ISSUE 1: OCTOBER 2005

Chifley appoints new CEO

Chifley Business School is pleased to announce the appointment of Neil Edwards as its new Chief Executive.

Neil has previously held positions as Secretary of the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development in Victoria, and more recently the Executive Chairman of the Port of Melbourne Corporation and a member of the Victorian Government's State Services Authority. Prior to his Victorian Government appointments he held senior executive positions in the Federal Department of Industry and in the Prime Minister's Department.

Neil plans to bring a more focused yet vibrant culture of innovation to the already thriving business school.

"I completely agree with the Chifley motto. Education is about capability rather than just the qualification." Neil said. "I aim to position Chifley strategically as 'the' choice for employers when considering innovative training options for their key staff."

The Mini MBA boom

Management Education is undergoing a renovation. In the past, an MBA was a key to the corner office. Now, organisations are becoming less concerned with the qualification, and more on the learning outcomes and the quantifiable benefits to the firm. For the modern organisation, customised capability-driven programs, "Mini MBAs" and programs for industry-entrepreneurs are all the rage, while off-the-rack MBAs are going back in the closet.

The message from the marketplace is clear: MBA programs geared toward academic results don't necessarily improve the bottom-line. The standard MBA is often seen as a machine for producing white-collar clones, which represent a big problem for companies who rely on innovation and creativity. On the contrary, to survive in a dynamic marketplace, organisations need staff who can think on their feet, apply their learning to a variety of scenarios, and ultimately, be adaptable. In essence, organisations are looking for capability that can adapt.

The Mini MBA is essentially a snapshot of a conventional program without bogging the participant down with extensive classroom demands. All good management education should encourage professionals to apply their learning to their workplace, over-time, and to a variety of situations. To this end, the Mini MBA introduces the main themes of an MBA and encourages the student to consider his or her workplace as the syllabus.

Rutgers University's Center for Management Development package their Mini MBA as "Business Essentials"; a "broad overview" of the major features of a traditional MBA in an abbreviated amount of time. The Rutgers Mini-MBA is completed after 12 3-hour sessions, running from 6pm one day a week to fit in with the full-time market. A Mini MBA won't give you a letter after your name, but you do get a crash course on Business issues to carry with you to the office with your BlackBerries. The key features of the Mini MBA are it's capability-driven, flexibly provided management education that encourages integration in the workplace. Mini MBAs, in essence, give their students the tools, timber and the realisation that the only way to learn how to build a house is to build it yourself.

In essence, the Mini MBA is a training program for entrepreneurs; individuals with strong fundamentals and an excellent eye for opportunity. As opposed to managers, entrepreneurs provide the spice of innovation that can be crucial to competitiveness. Rutgers recognise the allure of the entrepreneur in their design of the course. "You can do it at your own convenience", Brenda Hopper, director of Rutgers' CMD, has been quoted as saying. "We find that is very important to entrepreneurs."

The key difference between the regular and the Mini MBA is the target market. The full MBA is for managers; the Mini for entrepreneurs. The message from organisations is not that the Mini is preferred for brevity. The real issue are the elements of the mini MBA that make it practical for professionals: flexibility of delivery, capability-driven, and widely accessible. Indeed the elements that have made Mini MBAs a success are implicit in the distance-mode, e-learning and skill-based short courses. The difference is the package that the Mini MBA comes in.

What the Mini MBA market shows Universities and Business schools is that entrepreneurship is a growing in Management systems, and conventional, accredited MBA programs must appeal to the little entrepreneur and operations manager in every student. In other words, MBA providers must ensure that capability is the focus of the qualification, not just an occasional side-effect.