Innovation and Design Thinking

This course provides participants an integral view of deploying a coherent technology strategy with a focus on factors necessary for driving market success. The course helps participants understand the importance of product innovation in business, frameworks and methods of evaluation, and steps to implementing product innovation. The participants explore the required elements that can be used to drive innovation within their company, especially with the use of a human-centered design approach – termed as design thinking. All of these elements come together to help crystallize the Digital Business transition and transformation of an organization.

Faculty

Prof. Ian Larkin

Prof. Ian Larkin

Professor

Ian Larkin is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy group at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He researches the optimal use of formal rewards systems by companies, given the complex and often unanticipated effects these systems have on employee motivation and decision making. His research quantifying the cost incurred by a major enterprise software vendor due to salespeople deliberately gaming their sales commission system, published in The Journal of Labor Economics, is one of the most prominently cited empirical studies of incentive system gaming. It was the basis for a case study widely used in MBA classes on compensation and human resource management.

His recent research focuses on corporate awards and other programs companies use to formally recognize employee performance, and demonstrates that these programs often have unintended costs, such as the demotivation of some employee groups. A final stream of research investigates physician prescribing decisions in light of different sales tactics used by pharmaceutical sales representatives. His research has been discussed in a variety of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes and National Public Radio.

Ian teaches the core Business Strategy course at Anderson. Before coming to Anderson, he was a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School, where he taught an elective MBA course on human resource management, as well as several executive education courses. He received a Ph.D. from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and a M.Sc. from the University of London, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Ian worked as an Associate and Engagement Manager for McKinsey and Company, based in Hong Kong and Silicon Valley.

Ian’s hobbies include cooking, traveling and supporting the Green Bay Packers.

Prof. Al Osborne

Prof. Al Osborne

Professor

Alfred E. Osborne, Jr. is senior associate dean of UCLA Anderson.  In this role, he oversees a variety of key areas and initiatives within the school, including development, alumni relations, marketing and communications, corporate initiatives, and executive education.

Dr. Osborne is also professor of Global Economics and Management and founder and faculty director of the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.  The Price Center serves to organize faculty research, student activities and curricula related to the study of entrepreneurship and new business development at UCLA Anderson including the Management Development Entrepreneurs Program.  He has been at UCLA since 1972.

Course Learning Objectives:

  • Interpret an S-curve showing the adoption patterns of two competing technologies.
  • Propose a solution involving a network effect to help a specific company increase its level of success in the market.
  • Determine if a specific innovation is empowering, sustaining, or efficiency, and explain your position.
  • Propose at least five specific efficiency innovations in the context of a specific business.
  • Analyze a given market innovation to determine if it is “disruptive” and defend your position on the question.
  • Understand the design thinking process.
  • Identify and assess customer opportunities.
  • Generate and evaluate new product and service concepts.
  • Design services and customer experiences.
  • Learn the importance of product innovation in business.
  • Gain an understanding of frameworks used for product innovation and method of evaluations.
  • Learn the fundamentals of the implementing product innovation.

Syllabus

Learning Objectives:
  • Interpret an S-curve showing the adoption patterns of two competing technologies.
  • Propose a solution involving a network effect to help a specific company increase its level of success in the market.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Understanding S-Curves
  • Diffusion of Innovation Theory: The “S” Curve
  • Understanding Network Effects

Readings:

  • Apple’s S-Curves
  • Amazon’s Invisible S-Curve

Quiz:

  • Technology and Innovation
Learning Objectives:
  • Determine if a specific innovation is empowering, sustaining, or efficiency, and explain your position.
  • Propose at least five specific efficiency innovations in the context of a specific business.
  • Analyze a given market innovation to determine if it is “disruptive” and defend your position on the question.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Understanding the Types of Innovation
  • Disruptive Innovation and its Application

Readings:

  • Disruptive Genius
  • A Three-Box Solution to Managing Innovation
  • Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Innovation

Quiz:

  • Managing Innovation and Disruption
Learning Objectives:
  • Learn the importance of product innovation in business.
  • Gain an understanding of frameworks used for product innovation and method of evaluations.
  • Learn the fundamentals of the implementing product innovation.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Importance of Product Innovation in Business
  • Product Innovation Approaches
  • Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and Their Benefits

Readings:

  • Evaluating Product Innovations
  • Product Innovation vs. New Product Development
  • A/B Testing
  • Steps to Building an MVP
  • Steps to Implementing Product Innovation: An Overview

Quiz:

  • Product Innovation
Learning Objectives:
  • Understand the design thinking process.
  • Identify and assess customer opportunities.
  • Generate and evaluate new product and service concepts.
  • Design services and customer experiences.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • What is Design Thinking?
  • Design Thinking Process – Empathy
  • Design Thinking Process – Define
  • Design Thinking Process – Ideate
  • Design Thinking Process – Prototype
  • Design Thinking Process – Test
  • Designing for Digital
  • Optional: Intuit’s Design Thinking Process

Readings:

  • Design Thinking Principles: Desirability, Viability, Feasibility
  • Design Thinking in Practice: Building Design Sprints
  • Design Thinking Skills
  • IBM Design Thinking Field Guide
  • Agile, Meet Design Thinking

Quiz:

  • Design Thinking

Support

Please email [email protected] for any support required with respect to the program, course or platform.