has over 20 years’ experience of teaching and learning and consulting in the IT and consultancy sectors. Richard's research interests are privatisation and restructuring, the effects of organisation and human behaviour on decision taking in organisations, and developing an agreed body of knowledge and expertise for the ‘profession of management’.

    Course information last modified: 22 Sep 2023, 23:18