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The Olympic Games: An Organizational Planning and Control Research Project

Keith M. Gardiner

Lehigh University, Center for Manufacturing Systems Engineering 200 West Packer Avenue, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA 610/758-5070 Fax 610/758-6527 E-mail: kg03@Lehigh.edu

Introduction

Earlier papers1,2 introduced and described the concept of students as empowered employees in a “classroom factory.” The factory mission is to achieve previously agreed collaborative research objectives, deliver final reports describing findings and conclusions all as a corollary to student learning. The primary purpose of the course, IE334, is to develop or improve the students’ abilities, understanding and appreciation for the “soft skills” of organizational planning and control. It is recognized that “experiential learning,” or “learning by doing,” produces a superior classroom experience to uninvolved reading, listening or watching the wielding of chalk (unless this is done under the tutelage of the most exceptional, superb and captivating teachers!). This class usually enrolls between 40 and 50 students, mainly IE seniors, but with a scattering of juniors and individuals with other engineering majors; there are just occasionally one or two business and graduate students. The class is divided into teams that are required to develop a product in the form of a significant research report with an accompanying presentation to their peers. Each team is given responsibility for the specification of their own research objectives and deliverables within the pre-selected topic area. There are also subsidiary individual and team exercises designed to support the prescribed learning objectives.

Prior classes studied events on Mt. Everest in 1996 (“Into Thin Air,” Krakauer 3), the water and manufacturing problems at Woburn, MA (“A Civil Action,” Harr 4), and the tobacco industry (“Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris,” Kluger 5). The analysis of the organizational aspects of the Olympic Games was selected as the topic area for the most recent fall offering. As a result of prior experience the 2001 “Olympic” class was managed, coordinated and directed somewhat differently and with efforts at greater control. Faculty assumed the role of plant manager, or CEO, and the class was put through rigorous procedures, exercises, presentations, grading, peer evaluations with corrective feedback relying upon the tools of organizational planning and control, or project management described in regular texts. 6 For the most part students respond admirably in this elective class. This paper discusses briefly the key discoveries and findings out of twelve research reports relating to the Olympic Games, past, present and future. The subsidiary assignments and pedagogic methods are also reviewed.

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Gardiner, K. (2002, June), The Olympic Games: An Organizational Planning And Control Research Project Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10738