Challenge Project
The cornerstone of the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program is the Challenge Project. Each Gordon Fellow will define and lead a project from inception to completion, and will be supported by mentors who have a demonstrated track record of leading major engineering projects in an industrial setting. As a part of applying to the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program, each candidate will work with an Industry/Government Sponsor and Gordon Program Advisor to develop this proposed Challenge Project.
The Challenge Project is a thesis-scale, 8-semester-hour experience of product or process development resulting in system integration and/or commercialization of the technology within a year’s residency in the program. This intense individual project, carried out by the student/engineering leader, under time pressure and real economic constraints, is the analog of the thesis experience for someone whose goal is a career in technology deliverables and deployment, rather than in research. The self-confidence and skills gained in such a project will be a life-changing career experience for the Gordon Fellow, comparable in transformative power to the well-established role of the PhD dissertation for an academic researcher.
Finding an Appropriate Challenge Project
The creation of appropriate Challenge Projects will be a key to the success of the program. The company will identify a Challenge Project mentor from inside the company and a faculty mentor will be identified by the Gordon program. The candidate, employer mentor, and faculty mentor will jointly define a Challenge Project that is important to the strategic interests of the employer and capable of resolution within the year time-frame of the program residency. A detailed project plan will be drawn up before the participant enters the program, identifying the goal and action plan for the project, resources available from the employer and within the Gordon center to accomplish the objectives, and milestones or go/no-go decision points.
The project plan will be modified as the program progresses based on the development of the project and lessons learned from the course work described below. Nevertheless, the requirement for a preliminary, but detailed, project plan on entrance to the program will greatly increase the chances of a successful outcome by motivating careful consideration of the necessary elements of the program, even before the beginning of the residency. The project plan will also serve as a vehicle for feedback from the project mentors who can identify weaknesses or issues of concern where the project may need to plan for more resources.
Employer’s Role
Key elements of project success will include employer commitment and buy-in, the support and active engagement of appropriate employer and university mentors, a detailed predefined project plan, and the resources available from the employer and the multi-university research environment of the Gordon-CenSSIS Engineering Research Center. A few projects will be sponsored by the Gordon Center to demonstrate the commercial potential of promising technologies that arise from university research and development.
Successful Completion of the Challenge Project
Credit for the Challenge Project will be granted only after a presentation and defense of the work before a committee consisting of the two advisor/mentors and at least one additional faculty member. While not every Challenge Project will result in the successful commercialization or deployment of a product, the committee must be convinced that the candidate has either demonstrated the success of the project concept or proven beyond doubt that the concept is irreparably flawed. “The ability to define, evaluate, and defend a definitive no-go decision about a potential technical product in a short period of time is also a valuable skill for an engineering leader, as it allows the effort to be redirected to more promising projects without excessive wasted effort.” (from A Graduate Curriculum for Engineering Leadership whitepaper - Stephen W. McKnight)
Developed by the