I class myself as a maker. I love creating things. In my daily life, this means making software, but outside of work I like anything which results in creating something new.
As time passed, I realised that making larger things needed more organisation and other skills besides a creative spirit. Organising people and finance for a project is rarely easy. Neither is finding a market and planning a business strategy.
But the result is the same: something new is created.
After speaking to a colleague, I realised that an MBA might provide me with more education and knowledge of the business that surrounds projects.
The Open University MBA
I didn’t want to take time out of work to do the MBA. Some universities provided part-time lectures, some weekend-based and some evenings. The Open University flexible MBA course takes the approach that students can study in their own time. Students allocated to tutor groups of about 16 students who are encouraged to meetup face-to-face and online. Each year there’s a short residential school where people work together on live case studies and attend workshops.
I found this approach suited me better as I’m used to studying in my own time. I could study in the evenings and weekends and attend tutor group meetups as and when they happened.
Course Syllabus
The course is 3-years’ part-time study. The first year consists of compulsory modules while years 2 and 3 have elective modules which you can choose.
| Year 1 | |
|---|---|
| Compulsory modules | |
| Unit 1 | Exploring management |
| Unit 2 | Managing people and organisations |
| Unit 3 | Managing financial resources and performance |
| Unit 4 | Managing marketing |
| Unit 5 | Managing operations |
| Year 2 |
|---|
| Elective module |
| Marketing in the 21st century (BB844) |
| Compulsory module |
| The dynamics of strategy (BB835) |
| Corporate finance (BB831) |
| Year 3 |
|---|
| Elective module |
| Managing financial risk (BB841) |
| Entrepreneurship: experience and perspective (BB846) |
| Compulsory module |
| Making a difference: the management initiative (B839) |
My Chosen Electives
For my elective modules I chose to study marketing, financial risk and entrepreneurship.
Working in a development department often gives an element of protection from the wider financial risk a company faces. I chose to study risk because I believed that understanding it better would help to find ways product design could help minimise that risk.
I also find brands and how customers relate to businesses and the products they sell interesting, so I chose this as an elective. It would give me a better picture of the context that development operates in.
Finally, I chose to study entrepreneurship because of the rising startup culture that accompanies the digital age. I believed that we could take advantage of partnerships if the company had a better understanding of the issues and challenges facing entrepreneurs and startups.
Completion
The course is set to complete in 2019, but I set my goal as 2020 to give some room in case of unforeseen circumstances.
I aim to hit the original completion date.