Master of Engineering in Engineering Management

Program overview

The ME-EM prepares engineers, scientists, and technical professionals for leadership roles within technology-driven industries. This highly multidisciplinary program integrates contemporary concepts of authentic leadership, organizational management, and quantitative analysis to provide you with the specific tools and knowledge to succeed in today's rapidly evolving business environment. Through the program's core curriculum (outlined below), you will build foundational electiveskills in communication, project management, finance, and leadership. You will then have the opportunity to dive deeper into subjects of interest through a variety of elective courses including product development, technology entrepreneurship, systems engineering, innovation management, and more.

Curriculum - Core Content

Finance for Technical Managers (3 courses)

Product Cost & Investment Cash Flow Analysis - This first course in the finance sequence discusses costs and business practices to establish the cost of a product. The concept of the time value of money (TVM) is developed to determine the present and future values of a series of cash flows. TVM principles are then applied to personal finances and retirement planning. This is a practical course that uses spreadsheets extensively to better prepare students in engineering and science for a career in industry.

Project Valuation and the Capital Budgeting Process - This second course in the finance sequence describes the economic viability of an engineering project through application of net present value, internal rate of return, and payback period analysis. The impacts of depreciation, taxes, inflation and foreign exchange are then addressed. The capital budgeting process is discussed, showing how companies make decisions to optimize their investment portfolio. Risk is mitigated through application of quantitative techniques such as scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis and real options analysis.

Financial Forecasting and Reporting - This third and final course in the finance sequence discusses how public projects are evaluated using cost-benefit analysis. Students then learn how interest rates and prices for stocks and bonds are determined. Techniques are presented on how to create departmental budgets for engineering cost centers and pro forma statements for profit centers. Students then work with corporate financial statements to assess a company’s financial health, including recent measures of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG).

Project Management (3 courses)

Foundations and Initiation - The goal of this introductory course in a series of three is to provide students the foundational knowledge of how engineering projects are managed and initiated. Engineering project managers are responsible for project scope, stakeholder management, effective communication, and team leadership. In this course you will develop introductory skills needed to manage traditional engineering projects, along with tools needed to engage stakeholders and build diverse teams.

Project Planning and Execution - The goal of this second course in a series of three is to provide students with skills necessary to plan and execute traditional engineering projects. Project managers must plan and manage complex projects constrained by time and budget. As part of this course, you will determine project schedules, budgets, and risk assessments. At the end of this course, you will be able to identify and explain various quality tools and methods used in project management.

Agile Project Management - The goal of this third course in a series of three examines the philosophy and process of managing projects using Agile project management. Students in this course will learn the Agile philosophy and process including the Scrum framework, sprints, and user stories. Upon completion of this course, you will be able to distinguish between traditional and agile project management methodologies and understand the benefits of delivering value early in an engineering project.

Principles of Leadership: Leading Oneself Specialization (3 courses)

Leading Oneself with Self-Knowledge - Before we can lead others well, we must first learn to lead ourselves well. Knowing thyself is the starting point on this journey. In this course, you will come to understand the importance of three forms of awareness, craft a personal identity, gain understanding of how you work best, learn to be strategic with your time and energy and manage cognitive biases and understand your worldview.

Leading Oneself with Purpose and Meaning - Before we can lead others well, we must first learn to lead ourselves well. Knowing your why is an important part of this journey. In this course, you will identify your core purpose and recognize meaning in your life, explore the power of spirituality and embracing our mortality, create a lasting impact by serving a greater good, describe your character and practice personal excellence.

Leading Oneself with Personal Excellence - Before we can lead others well, we must first learn to lead ourselves well. Knowing personal excellence is the culmination of this journey. In this course, you will describe how and why to set goals and create action plans, increase your focus and reduce distraction, harness motivation and flow state for performance, build self-efficacy and agency, and redefine your relationship with stress, anxiety, fear and adversity.

Technical Communication (3 courses)

Communication as a Technical Leader - An engineering leader spends a majority of their day interacting with others. Indeed, studies repeatedly point to the impact communication skills have on the ability of managerial leaders to succeed or fail. Too often, individuals move into managerial leadership roles without an awareness of the need to improve in this area. This course focuses on interpersonal skills such as listening, counseling, non-verbals, mentoring, coaching, building trust, and providing feedback.

Technical Managerial Written Skills - Writing effective documents to influence teams and decision-makers is one of the essential elements of successful management. Additionally, in all of its forms, writing remains one of the primary vehicles by which a leader exercises leadership. Just like the other forms of communication, it must be coherent, complete, make a clear argument, and include appropriate decorum. This course focuses on these attributes as applied in all forms of modern written communication.

Speaking to a Technical Group - Great speakers focus on voice, nonverbals, eye contact, body language, and storytelling to captivate their audiences. Moreover, as a leader, it is possible to communicate in such a manner and in such a tone of voice so as to inspire in others nothing but an intense desire to excel, making this form, potentially, the most powerful leadership-communication skill of all. This course focuses on the fundamentals of excellent oral communication.

Curriculum - Electives

All of the elective courses below may be taken for academic credit as part of CU Boulder’s Master of Engineering in Engineering Management (ME-EM) degree offered on the Coursera platform. The ME-EM is designed to help engineers, scientists, and technical professionals move into leadership and management roles in the engineering and technical sectors.

Leadership Style and Building a High-Performance Team - Explore your personal leadership style, how value is created, how a leader multiplies their abilities by building high performance teams, and how your executive presence is essential to be a leader of leaders.

Accountability and Employee Engagement - Explore how organizational leaders use different decision-making processes for different situations and that they are ultimately accountable for all results. You will also learn how a company’s culture affects strategy, risk and meeting stakeholder commitments.

Value Creation and Building Enduring Relationships - Explore techniques for building relationships that have a multiplicative impact on business success. The course provides insight into how authentic leadership yields employee engagement that is critical to strategizing, planning and performing large scale technical endeavors.

To view the full course catalog with all Master's of Engineering in Engineering Management courses, visit the CU Boulder website by clicking here.

Try a degree course today

Sample the Master of Engineering in Engineering Management learning experience and test your skills by enrolling in a non-credit course first. You can always upgrade later to the for-credit experience and pay tuition to apply credit toward the full degree.

Here are some courses you can start with:

• Finance for Technical Managers Specialization
• Project Management Specialization
• Principles of Leadership: Leading Oneself Specialization

When you earn your ME-EM degree, you'll be able to:

• Understand the financial implications of engineering decisions
• Apply engineering management concepts to your current position
• Analyze your personal leadership style and the leadership style of others;
• Communicate effectively to technical and non-technical professionals
• Evaluate the ethical, social and environmental implications of management decisions
• Lead the development of complex engineering projects using the latest tools and systems thinking approaches
• Confidently communicate the financial benefits of your technology and product development project