MOR 564 - Strategic Innovation

Ex-Deloitte Consultant teaches this class. He knows his stuff well and applies his past experiences to the class. Gives a sneak peek of how consulting is and how people in the industry think. Pretty light workload, just group presentations.

This is a newly offered course. I think it's great! The class is primarily discussion-based and includes both individual and group projects/presentations. You are expected to participate in most (if not all) class discussions but it's commonly opinion-based. The professor is open to everyone's viewpoints but usually doesn't tell you if you're right or wrong. There are no required readings. It's interesting to learn about established companies (not just startups) and evaluate how/why they pursue innovation. One drawback is the class can move very slowly at times, almost as if to fill the 3 hour time frame.

Semester long group project, it is fun and you get to create a new product -- not exactly a ton of new material but Jim is a great professor. Make sure you choose an industry you are excited about, but its totally your choice.

Useful to learn about design thinking, user interviews, market research, and doing the work of ideating/innovative thinking, but can feel like a slog amongst all the other classes with group projects. Legeman is fine but not great -- Vogel is great but not in person, at least not in this iteration. Other feedback from the 2024 folks is spot on.

This class is basically a semester-long group project. If you like group work and coming up with new product/service ideas, you'll love it. If you're an independent worker, not interested in entrepreneurship, and/or looking to learn a lot of new, technical ideas to get the most out of your tuition dollars, look elsewhere. Legeman is good.

This class has a semester long project which is extremely helpful in thinking about how to create a product or service from just an idea. This professor is super nice, helpful, and really cares about students and their projects.

This class has phenonmenal guest speakers and overall is a good exercise for finding product/market fit and pitching a new product idea. However it's stretched out over the entire semester and just feels like more work than what is really needed. Jim is a likeable guy and Tiffany is pretty remarkable, but sometimes it feels like they are over complicating the material for the sake of the class. You get to pick your own teams and if you choose a good product topic then at least it'll be semi interesting!

The class teaches designed thinking. However the course is not really what I expected. The two instructors are great and respectful practitioners in the industry, but the way the class is structured did not really get the key concerpts across. I am quite confused by what we are supposed to do for our project.

A pretty relaxed class overall. I think the design thinking portion is interesting but if you aren't open to that type of thinking then it may be burdensome. They have brought in some interesting guest speakers and I think the professors add good insights from their professional experiences. The group project is a huge part of the class so if that team is solid then your in a good spot!

Its a pretty chilled class. You will spend most of the time working on your group project. Take this class if your interested in design thinking or if you want a low effort course to go with assignment heavy courses.

I agree with a lot of the other comments. If you love design thinking and want to interact a lot with the professors, go for it. Otherwise, this class is pretty much a waste of time. Readings are only lightly discussed, and the professor usually just says "So this is all pretty straightforward" instead of teaching you anything. It's also group heavy with substantial class time devoted to group work, so don't expect to spend a lot of time learning directly from the professor.

The professors are a bit laissez-faire and the class isn't highly structured, so you have to put in the effort to engage with them, the readings, guest lectures (which are very interesting imo), etc. to get the most out of the course, but they are both accomplished and very knowledgeable about innovation and design thinking. You can learn a lot from them, especially if design thinking is new to you.

I still have no idea what we're doing in this class.

Not a ton of reading and super interesting cases (such as Uber, Braintrust, Etsy, etc). If you're at all interested in design thinking, you should definitely take this course as it realy is a ste-by-step guide on the process. Jim and Tiffany are incredibly smart and so open to chatting about any business ideas or problems you're trying to solve through a design thinking lens

The course is pretty low effort. There is a group project that goes for the whole semester and he basically takes you through the IDEO thing for innovating in a space you care about. You will do user interviews, research, prototyping, etc. There are cases but they're not overly mandatory to read. He coteaches with a Mckinsey consultant.

As many have said, this class is extremely easy and is nice to balance out heavier workload courses. However, I also find it boring and lacking in any structure. Scott stepped in as our professor when Dr. Rindova was appointed to Marshall's DEI committee, and while he is very nice and caring (he has adjusted assignments to reduce our workload), he's also been very unprepared and usually starts class late. We also just talk about the same innovative companies over and over - Uber, AirBnB, Amazon, DoorDash, Tesla, etc, and it's fairly suface level. The professor could do a better job at pushing people to think more critically or dive deeper. I feel you could learn a similar amount if you keep up to date with current business news.

This is what I imagined business school to be like...and is the first class I have taken where I can honestly say that is the case. The professor is lovely to start with and cares more about his students than grades, quizzes, etc. Class is entirely case/discussion based but is low pressure and Scott keeps the class (or those who want to be) engaged throughout. He focuses on learning rather than grading.

There is a lot of interesing case work and discussions in this class. We have insightful conversations surrounding the business model canvas and value proposition canvas. We have also discussed emerging opportunities for new markets and company positioning. To note, it is very case and in-class participation heavy, so if that's not your thing, might not be your best bet.

As context, this class is usually taught by a different professor who designed the course. Professor Armanini was asked to step in at the last minute, so the class has been a little disorganized as he got up to speed with the material. However, the professor is incredibly understanding and willing to work with the students to structure the class in a way so that we don't feel overwhelmed by courseload. There is a fair amount of reading for each class, but the cases and articles are generally pretty interesting.

Extremely easy course and professor