Advanced Design Planning

Instructor

Larry Keeley

Things are tough out there. And weird too. Wall Street’s risk managers manage to deliver us a total global financial meltdown. Unemployment is at its highest level since 1945. The economy is not the only wreck—it may well be that the climate is too. Plus the US has spent $155 billion “nation building” in Iraq—about $5,500 per person living there—and it is not clear we have achieved anything. Pirates are on the rise; lately they have taken to snagging supertankers filled with crude. Oh and the people that normally buy our debt have suddenly stopped doing so, a first in history. But don’t worry: President Obama is going to fix it all.

Um, how exactly will he do that?

With your help, that’s how. In this short, intense course, working in teams, you will be challenged to develop Presidential Grand Challenges—projects that are big, bold and transformational. Along the way, you should expect that normal methods will be inadequate and that you will have to use profound platform thinking plus open innovation to come up with a workable, newsworthy, and compelling concept.

Format & Grading

The course is structured around teams that identify tough and important global innovation problems that only advanced methods can solve. Teams will work as practicing professionals. Individual class sessions will concentrate on a topic and methods relevant to that topic will be presented and dissected. Active participation in contributing to these arguments is expected and encouraged. Teamwork and team presentations are paramount. Attendance in all classes is important.

Your grade will be based on weekly assignments and class participation, the quality and freshness of your thinking about methods, the plan your team produces, plus the peer evaluation of your specific contributions as a team member. Overall, emphasis will be on demonstrated mastery of known methods and some specific ability to reason about and even design new methods prospectively.