Dashboards, Leadership, & Projects, oh my!

Selecting what to learn is like trying to find the right thing to watch. You know what you like, but sometimes it takes a few episodes to determine if you really like something. This is how I felt my first 2 semesters at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Selecting electives within the Masters of Information Technology (MSIT) program has been a difficult experience. While I know within the MSIT program my focus is IT Management, the challenge is CMU has an amazing catalog of electives for my program. Because of this, I have had to become strategic in how I select my electives. My thought process so far has been as follows:

1. What skills will I need for future roles
2. What skills will make me unique for future roles
3. What skills can I put into practice now in my current role to develop experience

My first semester (fall) was decided for me as part of the program. While I could have added additional classes, I wanted to get used to balancing my full-time role and course work. The first class I took was a core class. During my second semester (spring), I took 2 electives and 1 core class. Choosing the electives I followed the principles that I provided above with one additional principle. My program was 100% remote before the pandemic, so the additional principle was: What course can I take this semester because of the pandemic, that I won’t be able to take next year. A few courses I wanted to take overlapped, so I ended up with the following course load:

1. Data Visualization & Dashboards
2. Developing as a Leader
3. Project Management

This semester had to be one of the best semesters (or quarters) I have had in my collegiate career. The rest of this post will identify the impact these courses have made, and why I would recommend taking classes like these.

Note: I am not recommending you have to go back to school to find courses like these, but I am suggesting you seek out something similar such as an online course.

Data Visualization & Dashboards

Why this class was valuable?

I serve as an unofficial team lead and technical advisor for my team, with those responsibilities come managing and tracking work the team is completing. That information is then used to create a monthly report. Prior to taking this class I was spending about 4 hours of finding the right data, validating the data, and providing the right metrics. After I created a dashboard for my team, I was able to cut that time into about an hour. Most of that hour comes from metrics as we are still determining the best way to track certain work. That is 3 hours of time that I am able to get back, so I am extremely grateful for this course.

Why I would recommend taking a class like this?

I am not sure if every university will teach this course like Professor Filipiak, but the learnings are extremely valuable. The flow we followed was, learning about different types of visualizations, learning about the psychology of perception, and then working into building dashboards with Tableau. This methodology was vital to me as I created the dashboard for my team with PowerBI. No matter where you are employed, every organization needs to be able to quickly analyze their data. Based on research from statista.com in 2017, the data visualization market was worth $4.51 billion, and is projected to be $7.76 billion in 2023. If the market is growing, then skilled people are needed to work with the technology.

Developing as a Leader

Why this class was valuable?

I cannot put it into words to how valuable this class was…but I will try. If you are going to take a course like this, I would recommend being open to new perceptions and truly engaging in the conversations. If you read my last blog post Because That’s What Leaders Do, then you know that this course helped me create a leadership development plan. A leadership development plan is the process you choose to determine how you will be strategic in growing as a leader. In the 2 months that I have been implementing my own leadership plan, I can already see improvements in my personal and professional life. That alone is valuable.

Why I would recommend taking a class like this?

Classes like this are missed opportunities for those that do not take them. When you are learning about leadership from an academic perspective, while examining your own leadership capabilities, you are bound to grow. Everyone has blind spots in their skills and courses like this recommend you to examine those skills deficiencies. Professor Lassman did a phenomenal job of connecting concepts to actionable strategies to grow and develop. For that I am extremely grateful, which is why I would recommend taking a class like this.

Project Management

Why this class was valuable?

Ok so I am going to be transparent, before course I thought a Project Manager (PM) would be focused on creating the plan for the project, and then just asking for status updates. At my current level, I have not had too much experience with PMs managing my projects. After this course, I learned officially what a sprint is, about what triple constraints are, about resource negotiation, and more. Interestingly enough proceeding the resource negotiation class, I saw resource negotiation in practice at work. What that moment taught me is that no matter where you are in your career, you need an understanding of project management. Project management skills will allow you to best position your projects to be selected and run efficiently.

Why I would recommend a class like this?

Name a career where someone in your organization does not have a project? I do not think it is possible and you do know of one please email me below. The value a class like this provides is you get to understand how business decisions are made. If you understand how decision are made, then you can best position your own projects or ideas in a way that makes them appealing. Understanding the project management process as an engineer, manager, director, or etc. will always provide value to you. Currently, I am using the skills that I have learned in this course to position my own FY22 goals. I must thank Professor Tucker for his guidance and experience he provided in teaching us Project Management. Taking this course has been exceptionally valuable and I’d recommend taking a course like this in your own career journey.

Lessons Learned

1. Be selective in your education and what you choose to learn
2. Take a course on leadership. It does not matter if it is in-person, online, or a seminar it will be valuable.
3. Write down what you learned from your courses (such as a blog post). This will help for recall during interviews and future opportunities.