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1. Introduction
Design has increasingly become a major competitive weapon in today’s competition. An increasing number of firms in fact have recognized the importance of design and design driven innovation as a mean to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Firms are also recognizing that in today’s business dynamics, where innovation has become the basic rule of competition, the core capability of managers is their attitude to activate and master the processes of innovation. Strategic thinking, vision creation, generation and management of innovation in highly uncertain environments, integration of networks of internal and external resources, teamworking, creativity, and leadership, are the core skills of tomorrow’s top designers and managers.
1.1. Objectives
Participants to the Business Innovation course will develop a specific sensibility and capability to manage design driven innovation. More specifically they will become designers who:
* Define strategies where design is a source of competitive advantage;
* Are capable to understand both technological trends, explicit and latent user needs, and socio-cultural trends, together with a capability to interpret competitive dynamics in industries;
* Generate and develop visions that are based on a deep understanding of the future dynamics of: competition, society, and technology;
* Define marketing strategies that are appropriate for design driven innovations;
* Define technology strategies that sustain design driven innovation with a strong and inimitable technological competence;
* Manage innovation processes and projects, where design is a source of innovation;
* Create organizational environments that foster creativity and learning;
* Are capable to manage a firm as a crucial node within a network, by leveraging on both internal and external resources, exchanging knowledge and defining partnerships with multiple actors;
* Have a special attitude to management in design intensive industries.
1.2. Main contents
The course is composed by two macro-areas:
1. Strategy of Innovation: innovation and competitive advantage; challenges and barriers to innovation; approaches to innovation: technology push, market pull (user centered design), design push (design-driven innovation);
2. Management of Innovation: innovation sources; collaborative innovation; organizing the new product development process.
2. Rules
Coherently with its objectives, the course is organized around two main activities: lectures and projects. Specifically, projects will be developed by teams identified since the beginning of the course.
2.1. Lectures
Each lecture faces a specific topic and is particularly interactive to the point that also the participation will partially influence the final evaluation. In order to facilitate the assessment of the students' participation each student has to send before October, the 14th (claudio.dellera@polimi.it and alessandro.sala@polimi.it) the following information:
* ID Number (matricola);
* Name and Surname;
* Passport Photo (electronic version).
2.2. Projects
During the course student teams will develop projects adopting the Design Driven approach in collaboration with an industrial partner. Projects will be developed through two different kinds of activities:
* the scenario building phase will be managed during the Enlightening Workshop (November, the 11th, 18th and December, the 02nd). The workshop will be organized and managed by the Professors;
* the concept development phase will be managed during the Team Working Sessions (December, the 16th and 23rd). These sessions will be managed autonomously by the teams; Professors will be present as usual lecture and can support the teams. In other words these sessions can be interpreted as design reviews.
Student teams will present their concepts on January, the 13th and the 20th. Student teams have to send before January, the 10th (claudio.dellera@polimi.it and alessandro.sala@polimi.it) the project report (maximum 10.000 words) adopting the following agenda:
PART A: SCENARIO BUILDING
* Competitive analysis of the industry in which the innovation has been launched (the market, the competitors, their offerings and positioning, the critical success factors)
* Small synthesis about the Enlightening Workshop
* Description of the scenarios developed during the Enlightening Workshop
* Detailed description of the selected scenario
PART B: CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
* The user and the context of use
* The user needs (utilitarian and emotional)
* The concept: meaning and performance
* Positioning (why your products is different than those of competitors)
* Uniqueness (why your product is better than those of competitors)
* Explaining the concept: metaphors, storyboard, billboard, moodboard, etc.
* Product features: functions, languages
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