A common core in human-centered design and innovation methodologies combined with specialized courses in design, engineering and business.
Students can combine product design courses to develop specific areas of expertise that leverage the University of Pennsylvania’s renowned faculty and comprehensive resources. Areas of expertise include user experience strategy, biodesign, robotics and intelligent product, and healthcare innovation. For the most updated information on all courses, please look for the departmental listings on the Course Register page. For more information about the curriculum, see the IPD Guidelines.
Explore your next course.
Foundation Courses
IPD 500:
Product Engineering Basics
The course targets non-engineering majors interested in understanding engineering approaches to product fabrication. The course covers a broad variety of engineering topics including mechanical, electrical, computer and material science. Many of these topics would normally be full courses in themselves. This course intends to teach familiarity with a focus on hands-on practice as applied to products. Students will briefly use equipment such as materials testing machines, mills, lathes, oscilloscopes, laser cutters, photodiodes, motors, servos, microcomputers as well as engineering software such as Solidworks, C compilers, Labview, Matlab, and Cambridge Engineering Selector. The class concludes with independent projects.
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 503:
IPD Fundamentals
The creation of a successful product requires the integration of design, engineering, and marketing. The purpose of this intensive studio course is to introduce basic concepts in the design of three-dimensional products. For purposes of the course, design is understood as a creative act of synthesis expressed through various modes of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional representation. The course develops basic design skills ranging from hand sketching to the use of digital modeling software and rapid prototyping. Fulfills the requirement for a design background course in the interdisciplinary graduate program in Integrated Product Design (IPD).
Activity: Studio
1 Course Unit
IPD 545:
Eng Entrepreneurship I
Engineers and scientists create and lead great companies, hiring managers when and where needed to help execute their vision. Designed expressly for students having a keen interest in technological innovation, this course investigates the roles of inventors and founders in successful technology ventures. Through case studies and guest speakers, we introduce the knowledge and skills needed to recognize and seize a high-tech entrepreneurial opportunity – be it a product or service – and then successfully launch a startup or spin-off company. The course studies key areas of intellectual property, its protection and strategic value; opportunity analysis and concept testing; shaping technology driven inventions into customer-driven products; constructing defensible competitive strategies; acquiring resources in the form of capital, people and strategic partners; and the founder’s leadership role in an emerging high-tech company. Throughout the course emphasis is placed on decisions faced by founders, and on the sequential risks and determinants of success in the early growth phase of a technology venture. The course is designed for, but not restricted to, students of engineering and applied science and assumes no prior business education.
Prerequisite: Third or Fourth year or Graduate standing
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Core IPD Courses
IPD 514:
Design for Manufacturability
This course is aimed at providing current and future product design/development engineers, manufacturing engineers, and product development managers with an applied understanding of Design for Manufacturability (DFM) concepts and methods. The course content includes materials from multiple disciplines including: engineering design, manufacturing, marketing, finance, project management, and quality systems.
Prerequisites: MEAM 101 or equivalent, MEAM 210 or equivalent, Senior or Graduate standing in the School of Design, Engineering, or Business with completed product development and/or design engineering core coursework or related experience.
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 515:
Product Design
This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development , entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good – but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 551:
Design Processes
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 552:
Problem Framing
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 799:
Final Project
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD Electives
IPD 509:
Needfinding
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 525:
Ergonomics/Human Factors Based Product Design
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 572:
Design Thinking and Making
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Design Arts Electives
ARCH 724:
Technology in Design: Immersive Kinematics/Physical Computing: Body of Site
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
ARCH 726:
Furniture Design as Strategic Process
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ARCH 737:
Semi-Fictious Realms
Usually offered in the Fall
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ARCH 739:
Architecture of Health
Health is taking on a new role in our society—with a refocusing from episodic care for those who are ill to a life-long view geared towards maintaining health and well-being. These changes are evident across numerous areas of design practice; from wearable technologies that track and analyze to large scale environmental and building-based initiatives that aim to create healthier environments and improve lives.
In order to frame our present day understanding of the role of architecture and design in fostering health for individuals and communities, this seminar will begin with an exploration of historical and contemporary perspectives—how they are shaped by our ever-changing understanding of the biological, social, and environmental causes of sickness and disease—and our ever-changing technological capabilities and scientific understanding. During this conversation, students will read articles, study recent projects, and engage with experts and practitioners in order to examine the ways in which designers approach these topics through built and constructed forms. Following from this foundation, students will craft arguments for a new approach to creating and supporting health and well-being for individuals and communities by rethinking services, products, systems, and/or architecture through an applied design proposal and written response that argues for a perspective on how architecture and design can and should shape the health of those who use and inhabit our designed work everyday.
Usually offered in the Fall
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ARCH 742:
Function of Fashion Architecture
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
ARCH 743:
Form and Algorithm
Notes: only offered in Fall
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
ARCH 751:
Ecology, Technology, and Design
Notes: usually offered in Fall
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
CPLN 571:
Sensing the City
DSGN 506:
Design 21: Design After the Digital Age
DSGN 517:
Cultures of Making
DSGN 528:
Functions for Form and Material
DSGN 566:
Graphic Design with Creative Technologies
DSGN 570:
Graphic Design Practicum
DSGN 634:
Art of the Web: Interactive Concepts for Art & Design
DSGN 635:
3D Computer Modeling
Students will develop a comprehensive knowledge of how virtual worlds are constructed using contemporary computer graphics technique with a fine arts perspective. The course will offer the opportunity to explore the construction, texturing, and rendering of forms, environments, and mechanisms while conforming to modeling specifications required for animation, real-time simulations or gaming environments, and rapid prototyping.
Prerequisite: DSGN 523 and DSGN 636
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
DSGN 636:
Art, Design, and Digital Culture
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
DSGN 637:
Information Design & Visualization
DSGN 678:
Interfacing Cultures: Designing for Mobile, Web & Public Media
IPD 521:
Designing Smart Objects for Play and Learning
Today’s children enjoy a wide array of play experiences, with stories, learning, characters and games that exist as physical stand-alone objects or toys enhanced with electronics or software. In this course, students will explore the domain of play and learning in order to develop original proposals for new product experiences that are at once tangible, immersive and dynamic. They will conduct research into education and psychology while also gaining hands-on exposure to new product manifestations in a variety of forms, both physical and digital. Students will be challenged to work in teams to explore concepts, share research and build prototypes of their experiences in the form of static objects that may have accompanying electronic devices or software. Final design proposals will consider future distribution models for product experiences such as 3D printing, virtual reality and software- hardware integration. Instruction will be part seminar and part workshop, providing research guidance and encouraging connections will subject matter experts throughout the Penn campus.
Also Offered As: IPD 521
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
IPD 527:
Industrial Design I
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 528:
Design of Contemporary Products
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
IPD 544:
Digital Fabrication
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
IPD 568:
Integration Design Studio: Biological Design
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Studio
1 Course Unit
Engineering Electives
BE 514:
Rehab Engineering and Design
Students will learn about problems faced by disabled persons and medical rehabilitation specialists, and how engineering design can be used to solve and ameliorate those problems. The course combines lectures, multiple design projects and exercises, and field trips to clinical rehabilitation facilities. Students will have substantial interaction with clinical faculty, as well as with patients.
Prerequisite: Graduate students or permission of the instructor
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
CIS 519:
Applied Machine Learning
The goal of Machine Learning is to build computer systems that can adapt and learn from their experience. In recent years we have seen a surge of applications that make use of machine learning technologies and one can argue that Machine learning has been essential to the success of many recent technologies, from natural language technologies (Siri, search technology, automated advertising, text correction) to computer vision technologies (image recognition applications, autonomous vehicles), genomics, medical diagnosis, social network analysis, and many others. This course will introduce some of the key machine learning methods that have proved valuable and successful in practical applications. We will discuss some of the foundational questions in machine learning in order to get a good understanding of the basic issues in this area, and present the main paradigms and techniques needed to obtain successful performance in application areas such as natural language and text understanding, speech recognition, computer vision, data mining, adaptive computer systems and others. The main body of the course will review several supervised and (semi/un)supervised learning approaches. These include methods for learning linear representations, decision-tree methods, Bayesian methods, kernel based methods and neural networks methods, as well as clustering, dimensionality reduction and reinforcement learning methods. We will also discuss how to model problems as machine learning problems, how to evaluate learning algorithms, and how to deal with some real-world issues such as noisy data, and domain adaptation.
Prerequisite: CIS 121
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
CIS 545:
Big Data Analytics
In the new era of big data, we are increasingly faced with the challenges of processing vast volumes of data. Given the limits of individual machines (compute power, memory, bandwidth), increasingly the solution is to process the data in parallel on many machines. This course focuses on the fundamentals of scaling computation to handle common data analytics tasks. You will learn about basic tasks in collecting, wrangling, and structuring data; programming models for performing certain kinds of computation in a scalable way across many compute nodes; common approaches to converting algorithms to such programming models; standard toolkits for data analysis consisting of a wide variety of primitives; and popular distributed frameworks for analytics tasks such as filtering, graph analysis, clustering, and classification. Recommended: broad familiarity with probability and statistics, as well as programming in Python. Additional background in statistics, data analysis (e.g., in Matlab or R), and machine learning is helpful (example : ESE 542).
Course offered summer, fall and spring terms
Prerequisite: CIS 110 OR CIT 591
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
CIS 557:
Programming for the web
This course will focus on web programming. The first half will focus on the basics of the internet and the Web, HTML and CSS, and basic and advanced Ruby. The second half will focus on Rails. Teams (of size 2-3) will build a web application in the second half of the semester as the class project. Through Rails, we’ll explore the “culture” of web programming such as agile methodology, testing, key aspects of software engineering, using web services and APIs, and deploying to the cloud.
Prerequisites: CIS 121, CIT 594, or equivalent, or permission of the instructor
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
CIS 562:
Computer Animation
This course will cover core subject matter common to the fields of robotics, character animation and embodied intelligent agents. The intent of the course is to provide the student with a solid technical foundation for developing, animating and controlling articulated systems used in interactive computer games, virtual reality simulations and high-end animation applications. The course balances theory with practice by “looking under the hood” of current games, animation systems and authoring tools and exams the technologies and techniques used from both a computer science and engineering perspective. Topics covered include: geometric coordinate systems and transformations; quaternions; parametric curves and surfaces; forward and inverse kinematics; dynamic systems and control; computer simulation; keyframe, motion capture and procedural animation; behavior-based animation and control; facial animation; smart characters and intelligent agents.
Prerequisites: Some previous exposure to major concepts in linear algebra (i.e. vector matrix math), curves and surfaces, dynamical systems (e.g. 2nd order mass-spring-damper systems) and 3D computer graphics has been assumed in the preparation of the course materials.
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
CIT 590:
Programming Languages and Techniques
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
ENGR 566:
Design of Appropriate Biomedical Technologies for Point of Care Diagnostics
This interdisciplinary design course focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of appropriate medical technologies for world health, particularly for diagnostic devices for Sub-Saharan Africa. Emphasis is placed on the process of developing appropriate technologies with sustainable designs for medical devices with utility in a local environment. The course integrates educational, training and service learning in a two-semester course with field-based design.
The goal of this course is to develop the thinking and research tools that will enable students to understand medical need and apply engineering design of appropriate technologies for use in diagnosing disease in local environments.
Activity: Lecture
2 Course Units
ESE 516:
IoT Edge Computing
This course was developed to bring lessons learned from the product design industry into the classroom – specifically focusing on Internet of Things (IoT) device development and deployment. To achieve the highest level of knowledge transfer, the course will incorporate device design theory with discussions of real-world product failures and successes – as well as a heavy hands-on component to build a device from end to end. Students will learn to use industry standard tools, such as Altium, Atmel Studio, and IBM Watson – allowing them the same level of power and customization at the disposal of startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Prerequisite: If course requirements are not met, permission of the instructor is required.
Course usually offered in spring term
Prerequisite: ESE 519
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
ESE 545:
Data Mining
Many scientific and commercial applications require us to obtain insights from massive, high-dimensional data sets. In this graduate-level course, students will learn to apply, analyze and evaluate principled, state-of-the-art technique s from statistics, algorithms and discrete and convex optimization for learning from such large data sets. The course both covers theoretical foundations and practical applications.
Course usually offered in spring term
Prerequisites: ESE 530, ENM 503
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 501:
Integrated Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing and Analysis
The majority of today’s engineered products move through an advanced computer-aided workflow which greatly speeds design and process time. This course will explore the fundamental components of this workflow through a combination of lectures, hands-on exercises, and a semester design project. General course topics include: fundamental design principles, project definition and needfinding, advanced computer-aided design, rapid prototyping techniques, computer-controlled machining, and an in-depth exploration of the modern analysis and simulation tools that have revolutionized the way in which products are designed. Enrollment is limited.
Prerequisites: MEAM 101, MEAM 150, and MEAM 210, or graduate standing in the School of Engineering, Design, or Wharton with similar experience.
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 514:
Design for Manufacturability
This course is aimed at providing current and future product design/development engineers, manufacturing engineers, and product development managers with an applied understanding of Design for Manufacturability (DFM) concepts and methods. The course content includes materials from multiple disciplines including: engineering design, manufacturing, marketing, finance, project management, and quality systems.
Prerequisites: MEAM 101 or equivalent, MEAM 210 or equivalent, Senior or Graduate standing in the School of Design, Engineering, or Business with completed product development and/or design engineering core coursework or related experience
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
IPD 516:
Advanced Mechatronic Reactive Systems
This course combines performance art and advanced mechatronics concepts that include the design and implementation of large-scale actuation, advanced sensing, actuation and control. This course pairs design school and engineering students to form interdisciplinary teams that together design and build electro-mechanical reactive spaces and scenic/architectural elements in the context of the performing arts. The two disciplinary groups will be treated separately and receive credit for different courses (ARCH746 will be taught concurrently and in some cases co-located) as they will be learning different things. Engineering students gain design sensibilities and advanced mechatronics in the form of networked embedded processing and protocols for large scale actuation and sensing. Design students learn elementary mechatronics and design reactive architectures and work with engineering students to build them. The class will culminate in a some artistic performance (typically with professional artists) such as a Shakespeare play, robotic ballet, a mechatronic opera.
Prerequisite: MEAM 510 (Mechatronics) or equivalent
Course usually offered in spring term
Course usually offered in spring term
IPD 529:
Designing Connected Objects and Experiences
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MEAM 508:
Materials and Manufacturing for Mechanical Design
The selection of materials and manufacturing processes are critical in the design of mechanical systems. Material properties and manufacturing processes are often tightly linked, thus this course covers both topics in an integrated manner. The properties and manufacturing processes for a wide range of materials (i.e., metals, ceramics, polymers, composites ) are examined from both a fundamental and practical perspective. From a materials standpoint, the course focuses on mechanical properties, including modulus, strength, fracture, fatigue, wear, and creep. Established and emerging manufacturing processes will be discussed. Design-based case studies are used to illustrate the selection of materials and processes.
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MEAM 510:
Design of Mechatronic Systems
In many modern systems, mechanical elements are tightly coupled with electronic components and embedded computers. Mechatronics is the study of how these domains are interconnected, and this hands-on, project-based course provides an integrated introduction to the fundamental components within each of the three domains, including: mechanical elements (prototyping, materials, actuators and sensors, transmissions, and fundamental kinematics), electronics(basic circuits, filters, op amps, discrete logic, and interfacing with mechanielements), and computing (interfacing with the analog world, microprocessor technology, basic control theory, and programming).
Prerequisite: Graduate standing in engineering or permission of the instructor.
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MEAM 520:
Introduction to Robotics
The rapidly evolving field of robotics includes systems designed to replace, assist, or even entertain humans in a wide variety of tasks. Recent examples include human-friendly robot arms for manufacturing, interactive robotic pets, medical and surgical assistive robots, and semi-autonomous search-and-rescue vehicles. This course presents the fundamental kinematic, dynamic, and computational principles underlying most modern robotic systems. The main topics of the course include: rotation matrices, homogeneous transformations, manipulator forward kinematics, manipulator inverse kinematics, Jacobians, path and trajectory planning, sensing and actuation, and feedback control. The material is reinforced with hands-on lab exercises involving a robotic arm.
Prerequisite: MEAM 211 AND MATH 240 AND ENGR 105
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MEAM 527:
Finite Element Analysis
The objective of this course is to equip students with the background needed to carry out finite elements-based simulations of various engineering problems. The first part of the course will outline the theory of finite elements. The second part of the course will address the solution of classical equations of mathematical physics such as Laplace, Poisson, Helmholtz, the wave and the Heat equations. The third part of the course will consist of case studies taken from various areas of engineering and the sciences on topics that require or can benefit from finite element modeling. The students will gain hands-on experience with the multi-physics, finite element package FemLab.
Prerequisite: MATH 241 OR ENM 251 AND PHYS 151
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MEAM 535:
Advanced Dynamics
Three-Dimensional Geometry: Introduction to Reference Frames, Geometry of Rotations of Reference Frames and of Vectors, Euler Angle, Axis-Angle Representations, Properties of Rotation Matrices. Kinematics: Kinematics of Rigid-Body Motion, Rotations, Angular Velocity and Acceleration, Linear Velocity and Acceleration, Applications to Planar Linkage Analysis. Constraints: Configuration Space, Holonomic and Non-holonomic Constraints, Degrees of Freedom, Tests for Holonomic versus Non-holonomic Constraints, Generalized Coordinates, Generalized Speeds, Partial Speeds, Partial Velocities, Principle of Virtual Work for Holonomic and Non-holonomic systems. Constraint Forces: Virtual Work, D’Alembert Equations, Lagrange’s Equations for Non-holonomic systems. Distribution of Mass: Center-of-Mass, Vector and Scalar Moments of Inertia. Vector Spaces: Operators, Dyads, Dyadic, Moment-of-Inertia Tensor, Rigid Bodies. Dynamics: Kinetic Energy and Angular Momentum, Lagrangian/Hamiltonian Mechanics and Conservation Laws, Poisson Brackets and Constants of the Motion, Kane-Lagrange Equations with Non-Holonomic Constraints, Kane-Lagrange Equations, Null Spaces and Computing Constraint Forces. Variational Calculus: The Principle of Least Action, A Study of Small Perturbations and Linear Stability Analysis.
Prerequisites: MEAM 211 and some Linear Algebra. Senior or Master’s Standing in Engineering or permission of the instructor.
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Business Electives
BDS 501:
Behavioral Science: Theory and Application of Experimental Methods
Activity: Lecture
BDS 521:
Judgments & Decisions
EAS 545:
Eng Entrepreneurship I
Engineers and scientists create and lead great companies, hiring managers when and where needed to help execute their vision. Designed expressly for students having a keen interest in technological innovation, this course investigates the roles of inventors and founders in successful technology ventures. Through case studies and guest speakers, we introduce the knowledge and skills needed to recognize and seize a high-tech entrepreneurial opportunity – be it a product or service – and then successfully launch a startup or spin-off company. The course studies key areas of intellectual property, its protection and strategic value; opportunity analysis and concept testing; shaping technology driven inventions into customer-driven products; constructing defensible competitive strategies; acquiring resources in the form of capital, people and strategic partners; and the founder’s leadership role in an emerging high-tech company. Throughout the course emphasis is placed on decisions faced by founders, and on the sequential risks and determinants of success in the early growth phase of a technology venture. The course is designed for, but not restricted to, students of engineering and applied science and assumes no prior business education.
Prerequisite: Third or Fourth year or Graduate standing
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
EAS 546:
Engineering Entrepreneurship II
This course is the sequel to EAS 545 and focuses on the planning process for a new technology venture. Like its prerequisite, the course is designed expressly for students of engineering and applied science having a keen interest in technological innovation. Whereas EAS 545 investigates the sequential stages of engineering entrepreneurship from the initial idea through the early growth phase of a startup company, EAS 546 provides hands-on experience in developing a business plan for such a venture. Working in teams, students prepare and present a comprehensive business plan for a high-tech opportunity. The course expands on topics from EAS 545 with more in-depth attention to: industry and marketplace analysis; competitive strategies related to high-tech product/service positioning, marketing, development and operations; and preparation of sound financial plans. Effective written and verbal presentation skills are emphasized throughout the course. Ultimately, each team presents its plan to a distinguished panel of recognized entrepreneurs, investors and advisors from the high-tech industry.
Prerequisite: EAS 545
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
EAS 512:
Engineering Negotiation
EAS 549:
Engineering Entrepreneurship Lab
ENVS 669:
Corporate Sustainability Strategies
Activity: Lecture
ESE 540:
Engineering Economics
This course is cross-listed with an advanced-level undergraduate course (ESE 400). Topics include: money-time relationships, discrete and continuous compounding, equivalence of cash flows, internal and external rate of return, design and production economics, life cycle cost analysis, depreciation, after-tax cash flow analysis, cost of capital, capital financing and allocation, parametric cost estimating models, pricing, foreign exchange rates, stochastic risk analysis, replacement analysis, benefit-cost analysis, and analysis of financial statements. Case studies apply these topics to engineering systems. Students are not required to do additional work compared to ESE 400 students. The work-load is identical.
Course usually offered in fall term
Also Offered As: ESE 400
Activity: Lecture
1.0 Course Unit
FNCE 750:
Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation
Course usually offered in spring term
HCMG 853:
Management and Strategy in Medical Devices and Technology
HCMG 867:
Health Care Entrepreneurship
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
0.5 Course Units
MGMT 729:
Intellectual Property Strategy for the Innovation-Driven Enterprise
Announcing the first iPhone at Macworld 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously boasted: “And boy, have we patented it!” How, and to what extent, do patents and intellectual property really provide competitive advantage for innovative technology companies? What makes an IP asset strategically powerful? How do patents impact, and even drive, major corporate decisions including M&A, venture funding and exits, and entry into new markets? In this course, students will learn to critically analyze and answer these questions, gaining insights they can leverage in their future roles as innovation industry executives, entrepreneurs, strategist and investors. The course includes three major units. In Unit 1, Patents and Innovation Value, we examine closely the relationship between competitive advantage, value proposition, and intellectual property (particularly patents). We will apply our understanding of that relationship to critique and sharpen patent strategy to protect examples of cutting-edge technologies. In Unit 2, Patent Leverage and the Corporate Playbook, we study theory and examples of how intellectual property leverage strategically informs corporate transactions and decisions, for established companies as well as for start-ups. In unit 3, Limits and Alternatives to Patents, we confront the recent legal trend toward reigning in the power and scope of patents. We also consider the growing importance of data as a proprietary technology asset, and discuss options for adapting intellectual property strategy appropriately. Throughout, students will learn and practice applying the concepts we learn to decision-making in examples based on innovative real-world technologies and businesses.
0.5 Credit units
MGMT 731:
Technology Strategy
MGMT 740:
Leading Effective Teams
This course develops your knowledge and skills for designing, leading, and consulting with teams in organizations. The goals are to provide both the conceptual understanding and the behavioral skills required to improve effectiveness. This course emphasizes class participation, readings, analytic and reflective writing, assessments, peer feedback and coaching, lectures simulations and an intensive field project. with a real team in the Philadelphia area. Four kinds of teams are the focus of study: teams of which you’ve been a member in the past; your 740 team, with three or four classmates; a team outside of 740 that your 740 Team will observe, analyze, and report on –your Host Team; and a team that you expect to be on in the future. The case material for learning and applying course concepts will be these teams that you know from direct observation and experience. Expect to leave this course with new knowledge of how to diagnose and intervene – as leader, member, or consultant – to improve the performance, sustainability, an4 impact on the members of any team in any setting. The text is by J. Richard Hackman, Leading Teams (Harvard Business).
Prerequisites: MGMT 610
MGMT 802:
Change, Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Designed for students with a serious interest in entrepreneurship, this course will provide you with an advanced theoretical foundation and a set of practical tools for the management of startups and entrepreneurial teams in fast-changing and innovative environments. Building on the skills of Management 801, every class session is built around an experience where you have to put learning into practice, including the award-winning Looking Glass entrepreneurial simulation, role-playing exercises, and a variety of other games and simulations. The goal is to constantly challenge you to deal with entrepreneurial or innovative experiences, as you learn to navigate complex and changing environments on the fly, applying what you learned to a variety of scenarios. Management 802 is built to be challenging and will require a desire to deal with ambiguous and shifting circumstances. Format: Lectures, discussion, interim reports, class participation, readings report, and presentations, and an innovation assessment in PowerPoint format.
MGMT 801 strongly recommended.
MGMT 804:
Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Management
This elective half-semester course focuses on venture capital management issues in the context of the typical high-growth potential early stage start-up company. The course is fundamentally pragmatic in its outlook. It will cover seven principal areas relevant to the privately held high-growth start-up which include: commentary on the venture capital industry generally, as well as a discussion of the typical venture fund structure and related venture capital objectives and investment strategies; common organizational issues encountered in the formation of a venture backed start-up, including issues relating to initial capitalization, intellectual property and early stage equity arrangements; valuation methodologies that form the basis of the negotiation between the entrepreneur and the venture capitalist in anticipation of a venture investment; the challenges of fundraising, financing strategies and the importance of the business plan and the typical dynamics that play out between VC and entrepreneur. typical investment terms found in the term sheet and the dynamics of negotiation between the entrepreneur and the venture capitalist; compensation practices in a venture capital backed company; and corporate governance in the context of a privately-held, venture capital-backed start-up company and the typical dynamics that play out between VC and entrepreneur in an insider-led, “down round” financing.
Requirements: Classroom participation, weekly case assignments, and final exam Format: Lecture, case studies, class participation, weekly case assignments, and final exam.
MGMT 801 recommended
Activity: Lecture
0.5 Course Unit
MGMT 806:
Venture Implementation
Format: Highly interactive
Requirements: Class participation, interim assignments.
MGMT 812:
Social Entrepreneurship
MKTG 611:
Marketing Management
MKTG 612:
Dynamic Marketing Strategy
Building upon Marketing 611, the goal of this course is to develop skills in formulating and implementing marketing strategies for brands and businesses. The course will focus on issues such as the selection of which businesses and segments to compete in, how to allocate resources across businesses, segments, and elements of the marketing mix, as well as other significant strategic issues facing today’s managers in a dynamic competitive environment. A central theme of the course is that the answer to these strategic problems varies over time depending on the stage of the product life cycle at which marketing decisions are being made. As such, the PLC serves as the central organizing vehicle of the course. We will explore such issues as how to design optimal strategies for the launch of new products and services that arise during the introductory phase, how to maximize the acceleration of revenue during the growth phase, how to sustain and extend profitability during the mature phase, and how to manage a business during the inevitable decline phase.
Prerequisite: MKTG 611
MKTG 711:
Consumer Behavior
MKTG 712:
Data and Analysis for Marketing Decisions
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of data-driven marketing, including topics from marketing research and analytics. It examines the many different sources of data available to marketers, including data from customer transactions, surveys, pricing, advertising, and A/B testing, and how to use those data to guide decision-making. Through real-world applications from various industries, including hands-on analyses using modern data analysis tools, students will learn how to formulate marketing problems as testable hypotheses, systematically gather data, and apply statistical tools to yield actionable marketing insights.
One-term course offered either term
Also Offered As: MKTG 212
Prerequisite: MKTG 611 AND STAT 613
Activity: Lecture
1.0 Course Unit
Format: Lecture and discussion
MKTG 721:
New Product Management
This course provides a total immersion in the new product development process – from sourcing ideas and innovation, through new product sales forecasting. The focus is on collective learning, what works, what doesn’t, and why. While the primary focus is the new product development process within a corporate structure, some coverage is given to key issues surrounding start-ups.
Course not offered every year
Also Offered As: MKTG 221
Prerequisite: MKTG 611
Activity: Lecture
0.5 Course Units
Notes: One half term. 0.5, c.u, Check Meeting dates. Format: Lectures, cases, simulations, class discussions, and guest speakers.
MKTG 727:
Marketing and Electronic Commerce
MKTG 737:
Brain Science for Business
Brain science offers the potential to unlock the future of business, by providing new insights that can enhance decision-making, improve precision in design and marketing, build team chemistry and cultivate leadership, fine-tune selection and human performance, drive creativity and innovation, create social value, and optimize digital interaction. New developments in biometrics, implantable and wearable devices, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, nutrition, and the human microbiome, offer the opportunity for enhanced precision and impact in marketing, finance, management, analytics, and education. This course will provide an overview of contemporary brain science and its applications to business. Students first will be introduced to the basic anatomy and physiology of the brain and become familiar with important techniques for measuring and manipulating brain function. The course will then survey major findings in neuroscience with applications to business, including selective attention and advertising; valuation and marketing; decision making; learning, innovation and creativity; and social influence, team-building, and leadership. The course will end with a discussion of ethics, brain-machine interactions, and artificial intelligence. Applications to business, education, sports, law, and policy will be discussed throughout.
0.5 Course Unit
MKTG 741:
Entrepreneurial Marketing
This course focuses on the real life marketing challenges involved in launching an entrepreneurial venture. The primary goal of the course will to provide a roadmap for students seeking to actively engage as entrepreneurs, investors or managers in the startup culture. Many of the entrepreneurial marketing principles studied in this course will be equally applicable to mid-size and larger companies seeking new approaches to drive top-line growth. The course will address how start-ups, early growth stage and more mature companies have used entrepreneurial marketing as an essential competitive weapon to grow their businesses by gaining customers, driving revenue, acquiring funding and recruiting A-level employees, advisors and directors. Students will form teams and select an idea/concept for an entrepreneurial venture, and by the conclusion of the course will have developed a fully fleshed out and testable marketing plan. Preferably, the selected venture will be one that one or more members of the team would consider implementing, should their plan prove feasible.
Prerequisites: Completion of MKTG 611; and MKTG 612 or MKTG 613; and MKTG 712; (May take MKTG 612 or 613, and MKTG 712 concurrently); Students are discouraged from taking this course and MKTG 721 except with permission of an MBA adviser.
Activity: Lecture
0.5 Course Unit
MKTG 770:
Digital, Social and E-commerce Marketing
MKTG 770 explores the digital marketing environment from both a consumer and business perspective. The course provides an overview of various online business models and delves into digital advertising and social media marketing techniques and technologies. A mixture of case studies, guest speakers and assignments, including one that uses real advertising data, translates theory into practice. It is recommended that students enrolling in the course be comfortable using Excel and are knowledgeable in applying regression analysis techniques. Students who would prefer a less technical course may wish to take MKTG 727, Digital Marketing and Electronic Commerce, a half cu course offered by the department.
One-term course offered either term
Also Offered As: MKTG 270
Prerequisite: MKTG 611
Activity: Lecture
1.0 Course Unit
Notes: Students may not take both MKTG 770 and MKTG 727 for credit. This course replaces experimental course MKTG 730
MKTG 776:
Applied Probability Models in Marketing
This course will expose students to the theoretical and empirical “building blocks” that will allow them to develop and implement powerful models of customer behavior. Over the years, researchers and practitioners have used these methods for a wide variety of applications, such as new product sales forecasting, analyses of media usage, customer valuation, and targeted marketing programs. These same techniques are also very useful for other types of business (and non-business) problems. The course will be entirely lecture-based with a strong emphasis on real-time problem solving. Most sessions will feature sophisticated numerical investigations using Microsoft Excel. Much of the material is highly technical.
Taught by: Fader
Prerequisites: Students must have a high comfort level with basic integral calculus, and recent exposure to a formal course in probability and statistics is strongly recommended.
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture, real-time problem solving
1 Course Unit
MKTG 809:
Special Topics: Experiments for Business Decision Making
MKTG 850:
Special Topics: Consumer Neuroscience
OIDD 612:
Business Analytics
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
OIDD 656:
Operations Strategy
This course examines how organizations can develop and leverage excellence in process management. The first module focuses on operations strategy. In these classes, we examine what constitutes an operation strategy and how organizations can create value by managing complexity, uncertainty, and product development. In the second half of the course, we discuss recent developments in both manufacturing and service industries. Specifically, we examine initiatives in quality, lean manufacturing and enterprise-wide planning systems. The course is recommended for those interested in consulting or operations careers, as well as students with an engineering background who wish to develop a better understanding of managing production processes.
Prerequisites: OPIM 621, OPIM 631, and OPIM 632 or equivalent
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Cross Listed with ESE 522
OIDD 662:
Enabling Technologies
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Lectures, discussions, assignments and class participation.
OIDD 691:
Negotiations
This course examines the art and science of negotiation, with additional emphasis on conflict resolution. Students will engage in a number of simulated negotiations ranging from simple one-issue transactions to multi-party joint ventures. Through these exercises and associated readings, students explore the basic theoretical models of bargaining and have an opportunity to test and improve their negotiation skills. Cross-listed with MGMT 691/OIDD 691/LGST 806. Format: Lecture, class discussion, simulation/role play, and video demonstrations. Materials: Textbook and course pack.
One-term course offered either term
Also Offered As: LAW 518, LGST 806, MGMT 691
Activity: Lecture
1.0 Course Unit
Notes: Cross Listed with LGST 806, MGMT 691. Lectures, cases, presentations, and written assignments.