Update on LinkedIn Group

I have been promised by the administrator on LinkedIn that the PGSEM group should be up and running by 8th of October. I will update again once it is done:-)

Do Indian IT companies really need MBA

This post is more about "Do IT companies really need MBAs". Before people jump to conclusion, I am all for software engineers doing MBAs because it is good for their careers. But the question that I want to as is does it really add any value for companies.

Most of the companies are doing primarily "bug fixes", "maintenance" and other incremental feature development. All that requires from management stand point is good knowledge of Microsoft Project or equivalent tools and some common sense.

The skillset that people acquire while doing MBA are so much more and I don't seem to find any use for anybody in day-to-day IT company life. My belief is that many of the phases of the product development cycle that may require those skills, we do not participate in at all.

Most of the companies that I have interacted with can't even do costing and it does not hurt them at all.


What say you?

MBA and dichotomous state models

Every now and then one comes across writing that one can only marvel at its complexity. This is one example that was handed to me by a fellow PGSEM student, and is part of a reading given in the Financial Statements Analysis elective.

"However, since estimation of a dichotomous state model that ignores the state-based sample procedures yields asymptotically biased coefficient estimates, I use weighted exogenous sample maximum likelihood probit (WESML)."

This excerpt is from page 8 from 'The Detection of Earnings Manipulation'.

High hopes!

... or so I think after looking at the list of what is planning to be accomplished

Define requirements (work with PGSEM office and define the logic, get sign- off)

Create new s/w (programming, database, front end, architecture etc) or Modify/ Enhance existing one

Testing and Sign off (from PGSEM office, select student testers)

S/w documentation (How to use manual)

Publish guidelines to students on the process of electives allotment

Run the allotment for one quarter (Nov 2005- Feb 2006) along with PGSEM office staff

Bug fix, Training end users (PGSEM office staff), Hand over and Sign off

If it happens, the guy has to be jobless.

Any goal that involves intraining PGSM (to hell with the bloody E, I just like the four letter words) staff is not achievable.

What say the rest of the folks ?

-harish

Locate IIMB using Google Earth

If you are using Google Earth, you can locate IIMB at these co-ordinates:
Longitude: 77.6017383646026
Latitude: 12.89575309694298

What are teaching cases

From the Georgetown University - http://www.georgetown.edu/sfs/programs/isd/files/goodcase.htm

Pehal 2005 - More Photos

Sharing of information

Here is an idea. We have done significant number of project and hopefully some of them could be of significant value to others. What about we write-up about these projects in this blog. That would open-up these projects for discussion and at the same time others may find some information that they were looking for and could not get anywhere else.

This could also help in indirectly popularizing and increasing awareness of the program. If the visitors to this site find information on this blog useful they may make some opinion about the quality of students coming out of this program, which hopefully would be positive.

Pehal 2005 - Photos

Blog logos

Welcome post

First post, to get the blog started.