Apply for the Fall 2013 Practicum
** PLEASE NOTE: Courses listed as Required, Core, Elective, or Practicum are approved to fulfill the designated requirement of the Program in Entrepreneurship. Courses listed as Courses of Interest are related to entrepreneurship but have not been officially approved to count toward the Program. Students taking a non-approved course may petition to have the course fulfill a Program requirement.
| Required Courses | Description |
|---|---|
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ENTR 407 — Entrepreneurship Hour (1cr, Pass/Fail) |
This seminar series is designed to expose students to entrepreneurship through interaction with experienced entrepreneurs, business leaders, and venture capitalists as well as individuals involved in emerging business models, new venture creation, and technology commercialization. While covering a broad set of engineering disciplines, guest speakers will share their knowledge on the latest, most diverse practices on legal, financial, and other innovation issues. The lectures include leading entrepreneurs and executives, technology innovators, experts from the financial markets, and others who support the entrepreneurial infrastructure. Following these seminars, students will be able to meet the guest speakers along with other members of the entrepreneurial community. |
| Core Courses | Description |
|---|---|
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ARCH 506.005 — Launching Design Practices (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course is for emerging entrepreneurs in the design professions –- from architects and engineers to industrial designers -- who want to develop a design service and/or product idea through a simulated launch experience. Based in a creative workshop/seminar setting, students will individually complete and present weekly assignments and, in turn, collaboratively contribute to the evolving startups of fellow students. The weekly assignments will introduce the core essentials of design business entrepreneurship, including: design market research, positioning, branding, pitching, logo/identity design, legal/ownership modeling, finance and budgeting, strategic business planning, operational/space planning, brochure design, website design, proposal writing and interviewing. The final launch will be a mock interview before a distinguished guest panel of prospective “clients”. Each student will assemble their course assignments into a cumulative “Startup Portfolio”, which will serve as a useful reference and template for a future (real) venture. Evaluations will be based on both individual and collaborative efforts. |
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ARCH 506.102 — Launching Design Practices (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course is for emerging entrepreneurs in the design professions –- from architects and engineers to industrial designers -- who want to develop a design service and/or product idea through a simulated launch experience. Based in a creative workshop/seminar setting, students will individually complete and present weekly assignments and, in turn, collaboratively contribute to the evolving startups of fellow students. The weekly assignments will introduce the core essentials of design business entrepreneurship, including: design market research, positioning, branding, pitching, logo/identity design, legal/ownership modeling, finance and budgeting, strategic business planning, operational/space planning, brochure design, website design, proposal writing and interviewing. The final launch will be a mock interview before a distinguished guest panel of prospective “clients”. Each student will assemble their course assignments into a cumulative “Startup Portfolio”, which will serve as a useful reference and template for a future (real) venture. Evaluations will be based on both individual and collaborative efforts. |
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ARTDES 314.001 — Change by Design (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
In this project-based class, students will respond to pressing social needs through design thinking processes, including visioning, concept generation, sketching ideas, everyday ethnography, creative experimentation, and extensive prototyping and validation. Students will form interdisciplinary teams to work on actual entrepreneurial design projects focused on food, education, health care and income issues facing our community partners. As part of the course, students will meet together with ENGR 390.002 Innovation through Social Entrepreneurship in order to acquire the theoretical frameworks and skills necessary for undertaking a social enterprise. They will then use those tools to design and develop their own ideas for a social venture that creates possibilities, products and systems in response to real world problems. Note: ARTDES 314.001 meet together with ENGR 390.002, so there is no need to enroll in both courses. |
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DESCI 501 — Analytical Product Design (3cr, Graded) |
The design of artifacts is addressed from the multidisciplinary perspective that includes engineering, art, psychology, marketing, and economics. Using a decision-making framework, emphasis is places on understanding basic quantitative methods employed by the different disciplines for making design decisions, building mathematical models, and accounting for interdisciplinary interactions throughout the design and development process. Students work in teams to apply the methods on design project from concept generation to prototyping and design verification. |
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EECS 441.001 — Mobile App Development for Entrepreneurs (3cr, Graded) |
Mobile App Development for Entrepreneurs --- Best practices in the software engineering of mobile applications and best practices of software entrepreneurs in the design, production and marketing of mobile apps. Students will engage in the hands-on practice of entrepreneurship by actually inventing, building, and marketing their own mobile apps. |
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ENGR/CHE 405. — Problem Solving, Troubleshooting, Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, and Making the Transition to the Workplace (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
The goals of this course are to help students hone and enhance their problem solving, critical thinking, creative thinking, and troubleshooting skills and to ease the transition from college to the workplace. The course will invite outside speakers to address the class. Students work in teams to complete the home problems, interactive computer problems, and the term project. |
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ENGR/EECS 406 — High Tech Entrepreneurship (4cr, Graded) |
Course description coming soon. |
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ENGR 520 — Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals for Scientists & Engineers (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course provides students with a perspective in looking to form or join startup companies and those that are looking to create corporate value via industrial research. The students are taught the entrepreneurial business development screening tools necessary to translate opportunities into businesses with focus on: strategy, finance, and market positioning. |
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ENGR 521 — Clean Tech Entrepreneurship (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course teaches the students how to screen venture opportunities in various cleantech domains. Venture assessments are approached through strategic, financial and market screens, and consider the impact of policy and regulatory constraints on the business opportunity. A midterm, final project, and six homework assignments are required. |
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FIN/ES 329.001 — Financing Research Commercialization Practicum (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course is a practicum, offering an opportunity to apply collective team work of a student/mentor alliance to building a launch pad for a technology-based venture. This course is open to Ross School MBA and BBA students as well as all UM graduate students. Student teams will work with mentors and principal investigators (PI) from UM faculty in the Medical School, College of Engineering and other divisions to build a business and marketing plan for a new technology or invention. Projects are based upon disclosures made to UM Office of Technology Transfer, other universities and industrial companies. Cross-listed with: Fin 329. This course is taught in the evening by David Brophy. |
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FIN/ES 629. — Financing Research Commercialization Practicum (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course is a practicum, offering an opportunity to apply collective team work of a student/mentor alliance to building a launch pad for a technology-based venture. This course is open to Ross School MBA and BBA students as well as all UM graduate students. Student teams will work with mentors and principal investigators (PI) from UM faculty in the Medical School, College of Engineering and other divisions to build a business and marketing plan for a new technology or invention. Projects are based upon disclosures made to UM Office of Technology Transfer, other universities and industrial companies. Cross-listed with: Fin 329. This course is taught in the evening by David Brophy. |
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IOE 422 — Entrepreneurship (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
IOE 422 is a course designed for seniors who want to learn what it means to be an entrepreneur, learn what is involved in starting new ventures, and understand and apply an entrepreneurial mindset to their personal and professional lives. Students will develop and present new business concepts, including market research, competitive analysis and risk assessment. Students will also work in teams to develop and present complete business models for a new venture, write a business plan, and develop detailed financial projections. The class is structured as a combination of lectures, discussion, and guest presentations by experienced entrepreneurs from a number of fields. Grades are based on individual and team assignments, class participation, and homework assignments. |
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SI 663 — Entrepreneurship in the Information Industry (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
The course helps to prepare students to start businesses in the information industry or to work effectively in new start-up businesses. It discusses all the aspects of creating a business and expects students to develop an idea into a business plan that could be used to either guide the creation of the business or secure funding for a new business. Non-profit organizations often require the same entrepreneurial skills as start-up businesses. Business Plans that are submitted will be carefully checked for plagiarism. Any violations of the Rackham rules will be dealt with severely. Neatness counts in all submitted work, just as it would in the business world. Class attendance will be taken. Grades will be affected by attendance and lateness. Participation in class discussions will be appropriately rewarded. |
| Elective Courses | Description |
|---|---|
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EECS/ENGR 410.001 — Patent Fundamentals for Engineers (4cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course covers the fundaments of patents as intellectual property and is geared for undergraduate and graduate students whether in Engineering or any other field. Note that since students will be working in groups, it is not necessary that every student have a “ready-to-patent” idea. In addition, the course will cover the new America Invents Act – the first major overhaul of the U.S. patent system in 60 years. The first part of the course introduces intellectual property generally and patents specifically. It focuses on rules and techniques needed for investigating the background of an invention (“prior art”) and drafting a description of the invention (a “claim”). The second part of the course focuses on the strategies and methodology for drafting a patent specification and the rules for working with the U.S. Patent Office to obtain a patent. We will cover in summary form most parts of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP), with a special emphasis on Examination of Patents and Patentability of Applications. The third part of the course explores what happens after the Patent Office issues a patent. We will examine post-issuance review in the Patent Office and litigation techniques used to overturn patents. Finally, the ethics codes and licensing agreements are covered briefly. At the end of the course the students should be able to write a draft patent application for their invention, including the claims, which are the most important part of a patent. The best claims are those that fully cover the key aspects of the invention without impinging on prior art. |
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ENGR 390.007 — Intro to Design Process (2cr, Graded) |
This course will examine processes of design, focusing on the front-end of design, including opportunity discovery, problem definition, developing mechanisms to gather data from users and other stakeholders, translating user data into design requirements, creating innovative solutions during concept generation, and evaluating possible solutions. The strategies taught in the course are based on successful methods experts use to achieve design success, and are supplemented by readings on practice and research demonstrating their success. Coursework will focus on applications in various real-life design situations. This is a great way to prepare for your future design and entrepreneurship projects, capstone classes, and career! Course registration requires permission of the instructor. If you would like a place in this course please send a brief note to Dr. Shanna Daly (srdaly@umich.edu) specifying why you would like to be in the course |
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ENTR 390.002 — Leading Innovation Through Social Entrepreneurship (1cr, Graded) |
The Intro to Social Entrepreneurship Course is designed as a gateway to the emerging field of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship practices innovative and sustainable solutions to transform, and in many instances, save human lives. Rather than assuming these needs can be met or answered by government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading others to take leaps in thinking and behavior. In this course, you will be provided with a broad conceptual framework to social entrepreneurship and be exposed to various local, national, and international social entrepreneurs to explore the skill sets necessary to effect change in a sustainable manner. We will draw heavily upon the practices and principles of design thinking, teaching you key skills of community engagement, visualization, ideation and prototype creation. |
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ENTR 408 — Patent Law (1cr, Graded) |
Inventors and entrepreneurs have four concerns related to patent law: protecting inventions during product development, determining invention patentability, avoiding infringement, and leveraging a patent as a business asset. This course addresses these concerns through the application of case law and business cases to an invention of a student's choice. |
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ENTR 409 — Venture Business Development (1cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course prepares students to identify and evaluate commercial opportunities for emerging technologies. Emphasis is on design and evaluation of business models and methods necessary for rapid, rigorous analysis of these models. Students will develop preliminary business models and evaluate possible commercial opportunities. |
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ENTR 415.001 — Entrepreneurial Ownership (1.5cr, Graded) |
Today, most new entrepreneurs are ill-equipped to make strategic decisions on the ownership structure of their organizations. To address this need, the CFE is launching the course, “Entrepreneurial Ownership” in Winter 2011. This course is designed to provide an analytical framework to improve entrepreneurs’ understanding of individual and shared ownership models in their organizations. It will also enhance entrepreneurial skills and capabilities, improve the understanding of the way alternative ownership decisions affect organizational dynamics, and take an in depth look at specific mechanisms that entrepreneurs can use to create positive ownership outcomes. |
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ENTR 417 — Entrepreneurship Hour Discussion Session (1cr, Graded) |
This class is a complimentary, graded discussion group to ENTR 407. In this one-credit course, students will learn about, discuss and debate the key characteristics of entrepreneurship and learn how to apply it to their own life goals. A brief weekly assignment is required. |
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ENTR 599.002 — Entrepreneurial Market Strategy (1.5cr, Graded)
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The importance of marketing to the entrepreneurial enterprise cannot be overstated, as the success of any new venture is highly dependent on the successful integration of both technical and commercial competences. This course presents a pragmatic methodology to develop a marketing competence in new ventures. The course will progress in a disciplined manner through the major marketing strategy and executional questions any new venture must consider and will present methods to answer them. Students will be expected to apply the concepts presented in class to a new venture or project and coalesce their thinking into a Business Model that will be shared and critiqued by the members of the class. The new venture can be drawn from the student’s general interest or it might be centered around a specific business opportunity that the student hopes to turn into a company. The subject of the Business Model project can also be an existing company of the students’ choosing in need of expansion and repositioning. The course lectures will be geared to help students develop a disciplined methodology to answer the following questions: 1. What is the Fundamental Objective of the New Venture? 2. What is the Opportunity for the New Venture? 3. Who should be our customers? 4. What is our compelling value proposition 5. How do we effectively articulate the value proposition? 6. How will we capture value? 7. What Channels of Communication and Distribution should we use? |
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ENTR 599.004/ENTR 599.014 — Legal Basics for Entrepreneurs (1cr, Graded) |
In this course, engineering and law students will form teams to examine case studies that highlight critical legal issues related to entrepreneurship. These issues include choice of business entity, enterprise funding, structuring profit and capital interests, intellectual property, exits and transitions, along with communication between entrepreneurs and lawyers. This course meets together with Law 411 Entrepreneurial Businesses. |
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ENTR 599.006 — Creativity, Innovation, and Design (3cr, Graded) |
In this course, students will learn how to become an active participant in and a leader of the scalable innovation process. Students will train in a new way of thinking (systems thinking), where the focus shifts from evaluating problems and developing possible solutions in the traditional, localized mode of "creativity" to the more global, scalable mode of innovation, business creation and engineering design. This training will consist of readings, lectures, and exercises in systems analysis, divergent and convergent thinking, thinking in exponential scales, and using these approaches for more effective problem identification, problem evaluation, and problem solving, all of which form the foundation for effective entrepreneurship. |
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ES 520 — Clean Tech Venture Opportunities (1.5cr, Graded) |
In 2006, CleanTech became the third-largest sector for venture investment ($2.9 Bn), indicating the potential for economic growth in this technology innovation space. The growth in this area is primarily driven by investments in Energy, with lesser investment in Water, Transportation, Advanced Materials, Manufacturing and Agriculture. Clean technologies have the opportunity to deliver dramatic improvements in resource efficiency and productivity, creating more economic value with less energy and materials, or less waste and toxicity. CleanTech Entrepreneurship will focus on value creation in this space, with emphasis on how strategic business drivers (e.g. regulation, subsidy, and market valuation) influence innovation and investment, and how this may impact research hypotheses and needs. The perspective provides in this course will be valuable for students that are both looking to form or join startup companies as well as for those that are looking to create corporate value via industrial research. |
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ES 569 — Managing the Growth of New Ventures (1.5cr, Graded) |
New entrepreneurial ventures, once successfully past the formation stage, often encounter problems caused by their very rapid growth. Different functional and technical skills are needed. More reliable information is a must. External support groups (bankers, attorneys, accountants, and investors) and new company employees both have to be integrated into the goals and operations of the firm. The activities of the entrepreneur have to change, from innovation to delegation, communication, and organization. This is a very basic change that many entrepreneurs never make. The purpose of the course is to convey in a very pragmatic fashion the reason, the areas, the tools, and the urgency of that critical leadership change. |
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FIN 325.001 — Entrepreneurial Finance (3cr, Graded) |
This course is open to all BBA students and presents the fundamentals of venture capital and private equity finance. It is focused on financing startup and early stage, technology-based firms, later stage investment and buyouts. The course covers venture capital and private equity market structure and institutional arrangements and the application of financial theory and methods in a venture capital and private equity setting. Four men aspects of venture capital and private equity are covered: valuation, deal structuring, governance, and harvesting. "Live" case studies are used to demonstrate the practical, hands-on application of techniques following their development in class. |
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MKT 325 — New Product & Innovation Management (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course is designed focus on the new product development process which is key to the success of any organization. The course will expose students to (a) creative techniques for idea generation, (b) fine-tuning these ideas to develop products and services that meet specific consumer needs, and (c) testing the feasibility of these ideas. The course uses lectures, cases, and outside speakers. Moreover, the course includes a project wherein student teams need to use the creativity techniques covered in this class to come up with new product ideas and perform a concept test to evaluate their feasibility. The course will be useful to students interested in product/brand management, management consulting, and entrepreneurship. |
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MKT 625 — New Product & Innovation Management (2.25cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
Innovation and development of new products and services are essential for the success of any organization. At the same time, the same time, designing and launching new products is risky. Managing the new product development therefore involves identifying new product ideas that have great potential and lowering the risk of their failure. This course discusses the stages in the new product development process and avenues for making the process more productive. Specific topics covered include creative techniques for idea generation, designing new products and services using analytical techniques, sales forecasting, testing, and tactics and strategies for new product launch. The course uses lectures, cases, and outside speakers. Moreover, the course includes a project wherein student teams will use the creativity techniques covered in this class to come up with new product ideas and perform a concept test in order to evaluate their feasibility. The course has a quantitative focus and delves on issues that are very relevant to managers on a day to day basis. The course will be especially useful for those interested in product/brand management, management consulting, and entrepreneurship. |
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PSYCH 487.002 — Social Psychology of Entrepreneurship (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
Entrepreneurship, to many people, is difficult to define and can represent a mysterious outcome by which new businesses are started. Entrepreneurship, though, not only involves the creation of new firms, but it can also occur within existing organizations-whether in the pursuit of profit or other social goals. Further, regardless of where entrepreneurship occurs, the process not only involves enterprising individuals, but also the availability of opportunities, which can be created, discovered, and exploited. A person could be creative and enterprising but this does not guarantee the creation or discovery of opportunities. In this course a major focus will thus be on the concept and study of opportunities, which we will pursue by considering the social context in which they are embedded and the psychological and behavioral processes that influence their creation, recognition, evaluation, and exploitation. The course material will be based on scholarly articles and cases on entrepreneurship and related subjects, and the class format will involve group presentations, lecture, class exercises, and active discussion in a seminar format. |
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SI 622.001 — Evaluation of Systems and Services (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
Covers the key concepts of evaluation and a variety of methods used to determine the goals of a system or service, performs organizational analysis, assesses task/technology or service fit, determines ease of learning of new or existing services or systems, determines ease of use, assesses aspects of performance (including information retrieval), and evaluates the success in accomplishing the user/organizational goals. Methods include observation, survey, interviews, performance analysis, evaluation in the design/iteration cycle, usability tests, and assessment of systems in use. |
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UARTS 250 — Creative Process (4cr, Graded) |
This is a class where students are encouraged, in an interdisciplinary way, to explore their own creativity. Faculty with training in Architecture, Visual Arts, Music and Engineering will teach students their own approaches to creativity within their fields, and encourage students to find their own approaches (in and out of their current stated disciplines). Students will be expected and encouraged to explore creativity without thinking about disciplinary boundaries. Students will have short 2-week “workshops” with each faculty member, as well as work on a Final Project, either on their own, or in an interdisciplinary team of their own creation. This course is team taught. Course coordinator: Stephen Rush. Professors: Gregory Saldana, Michael Gould, Elona Van Gent, Herbert Winful. |
| Practicum Courses | Description |
|---|---|
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ENTR 411 — Entrepreneurship Practicum (3cr, Graded) Instructor(s): Sec 2: Moses Lee Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
The Practicum immerses students in the entrepreneurial process in a supportive classroom environment. Students critically evaluate and then pursue the development of their own ideas for new ventures. Throughout the course, students work closely with entrepreneurship faculty and successful entrepreneurs. The expected work volume of the practicum is estimated to be equivalent to 9-12 hours per week for a 14-week time-period. Enrollment is by application only. |
| COURSES OF INTEREST* | Description |
|---|---|
| *Note: Courses of Interest are not pre-approved for the Program in Entrepreneurship. Students enrolled in a non-preapproved entrepreneurial course may petition to have the course fulfill a Program requirement. | |
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BA 201.002 and .003 — Business Thought and Action (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course has been developed specifically to introduce students outside the Ross School of Business to the general topic of business. The purpose of the course is not to simply survey business topics, but rather to investigate theme of business from a variety of perspectives in order to develop a deeper understanding of the myriad implications of business practice in our lives. Toward that end, the course will leverage traditional business cases, notes, and simulations, but will also rely on three canon books: a biography of Steve Jobs, an autobiography of PT Barnum, and a collection of essays by Alain de Botton. These books will be discussed throughout the semester in order to give a sense of context to each week’s topic. Each class will center on a key case and supplementary readings; the class will include a brief lecture on the weekly topic, then a discussion of the case. At the conclusion of each class there will be a brief quiz to help students gauge their understanding of key class concepts and takeaways. |
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BA 201.101 — Business Thought and Action (3cr, Graded) |
This course has been developed specifically to introduce students outside the Ross School of Business to the general topic of business. The purpose of the course is not to simply survey business topics, but rather to investigate theme of business from a variety of perspectives in order to develop a deeper understanding of the myriad implications of business practice in our lives. Toward that end, the course will leverage traditional business cases, notes, and simulations, but will also rely on three canon books: a biography of Steve Jobs, an autobiography of PT Barnum, and a collection of essays by Alain de Botton. These books will be discussed throughout the semester in order to give a sense of context to each week’s topic. |
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BA 612.001 — Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid (2.25cr, Graded) |
Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid (BA612) explores the alignment between the development communities’ growing interest in identifying new poverty alleviation perspectives and efforts to expand the role of market-based ventures in serving the needs of the poor. The goal of the course is to provide you with practical concepts, tools, and frameworks for developing and evaluating business approaches that address unmet societal needs of the base of the pyramid (BoP), the four billion low-income people who live in the informal sector in the developing world. Using a carefully crafted set of case studies, simulations, videos, and readings, we will apply these ideas to assess the efforts of companies, non-profits, and development agencies implementing BoP ventures in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.To help students gain a first-hand understanding of on-going work in the field, the course also includes two 3-hour lab sessions focused on interaction and shared learning. |
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ENGLISH 407.001 — Topics in Language & Literature Topics in Language and Literature: Ambiguity (3cr, Graded) |
Ambiguity is fundamental to natural language and thus to art and all social behaviors. Do you see what I mean? (The word “see” in that question does not mean “use your eyes,” although its meaning in that question has a deep evolutionary connection to one’s eyes. “See” is thus ambiguous in that question, because the question could have been meant to ask, “Are you using your eyes to read this question?” Now, highlighting the meaning of “see” as “understand,” what meanings can you “read” in the graphic above?) Sometimes we notice ambiguity quite readily: "I walked down the street and turned into a drugstore." Sometimes we have to think twice to realize that something is ambiguous: "Flying planes can be dangerous." Sometimes we almost can't believe that something is ambiguous, but it is: "I love you." Course goal: To recognize, enjoy, create, resist, and use ambiguity for more effective communication and organizational behavior. |
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ENGR 390 — Imagine Innovate Act (3cr, Graded) |
Imagine and create innovative mobile technologies to enhance mindfulness through the day. Mindfulness is defined as being able to bring harmony between knowledge (resources) and action and is now becoming one of the most important ingredients in wellness. Students taking this course will create “GPS-like” technology to help the user map out and stay on the desired path to wellness. |
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ENTR 599.001 / ENGR 599.003 — Education Entrepreneurship Workshop for Teachers (1cr, Pass/Fail) |
In this workshop, students will learn a theoretical framework for education entrepreneurship, as well as explore the individual skills and will necessary to respond to complex social needs both inside and outside the classroom. Students will be placed on teams throughout the mini-course to engage in hands-on activities, case studies, competitions, and a final presentation. The objective of this course is to inspire and begin equipping students to become innovative leaders in education:
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ENTR 390.003/BA201.001 — Business Entrepreneurship in Thought and Action (3cr, Graded) |
Course description coming soon. |
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MO 463.101 — Creativity at Work (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course is designed to introduce the student to the practices necessary to stimulate and manage creativity in a business. Students will be given frameworks and methods for designing, developing, and implementing creativity in real work situations. The aim of the course is to provide students with the perspective and skill base necessary to manage creative projects, people, and ventures. Each class will consist of two basic components: 1) a theatrical framework, and 2) a methodology or tool. Each segment of the course is designed to engage the student in a conceptual and experiential application of creativity practices that will be applied to a real challenge. |
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ORGSTUDY 201.001 — Leadership and Collaboration (4cr, Graded) |
This project-based class uses organizational sociology, psychology, economics, and political science to ask what good leadership is and how people can be effective leaders when they lack formal authority. Practical exercises, academic readings, and leader profiles ground this exploration of collaborative leadership, a process with deep roots in Michigan organizational research. |
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PSYCH 467.001 — The Psychology of Innovation: Creating a New Enterprise (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
This course is about innovators and entrepreneurs. Are they different from the rest of us? Do they think and act in distinctive ways? Innovators and entrepreneurs are people who put their new ideas to use in the world. Their dream may be to create a new business, help a disadvantaged group or save the environment, but beneath the surface they share a common set of strategies. We will learn how they frame problems, marshal persuasive tactics and manage cooperation as they turn their vision into a new enterprise. Students will reach a more complete understanding by actually doing some of the things that entrepreneurs and innovators do. Seminar participants will have a chance to interview innovators and entrepreneurs, work in teams, and make brief presentations of their own entrepreneurial project ideas. Seminar participants will be responsible for specific readings and a final paper based on their own project. |
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SI 422.001 — Evaluation of Systems and Services (3cr, Graded) Syllabus: Link to syllabus |
Any product--whether a website, a technological system, or an electronically mediated service--benefits from evaluation before, during, and after the development cycle. Too often, the people who use a product cannot find what they want or accomplish what they need to do. Products are more successful when they are developed through a process that identifies how the products will be used, elicits input from potential users, and watches how the product function in real time with real users. This course provides a hands--on introduction to methods used throughout the entire evaluation process--from identifying the goals of the product, picturing who will use it, engaging users through a variety of formative evaluation techniques, and confirming a product's function through usability testing and summative evaluation. Specific methods include personas and scenarios, competitive analysis, observation, surveys, interviews, data analysis, heuristic evaluation, usability testing, and task analysis. Students will work on group projects that apply these techniques to real products in use or development. |
