81907 - Project Management - Economic Management Engineering

Learning outcomes

The Gestione del Progetto course is conceived as a project laboratory where skills are provided to enable Advanced Designers to manage an innovation project in a complex context.
We will study key techniques and practices with a focus on innovation, R&D and entrepreneurial projects. Traditional, agile and extreme models will be addressed. The learning aspect of the project team, which is critical to the development of an innovation project, will also be emphasized.

Course contents

The course is developed in four modules:

• "Innovation by Projects" module presents strategic and economic approaches to the generation, development and diffusion of technological innovation, with articulation and distinction of the roles of public and private enterprises and institutions.
• The "Project Management" module aims to introduce to structured methodologies for managing innovation projects in complex environments.
• The "Designing and Managing Innovation Teams" module aims to provide skills in creating, managing and motivating project teams.
• The "Implementing Innovation" module presents the main practices for implementing projects, in a business or entrepreneurial setting.

The course as a whole aims to apply design skills to project organization and management to guide the design, development, integration and implementation of innovative services/products in complex multidisciplinary contexts.
The main skills acquired will be:

• Design and management of product, service and process innovation
• Knowledge and application of project management techniques and models
• Experience of methodologies and techniques of working in multidisciplinary teams.
• Application of innovative project implementation practices
  

The following are the topics that will be covered in the modules:

1. Innovation by Projects.

• Technological innovation and economic development: the relevant economic theories
• The functional sources of innovation: role of users, producers, suppliers
• Forms and Models of Innovation
• Internal development and open innovation
• Design Management

2. Project Management

• Types of Project Management
• Traditional
• Agile
• Extreme

3. Design and management of innovation teams

• Leadership and social processes in teams
• Design of complex teams
• Management of group dynamics

4. Implementation of innovation

• Intrapreneurship practices
• Entrepreneurship practices

Readings/Bibliography

Within the VIRTUAL portal, on the web page dedicated to the course, students will find:

• A collection of required articles and book chapters. The articles are scholarly papers published in top organization and engineering journals. Reading scientific research from the original sources (instead of finding a summary in a textbook or slide) is a challenge, but it is an important learning experience. NB: There is no one-to-one relationship between required readings and face-to-face lectures. This discrepancy is intentionally designed!
• Recommended readings. Additional readings are provided for those who wish to understand more about specific topics. Recommended topics will not be included in the final assessment.
• Lecture slides;
• Cases and exercises for class discussion;

Teaching methods

The teaching method involves the use of theoretical lectures for each of the modules, accompanied by exercises and seminars on the topics covered in the classroom with reviews held continuously by the lecturer; this articulation is intended to approach students operationally to the issues and methods of project management.
The course also includes a project laboratory, geared toward team development of a practical project management application on a specific topic. The theme can be identified in collaboration with an external partner, such as agencies, companies, organizations and has the characteristic of constituting a realistic case study.
Design activities will be developed by teams of students simulating a multidisciplinary team design activity. The external partner collaborates by providing or facilitating seminar interventions, field visits, informational materials and interacting with the teams in the evaluation of project hypotheses.

Assessment methods

During the lectures, several activities are planned to be carried out in groups related to the presentation of specific issues related to the course in written or oral form. In addition to group work, individual participants will be asked to hand in a paper to be done individually as a reflection on the experience of working as a team on the project. Each student will prepare a reflection, based on both practical and theoretical knowledge gained during the course. In addition to the results of the team project and the work on the Individual Reflection, students will take a written exam at the end of the course. The written exam is intended to assess the skills acquired and will consist of a series of multiple-choice questions (select one or more answers from a given list). Both theoretical and practical skills (solving short exercises with the simulation software used during classroom lectures) will be assessed with these questions. The written test will be scored from 0 to 31 (a score higher than 30 will result in honors). To sit for the exam, students must score above 18/30 on the project and Individual Reflection.


The final individual assessment will be based on:

• Group Project 50% (team assessment)
• Individual Reflection 20% (individual assessment)
• Written exam 30% (individual assessment)
• Class participation 5% (individual bonus)

Teaching tools

Lectures, case discussions and application projects

Office hours

See the website of Matteo Vignoli