Course teached as: B028640 - GESTIONE DELL'INNOVAZIONE Second Cycle Degree in INGEGNERIA GESTIONALE
Teaching Language
english
Course Content
The course aims to provide models for product, process, and business model innovation. It provides an explanation of the relationship between innovation and competitive advantage in business and society. The models adopted by companies and the practices of the serial innovator are illustrated. We learn methods for the analysis of user needs, and we discuss the opportunities for disruptive innovations, that can be enabled by modern technologies of the Industry 4.0
Selected articles, book chapters and slides accessible through e-l.unifi.it.
Recommended readings are:
books:
Denning, P. J., & Dunham, R. (2010). The innovator's way: Essential practices for successful innovation. MIT Press.
Biazzo S., Filippini R. Management dell’Innovazione, Isedi, 2018
Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. Wiley. com.
Stickdorn, M., & Schneider, J. (2010). This is service design thinking: Basics--tools--cases. BIS Publishers.
Verganti, R. (2013). Design driven innovation: changing the rules of competition by radically innovating what things mean. Harvard Business Press.
Tidd, J., Bessant, J., & Pavitt, K. (2005). Managing Innovation: Integrating technological, market and organizational change.
papers:
Chesbrough, H. (2010). Business model innovation: opportunities and barriers. Long range planning, 43(2), 354-363.
Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. R. (2011). The big idea: creating shared value.Harvard Business Review, 89(1), 2.
on line resources:
http://www.innovation-portal.info/
http://www.managing-innovation.com/
http://www.designdriveninnovation.com/
http://www.businessmodelcanvas.it/
https://bmfiddle.com/
http://files.thisisservicedesignthinking.com
Learning Objectives
The course helps to develop significantly the expertise and skills of role RM2 (Innovation Manager). In addition, it contributes to RM1 (designer / manager of advanced manufacturing systems), thanks to real cases and paradigmatic examples of the possibilities of application of I4.0 technologies for innovation of products, services and business models. In relation to role RM3 (service manager), we provide ideas for developing digital services (smart services). The role of RM4 (project manager) is also completed with fundamentals of Agile Project Management, and providing the foundational model for managing the portfolio of innovation projects. For the RM5 and RM6 roles, useful knowledge is provided to allow these figures to actively participate to the decision related to the innovation of production systems (RM5) and asset management systems (RM6). Professionals will be able to contribute to the selection of new manufacturing technologies, and to support the subsequent actions in terms of change management.
Following the principles of Design Thinking, students are asked to develop obsdervation and investigation protocols, to conduct data collection campaigns (interviews, surveys, observations), to collect, elaborate and interpret field data, to apply simple descriptive statistics (cc6) that are useful to circumscribe the domain of the problem subject to innovation (cc1). When developing technology-driven solutions, students must understand (cc5) the impact of I4.0 technologies for product innovation (e.g. IoT for smart connected products), process innovation (e.g. Cognitive Computing for a customer care service) and business model innovation (e.g. a platform that enables matching between supply and demand to provide Manufacturing as a Service). To develop skills for idea generation, we use SCAMPER and similar tools (e.g. Six Thinking Hat, Brain Storming), therefore students can make their practice of problem solving tasks, that are typical of creative and collaborative intelligence (cc7) and teamwork. Students are then asked to develop a business plan, to assess technical, economic, social, ethical, and environmental risks, together with the implications related to their innovation (cc9). Following the structuring of complex innovation processes, students will also have to consider the constraints and limitations induced by the lack of information, to understand that most of managerial choices are made under uncertainty constraints (cc8).
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
Prerequisites
Students are requested and adequate mindset, to participate to the teamwork and be engaged much more than just the solely class hours. Students will be called to interact and experiment, to share and work in teams, they will have to know how to write reports and present correctly in English in front of their peers.
As regards specific knowledge and skills: knowledge of basic principles of budget analysis, costing, investment analysis, project management is required.
Teaching Methods
Combination of lactures, teamwork, presentations by managers and experts of innovation, participation to workshops and seminars and case studies.
Further information
Class attendance is warmly suggested
Type of Assessment
Course grade considers different individual and teamwork assignmentss. In particular, students are required to individually develop a report and give a presentation to the classroom, in response to a case study. They are requested also to make practices of creative design techniques, such as brainstorming, SCAMPER, TRIZ. In particular, the assignments and group work proposed below aim to test the skills of the training project. The final grade is therefore a combination of:
Assignment 01: discussion of how an innovation has been launched on the market, and the role of the innovator (Innovator's Ways) - verification of ca8
Assignment 02: experimentation with design thinking techniques (cc7, cc8, cc9) - verification ca4, ca5
Assignment 03: innovating the business model (Business Model Canvas) (ca3)
Assigment 04: using I4.0 technologies to develop smart product-service solutions (cc7, cc9) - ca4 verification
Group work: development of an innovative business idea and drafting of the business plan (cc3) and the innovation project (verification of ca1). Thanks to the teamwork and the presence of students from different backgrounds (this course, being provided in English, has always attracted students on Erasmus mobility from schools of industrial engineering, mechanics, computer science, materials science and chemistry), students appreciate the value of cross-disciplinarity and the application of collective intelligence (ca2).
Final examination: presentation and discussion of the project work in front of a committee.
The vote is given in ECTS scale and then converted in 30-scale, and takes into account all assignments (40% overall, 10% for each of the 4 assignments) and group work (60%), the latter also developed in the light of Peer to Peer evaluation.
Course program
MO1 Introduction, the challenges of innovation
M02 Managing innovation: traditional reference models, and the protection of the IPR
M03 Open Innovation and customer-driven approaches
M04 Design Thinking: Lean Thinking and Agile Project Management development processes for innovation, innovation teams management
M05 Value Proposition and Idea Generation, from proof of concept to pre-design/prototype/testing
M06 Innovation of the business model, development of the lean canvas and the business plan