Innovation Process

(Elective Course)

Innovation Process is a course that invites you to explore the theory and practice of innovation, from a variety of perspectives.  We explore and critique more than a half-dozen contemporary innovation paradigms—including Open Innovation, Lean Startup, Agile, Continuous Discovery, Network-Centric Innovation, and Design Thinking. In parallel with all this, the course gives you a practical experience doing innovation—as a member of a student team working on a cycle of innovation for a real client company. The course explores how to choose or design an approach to innovation that is appropriate for your organization—an approach that “fits—as well as the ways your organization may need to evolve its structure and culture so the firm can nurture (rather than squelch) innovation. Additionally, the course explores the leadership skills needed to make all this happen, at all levels of the organization—from the team level to the organization as a whole (this includes “leading from below”). The course emphasizes the role of consumer insight, brand strategy, integrated marketing communications, and data, as well as the role of computation (digitization or “Uberization”) in the transformation of modern business.