Talk with the professors - Fernando Kleiman
Fernando Kleiman
Fernando Kleiman is a Lecturer in the ICT section / ESS Department to support educational activities of MOT 1531, developing a gaming interventions, and supporting practical work. He defended his PhD at TU Delft in September 2021, using design sciences to develop a quasi-experiment to test a game to change civil servants' attitudes towards open data.
According to you, why should engineers choose to pursue MOT?
There are many challenges that we are facing today that management and technology are central to face. Management is a field of study built upon methodologies, methods, and tools to improve what we can do. It focuses on understanding the structures and dynamics of processes and operations and aims at finding solutions and improvements to do things even better. By learning these techniques, experiencing them in practical exercises, and learning from your successes and mistakes, you will become a flexible professional who can add value to companies, governments, and other organizations.
On top of that, our times are challenging in terms of technological development. The constantly changing world increases uncertainties and risks. It is very important to develop skills to understand this actual state of technological development and to train yourself to update your knowledge of new developments. Professionals with an MOT background should be capable of dealing with these uncertainties and finding opportunities for new solutions, and innovation. In a nutshell, MOT is essentially a programme adapted to the challenges of the 21st century, offering students the opportunity to increase their adaptability to the changing world.
What should students expect from the MOT programme?
The MOT programme prepares students to analyse problems, discuss, suggest solutions, and support their implementation. Instead of focusing only on the technical level of performance, the programme is built on bridging strategic analysis with implementation methods. Diverse methods are used within the different courses, ranging from more scientific and analytical methods to more applied knowledge for design and innovation.
Whether as future technology entrepreneurs, consultants, managers, regulators, or market analysts, MOT students should be well-prepared to support, inform and decide on technology-oriented issues in companies and the public sector.
What do you think makes MOT different from other programmes in management?
Unlike other programmes, MOT faces the challenge of setting technology as the main component for actual management topics. Every course has its way of understating and dealing with technology and innovation to deliver better decisions and solutions.
On the one hand, the flexibility of the programme, connected to the methodologies, tools, and exercises, increases students' analytical skills. The theoretical and practical work helps make concepts applicable in real-life situations.
What is your research area and how does this relate to the MOT programme?
In my fields of expertise, we aim to offer students the opportunity to practice different visualization and decision-making techniques. Together with Marijn Janssen in MOT1531, we aim to provide students with the opportunity to practice applying improvement techniques using digital solutions to business process analyses and improvement. The expectation is that the groups of students can agile develop their final reports from day one and deliver an improved business process by using various technology solutions. Adding to the whole course, a serious game is played for students to critically experience and analyse a role-playing business process.
In SEN9725, which is part of CoSem, but can also be followed by MOT students, Marcel Ludema and I focus on getting students to apply serious gaming methodology to supply chains. At the end of the course, the groups of students should deliver playable artefacts (serious gaming interventions) which can solve real-life supply chain problems. Besides, they should also write a critical report describing the problem, solution, and essential steps towards designing and applying their games.
How has your experience been at the faculty of TPM?
I am biased in talking about my TPM experience. I started here as a Ph.D. student back in 2017. Since the beginning, I have been very well impressed with the faculty's available structure, resources, and welcoming environment. Unlike in other academic places, I always found the professors, colleagues and staff to be very accessible, supportive and collaborative, which can make a difference in the quality of our intellectual life. Sometimes, research activities can be very lonely and frustrating. The TPM experience can provide a smoother path for those interested in improving their skills or pursuing a complete academic career.
