The Annual Charles L. Miller Lecture

In Charlie’s Vision: The Future of Engineering at MIT

By James Champy
Chairman of Consulting, Perot Systems Corporation

Click here for the event poster (.pdf).
A video of the lecture is available for viewing on MIT World. Click here.
Click here for presentation (PowerPoint document).

About the Lecture:
In the 1960’s, Charlie Miller – the honoree of this lecture - introduced a new vision for Civil Engineering at MIT. The vision involved the aggressive application of developing information technologies and an approach of systems thinking to the multiple disciplines of the profession. This thinking was also embraced by other departments of MIT’s School of Engineering, helping to maintain the School’s preeminent position.

Today, advances in science demand a re-look at engineering at MIT, with the same boldness of Charlie’s vision. The problems and opportunities in which the School is engaged also demand an increased level of inter-departmental collaboration, raising questions of the content of disciplines and how the work of departments should be defined.

This year’s Miller Lecture will examine these issues and present a point of view of what MIT must do to maintain the School of Engineering’s distinctiveness and pre-eminence.

Click here to view a PDF of the promotional poster.

About James A. Champy:
James A. Champy is chairman of Perot Systems’ consulting practice and also head of strategy for the company. He is responsible for providing direction and guidance to the company's team of business and management consultants.

Mr. Champy is a leading authority on the management issues surrounding business reengineering, organizational change and corporate renewal. He consults extensively with senior-level executives of multinational companies seeking to improve business performance. His approach centers on helping leaders achieve business results through four distinct, yet overlapping areas -- business strategy, management and operations, organizational development and change, and information technology.

Prior to joining Perot Systems, Mr. Champy was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CSC Index, the management consulting arm of Computer Science Corporation. He was one of the original founders of Index, a $200 million consulting practice that was acquired by CSC in 1988. Under Mr. Champy's aegis, the company's consulting practice grew at a rate of 25% a year.

He is recognized worldwide for his reengineering and change management insight. He is co-author of Reengineering the Corporation, a best-seller which sold more than two million copies and was on the New York Times best-seller list for more than a year; it has been translated into 17 languages. His follow-up book, Reengineering Management, is also a best-seller and was recognized by Business Week as one of the best business books of 1995. He coauthored, with Harvard Business School Professor Nitin Nohria, The Arc of Ambition. Mr. Champy also collaborated with Professor Nohria for the book Fast Forward, which is a compilation of significant Harvard Business Review articles on change; it was published in March 1996.

Mr. Champy also wrote X-engineering the Corporation, Reinventing Your Business in the Digital Age. In this work, Mr. Champy takes up the opportunity and challenge for cross-organizational process design and collaboration.

Mr. Champy has moderated programs for the PBS Business Channel and he has also been a guest on Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser. His columns on management have appeared in ComputerWorld, Sales & Marketing Management, and Forbes magazine.

Mr. Champy received both his bachelor's and master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his law degree from Boston College Law School. He is a life member of the MIT Corporation, the school's board of trustees, and a member of the Board of Overseers of the Boston College Law School. He also serves on the Board of Analog Devices, Inc., a world leader in high performance signal processing solutions, based in Norwood, MA.