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SI 451
Organizing for Design and Innovation
Spring 2011
TR 2:00 – 3:30 Room 220
Course Overview:
This course examines how managers and leaders can create the
conditions for innovation at the individual, team and organizational levels –
and how those conditions differ for startup and mature organizations.
Managing innovation includes the generation of ideas; the integration of
those ideas into new product concepts; and the commercialization of those
ideas. While core strategy courses address the questions of what innovations
to pursue and whether and when those innovations will bring value, this
course addresses the question of how managers can create organizations to
deliver sustainable innovations of value.
Thus, the course will focus on the practices, processes and structures
that mangers need to put in place to enable organizations to execute on an
innovation based strategy. In doing so, students will evaluate how to balance
the challenges of organizing, managing and leading innovation with the need
to produce concrete, routine and expected outcomes within the organization.
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Course Objectives:
Course Requirements:
Participation 25%
2 Individual Written Assignments 25%
In class case analysis 20%
Group Project 30%
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earned by sharing relevant innovation stories, research and links that are
relevant to the class either in class or through the class website on SMG
tools.
Attendance is critical for your learning in the class – if you cannot attend
class, notify me in advance via e-mail. I will cold call (ask you to speak
even if you have not volunteered) so it is a good idea to do the readings,
reflect on the discussion questions and come prepared for discussion for
every class. Attendance is necessary but insufficient for securing
an A for participation. Perfect attendance with little other
evidence of involvement or preparation will result in a C for
participation.
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3) In class case analysis – will constitute 20% of your grade. You will
be asked to read a case and answer some questions about it, applying
what you have learned thus far in the course. Answers will be submitted
by class end to SMG tools on Tuesday March 8th. The analysis will be
“open book”, but I do not expect external sources to be of much help as
what will matter is your ability to think through the innovation dilemma
faced in the case. The basis for assessment will be your ability to apply
what you have learned about design and innovation to both analyze the
nature of the dilemma and how you might resolve it.
4) Group Project - ‘Turn Around Teams’ – You are free to form your own
groups of 4-6 people to rescue or “turn around” an innovative product or
service that is flat or stalled in its adoption. This will constitute 30% of
your grade. Innovations that are new to the world do not always take
hold right away and may require retooling and redesigning before gaining
widespread adoption. Consider that handheld computers were on the
market for almost 20 years before they were widely adopted. Many
companies that invested resources in the handheld market failed until Jeff
Hawkins at Palm computing simplified the design and functionality of the
Palm pilot.
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Your group will select an innovation that may end up in the large discard
pile that includes such things as external zip drives, vacuum tube
computer monitors and walkmans. Will Tivo be next? Consider that
competition for the survival of new products can come from external or
internal sources. For example, Apple’s own introduction of the ipod touch
could cannibalize their existing line of ipods.
I) Analyze why your innovation has not met with the success that was
expected. This will be due for review on March 3rd. It will not
be graded but I will provide feedback to the team on March
10th.
III) Align and structure the product team to achieve this course of
action.
After analyzing what went wrong, you may decide to change your
business model or stop production or redeploy organizational resources.
Regardless of the action you choose, it will be critical for your team to
justify the course of action you choose and to properly align and structure
your organization to pursue the selected course of action. That is, you will
not be graded according to what you choose, but on the analytics and
coherence of your plan.
The project will consist of a 10-12 page group paper analyzing the three
areas outlined above: the factors responsible for the demise of this
innovation; your planned course of action and how you will achieve it. If
possible, interview members of your organization to gather ideas.
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Your turnaround team will make a group presentation on the final three
days of class. This presentation, combined with the paper, is worth 40%
of your grade. The paper will be due on April 28. Each member of the
group will be asked to evaluate every other group member anonymously
on the last day of class on the following dimensions: attendance at group
meetings, effort, meeting deadlines, and quality of work. Individual
student ratings will be adjusted according to the group feedback.
Class Deadlines
Tues Feb 3: Group Project team descriptions due (before start of class
in paper form)
Thurs March 3: Group Project Part I assessment due (for feedback only, not
graded)
“Why hasn’t this innovation met with the success that was
expected?”
Thurs March 31: Individual Assignment #2 due (before start of class SMG
tools)
Thurs April 28: Final paper due (before start of class in paper form)
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Schedule of Classes
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Class # Date
Module 1: Innovation and Design Thinking
1
Professor Tues Jan 18
O’Mahony What is Innovation Spring 2011
2 Thurs Jan 20 Introducing Design Thinking
3 Tues Jan 25 Design Thinking and Innovation at Apple
*4 Assignment
* Indicates Thurs Jan 27 User Centered Design (Don Norman)
Due
Module 2: Building Organizational Capabilities for Innovation
5 Tues Feb 1 Creating the Organizational Context for
Innovation
*6 Thurs Feb 3 Designing and Managing Innovation Teams
(Satera)
Module 3: Experimenting and Prototyping Innovative Ideas
7 Tues Feb 8 Developing Flexible Development Processes
(Internet Time)
8 Thurs Feb 10 Learning from Lead Users (3M)
9 Tues Feb 15 Simulation and Experimentation (Team New
Zealand)
10 Thurs Feb 17 Designing Repeatable Innovation Processes
(IDEO)
Tues Feb 22 NO CLASS – Monday Schedule
Module 4: Design Based Innovation Strategies
11 Thurs Feb 24 Designing Products for Function (OXO)
12 Tues March 1 Designing Products for Form (Alessi)
*13 Thurs March From Products to Business Models (Bang &
3 Olufsen)
*14 Tues March 8 Design & Innovation of Services (Bank of
America) in class case analysis
15 Thurs March Group Project Meetings
10
SPRING BREAK
Module 5: Managing and Designing Innovation Communities
16 Tues March Managing Innovation Communities (Firefox)
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17 Thurs March External Sources of Innovation (Connect &
24 Develop)
18 Tues March Innovation Tournaments (Cisco)
29
Module 6: Managing R&D Risk & Large Scale Ventures
*19 Thurs March Managing R&D Product Portfolio (Le Petit Chef)
31
20 Tues April 5 Managing High Risk Ventures (Iridium)
21 Thurs April 7 Managing High Risk Ventures (Cape Wind)
Module 7: Balancing Exploration and Exploitation
22 Tues April 12 The Innovator’s Dilemma (Encyclopedia
Britannica)
23 Thurs April Balancing Innovation with On-going Operations
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24 Tues April 19 Exploring the Innovation Landscape (Intel
Research)
Thurs April NO CLASS – Monday Schedule
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25 Tues April 26 Leading for creativity and innovation
*26 Thurs April FINAL PRESENTATIONS
8
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In Class Handout:
Thomke, S. 2000. “Developing Products on Internet Time: A
Process Design Exercise” 600121.
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---SPRING BREAK----
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In Class Handouts
O’Mahony, Siobhán and Nikhil Raj. 2007. “The Mozilla
Foundation: Launching Firefox 1.0,” (B) Harvard Business
School Case 907-025.
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