15.990 Projects for change: A collaborative management learning lab
Spring 2008
15.990 Projects for change: A collaborative management learning lab
MW 1-2:30 p.m.
This full-semester, 9-unit course is open to MBA students, as well as other MIT graduate students with the instructor's permission.
This class puts your projects front and center. Our goal is to help you learn the most you can from your projects. In Spring 08, the focus will be on clusters of projects that tackle common themes in three general areas:
- global health delivery, with possible projects connected with GHD at Harvard University
- working with startups addressing international development or poverty alleviation that have emerged from MIT classes, projects, and research
- scaling up and developing the enterprises built around international development innovations that have emerged from MIT's DLab
The class design is as follows: You'll work with other students from the class in teams on your project for the entire spring semester. We'll use class sessions to map out questions, concerns, and issues that arise at each stage of your project, and will examine readings and research that can help, at every step of the way turning to very practical, applied tools and exercises. Each team will post weekly blog entries that document its learning journey. Class clinics, where you ask for help from the entire group, are designed to let you tap into the collective intelligence of the class. And students vote on specific topics to examine in some of the class sessions. Teams in clusters will also design their own process for learning about the domain they are working in, with guidance from the instructor.
Projects for Change is a class that puts you in charge of your learning!
We use projects as the domain for your learning. Our goal is to build your skills and abilities in turning ideas into action. With projects as your learning lab, we will of course look at what it takes for you to make your project success, but this is not a class on project management per se. And with clusters of projects addressing development needs, we will of course examine the challenges in this area, but this is not a class that looks at international development, public health, or social entrepreneurship comprehensively. Instead, this is a class designed to help you to be more effective in what you do, to test your ideas, to build collaboration, and to know when to adapt and change your plans as needed.
How to get started. First, you need a project. We have some already, or you may be able to bring your own if they fit with the class themes.
Have an idea that you'd like to work on? Work with us to sort it out.
Would you like to get in on the ground floor? Please talk to us over IAP to figure out how you can help define and shape one of the many possibilities we already have.
Busy during IAP? Let us know of your interest and join the class in the spring when you'll be able to sign up for a project.
Stay tuned for more
Work on projects that could make a real difference in tackling poverty, improving health, or furthering development. Learn the skills for effective action while you do so. With your projects as our main focus, this course gives you the chance to design and live your own case study.
Projects. In Spring 2008, 15.990 projects cluster in three domains of the social sector:
- Global health delivery, with projects that tackle pressing needs in developing countries to reduce infectious diseases and improve heath. For example, one potential project addresses expansion plans a successful health organization in Zambia, and another project examines how a local program in Rwanda improves health outcomes.
- Enterprises and networks that could address poverty worldwide, with a cluster of projects that pair you with existing companies and student teams in India, China, Mexico, and Columbia to work on specific opportunities and challenges, such as an assessment of various models of corporate venture capital for social enterprise.
- Other entrepreneurial start-ups in the social sector, including innovative new business models, hybrid organizations, and successful start-ups that are addressing the challenges of scaling up. Alongside opportunities we have already collected, there is potential room for student-generated projects, but they must meet specific criteria (see below).
Students are matched to projects early in the semester and work on teams with the project hosts, using email, skype, and other means to collaborate with hosts and other stakeholders.
Course philosophy: learn by doing. Classes are designed as working sessions that address a key aspect of your project every week. Learn about relevant ideas, research, and theory via focused readings and mini lectures, and apply them right away via in-class exercises and clinics. You will accomplish something on your project every week and are expected to participate actively in class to integrate your project experience with course content.
Get started. First, contact Anjali Sastry, the professor, and before 15 January 2008, fill in a brief questionnaire. Email shiba@mit.eduor go to https://wikis-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/sloan/praxis
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Interested in global health and want to get in on the ground floor? Join our IAP workshop to develop, scope, and plan a project based on specific opportunities connected to the Global Health Delivery Initiative. Together with an introduction to global health, the workshop gives you a chance to apply a basic project framework to potential projects in global health. The result will be a set of projects that could be used in the class.
Busy during IAP but interested in developing an appropriate project? Scoping and planning materials will be posted online for you to draw on, together with deadlines and requirements for use in the class.
Just want to do the project? All students, including those who want to join existing projects, must submit a brief questionnaire by 15 January. Then come to class ready to join a project team!
Questions? contact Prof. Sastrysastry@mit.edu, current 990 TA Shivani Garg shivani@sloan.mit.edu, course assistant Shiba Nemat-Nasser shiba@mit.edu, or see https://wikis-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/sloan/praxis\\Students can sign up for an IAP workshop in which they work with the instructor and others to scope and shape a project for this class. Please email shiba@mit.edu to be added to our mailing list for updates as we develop the class and the opportunities.