Management and leadership certificates
Business Process Management and Service Innovation
Business process management addresses the analysis, design, implementation and improvement of enterprise processes. The use of business process automation technology promises significant efficiency gains for organizations through the automated coordination of activities, allocation of tasks to process participants and the integration of applications. Demand for better process management is driven by opportunities related to ongoing process performance improvement, process outsourcing/offshoring and the interest in process standards.
This certificate addresses the needs of practitioners engaged in, or considering initiatives for, process improvement, and covers topics relevant to business representatives involved in process analysis projects, IT staff involved in process automation efforts and executives involved in strategic process improvement initiatives. The program is also suitable for IT organizations with BPM tool offerings and provides business-level education for sales-force personnel, technical staff, and consultants.
The following courses are required for the certificate:
MIS 690 Supply Chain Management & Strategy
MIS 710 Business Process Innovation & Management
MIS 712 Advanced Business Process Management
MIS 714 Service Innovation
If desired, the above courses can be applied toward a full graduate degree from the School of Business, such as the master's in Information Systems or the MBA.
Corporate Innovation and Leadership
Many managers know technology and data can help them ask smarter questions, make better decisions and formulate more effective strategies. But few of them know how, and with a large and diverse set of responsibilities, it's difficult for these professionals to spend years pursuing master's degrees.
The Stevens graduate certificate in Corporate Innovation and Leadership was designed with this audience in mind. In just four courses, managers and decision-makers can get immediately applicable insights in technology and innovation as they apply to leadership roles. Lessons in design thinking, collaboration and technology innovation will give managers powerful new tools that will improve their effectiveness in their current assignments and provide new perspective on their careers.
The Corporate Innovation and Leadership program is designed for professionals who are working full time and are interested in breaking into the management ranks at their company. Applicants must have a bachelor's degree, ideally in a technical or liberal arts discipline. Test scores are not required for this certificate.
Human-Centered Design Thinking
This course deals with the theory and methods associated with design thinking, a problem-solving protocol that spurs innovation and solves complex problems. Design thinking involves a unique form of inquiry which goes well beyond product and service design. Students will develop an appreciation for design and develop skills for studying design systems. These concepts and methods have wide applicability as they can be used to design organizations of people, information structures, compensation systems as well as the entire consumer experience. Applying these approaches can often create entirely new systems that are more useful and usable. The logic of this approach can sometimes solve “wicked problems” which have defied previous solutions.
Leading Creative Collaboration
Innovative organizations are led by people who relentlessly nurture creative collaborations. These leaders stimulate imagination, teach others how to turn imagination into creativity, and build group structures and processes to enable people to turn creative ideas into innovations that drive business results. This course builds individual awareness of creativity and collaboration skills while increasing the student’s capacity for both. It teaches the science behind techniques, tools, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, organizational strategies, and environmental designs that increase group effectiveness. The overall goal is to strengthen the student’s ability to lead others to address meaningful problems and possibilities wherever they may be found.
Big Data Seminar
The field of Big Data is emerging as one of the transformative business processes of recent times. It utilizes classic techniques from Business Intelligence & Analysis, along with a new tools and processes to deal with the volume, velocity, and variety associate with big data. As they enter the workforce, a significant percentage of BIA students will be directly involved with big data either as technologists, managers, or users. This course will build on their understanding of the basic concepts of BI&A to provide them with the background to succeed in the evolving data centric world, not only from the point of view of the technologies required, but in terms of management, governance, and organization. Tools will include Hadoop, Hbase, and related software.
Service Innovation
This course leads students through the identification, analysis, definition, and deployment of service opportunities within public and private organizations. Each of these phases is analyzed in detail to encompass the principal activities, methods, tools and techniques applied in the respective phase. Students will learn how to identify appropriate supporting techniques and information technologies for the different phases of the service life cycle, assess the role of technology, and gauge the organizational impact of service-focused operations. The objective of the course is to enable students to identify, implement and evaluate innovative service offerings in their organization.
Fundamentals of Management
Technical professionals bring valuable skills in science, engineering and mathematics to the workplace. But without a general understanding of business, they often struggle to effectively communicate ideas to teams and leadership, and aren't able to advocate for their work or advance their careers.
For these professionals, the Stevens Fundamentals of Management graduate certificate is an ideal way to quickly gain expertise in the "language of business." With just four courses, you'll learn effective strategies for working in and leading teams, understand how to influence managers through data analysis, and apply your technical skills in ways that create direct impact on the bottom line. The lessons from this certificate will provide a foundation to support your career aspirations as you seek promotions and additional responsibilities.
Students who apply to the Fundamentals of Management program must have a bachelor's degree, ideally in a technical discipline. Neither work experience nor test scores are a requirement for this certificate. This program is not suitable for students with business degrees.
MGT 612 Leader Development
Project success depends, largely, on the human side. Success in motivating project workers, organizing and leading project teams, communication and sharing information, and conflict resolution, are just a few areas that are critical for project success. However, being primarily technical people, many project managers tend to neglect these "soft" issues, assuming they are less important or that they should be addressed by direct functional managers. The purpose of this course is to increase awareness of project managers to the critical issues of managing people and to present some of the theories and practices of leading project workers and teams.
MGT 641 Marketing Management
The study of marketing principles from the conceptual, analytical, and managerial points of view. Topics include: strategic planning, market segmentation, product life-cycle, new product development, advertising and selling, pricing, distribution, governmental, and other environmental influences as these factors relate to markets and the business structure.
MGT 657 Operations Management
This course covers the general area of management of operations, both manufacturing and non-manufacturing. The focus of the course is on productivity and total quality management. Topics include quality control and quality management, systems of inventory control, work and materials scheduling, and process management.
MGT 699 Strategic Management
An interdisciplinary course which examines the elements of, and the framework for, developing and implementing organizational strategy and policy in competitive environments. The course analyzes management problems both from a technical-economic perspective and from a behavioral perspective. Topics treated include: assessment of organizational strengths and weaknesses, threats, and opportunities; sources of competitive advantage; organizational structure and strategic planning; and leadership, organizational development, and total quality management. The case method of instruction is used extensively in this course.
Healthcare Management and Leadership
The Healthcare Management graduate certificate program combines leadership & management applications unique to the healthcare industry with practical project management skills & concepts.
Class work in this certificate examines the dynamics and strategies of healthcare organizations, including customer/patient analysis, criterion-based performance evaluation, timeline mapping, and their essential management accountabilities. Areas also covered include project management tools & metrics, planning issues, risk management, human resources, organizational performance, and management of complex programs.
Electives cover focused areas such as macro and micro aspects of organizational behavior and theory that are essential to technology management. Critical points in project management for the experienced project manager are examined.
The following courses are required for the certificate:
MGT 616 Healthcare Leadership and Management
MGT 609 Project Management Fundamentals
MGT 612 Leader Development
MGT 689 Organizational Behavior and Design
If desired, the above courses can be applied toward a full graduate degree from the School of Business, such as the master's in Enterprise Project Management or the MBA.
Management of AI
The AI revolution can no longer be discussed as something that's coming in the near future. Intelligent machines already play a role in a number of industries, and their responsibilities will continue to grow at a rapid pace. This doesn't mean the end for humans in the workplace — but it does involve a new set of skills and a broader perspective on new kinds of challenges that are starting to confront leaders.
The Stevens graduate certificate in Management of AI teaches students how to analyze business opportunities, develop data sources, build and interpret models, explain machine-generated results to management and participate in the implementation of the models in organizational processes. The program also emphasizes the critical thinking skills and judgment needed to deal with issues surrounding governance, data regulation, security and privacy — all chief concerns in the application of AI in business.
The certificate is ideal for IT and analytics professionals interested in upskilling in key areas related to AI, machine learning and data.
MIS 637 Data Analytics and Machine Learning
This course focuses on data mining and knowledge discovery algorithms and their applications in solving real business and operation problems. We concentrate on demonstrating how discovering the hidden knowledge in corporate databases helps managers make near-real-time decisions. Data preprocessing, K-nearest neighborhood algorithms, machine learning and decision trees, artificial neural networks, clustering, and algorithm evaluation techniques are among the concepts that will be presented.
BIA 662 Cognitive Computing
This course explores the area of cognitive computing and its implications for data analytics and its role in evidence-based decision making. Topics covered as part of this seminar include cognitive computing design principles, natural language processing, knowledge representation, advanced analytics, and IBM’s Watson DeepQA and Google’s TensorFlow deep learning architectures. Students will be challenged to explore how knowledge-based artificial intelligence and deep learning are the field of data science.
BIA 667 Introduction to Deep Learning and Business Applications
This course introduces fundamentals of deep learning with a focus on business applications, starting with basic constructs of neural networks and progressing into widely used models, including convolutional neural networks, recurrent networks, generative models and reinforcement learning. In addition, various successful deep-learning business applications will be studied in this class. Moreover, the potential implications and risks of applying deep learning in the business world will be discussed, and relevant techniques to address such issues will be provided.
BIA 668 Management of A.I. Technologies
This course surveys applications of artificial intelligence to business and technology in the digital era, including autonomous transportation, fraud detection, machine translation, meeting scheduling and facial recognition. In each application area, the course focuses on issues related to management of A.I. projects, including fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics and the law.
Upon completion of this certificate, students will be able to:
Use machine learning to discover models, patterns and dependencies that enable predictions and intelligent scientific, business and operational decisions.
Plan and execute a project that leverages the tools of cognitive computing.
Develop, evaluate and interpret deep learning models.
Manage the performance of AI systems and monitor their ongoing effectiveness.
Assess AI systems along dimensions of fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics and the law.
Develop a strategy for deployment of AI solutions within an organization.
Project Management
The Project Management graduate certificate program includes both the theory and practice of project management. Concepts, project management tools, metrics for project success, planning issues, risk management, human resources, organizational performance and management of complex programs are presented. Classes also emphasize leadership development and analytical skills, to help project managers round out needed skills for their toolboxes.
The following courses are required for the certificate:
MGT 609 Project Management Fundamentals
MGT 612 Leader Development
MGT 610 Strategic Perspectives on Project Management
MGT 611 Project Analytics
If desired, the above courses can be applied toward a full graduate degree from the School of Business, such as the master's in Enterprise Project Management or the MBA.