Fusion Coursework  

Design in Management:
Concepts & Methods of Practice*

This is a field-based studio course whose purpose is to explore a new approach to managing organizations. The approach is grounded in the traditional skills of an MBA student but focuses on the concepts and methods of design applied to the management of organizations.

Students move from the analytic perspective of traditional management programs toward a design perspective that fosters synthetic, creative solutions to problems. The emphasis is on entrepreneurship: the invention of new ideas in any area of organizational life and the development of those ideas into successful innovations that benefit the organization and those served by the organization.

Projects provide students with a field setting in which they explore a wide range of issues in a managerial setting. Working in teams of three to five, students focus on specific issues within a sponsoring organization. They identify design opportunities and then design responses that have practical value to management and organizations. In the course of their work, students learn skills of research, observation, interpretation and invention. They also learn how to visualize and represent complex ideas, manage collaborative work, apply a variety of design concepts and methods to the improvement of products, services, processes and procedures, and make impactful and informative presentations.

Projects may focus on any area of management and organizational life, ranging from governing ideas of vision and mission to strategy and planning, operations, business processes and the development of new products and services. This is a two-semester sequence. The first semester is divided into two parts, developed in parallel; the second semester is divided into three components .