Provides an integrated approach to the development and growth of new innovative ventures. Intended for students who seek to leverage their engineering and science background through innovation-driven entrepreneurship. Emphasizes the concept that innovation-driven entrepreneurs must make a set of interdependent choices under conditions of high uncertainty, and demonstrates that venture engineering involves reducing uncertainty through a structured process of experimental learning and staged commitments. Provides deep understanding of the core technical, customer, and strategic choices and challenges facing start-up innovators, and a synthetic framework for the development and implementation of ventures in dynamic environments.

Venture Engineering

Technical experts don’t just negotiate one-on-one. Engineering team members and leaders are required to deal with their own team, other stakeholders within their organizations and many external parties. This is true of academic lab settings, and also of commercial technology development environments and government projects. When the number of stakeholder increases, so do the complexities associated with communications, relationships, cultural differences and power dynamics. Effective professionals need to be able to map a multi-party situation and decide when and how to negotiate, facilitate, build winning coalitions, resolve conflicts and strive for consensus.

The course is designed primarily for graduate students in engineering and joint engineering-business programs (such as SDM, IDM, and LGO) with no (or some) prior education or experience in the fields of negotiation, and is open (with instructor permission) to all gradaute students. Students will be provided with a repertoire of proven negotiation strategies, practice-based approaches, and analytical frameworks that will enable them to develop their skills experientially and reflectively through simulations, role plays, case studies and video analysis. 

The course was first offered in 2020, and received very high student evaluation feedback, with students successfully learning both in-person and online negotiation skills. Students will be required to be available online over video and agree to be video recorded for analysis and learning purposes. 

Some of the most important work in the field of multi-party negotiation and dispute resolution is being done at the inter-university Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (PON), which MIT is a part of. This course builds on the research at PON.

D. Hadfield-Menell

Assistant Professor

Multi-Stakeholder Negotiation for Technical Experts

Introduces the fundamental process of innovating and its role in promoting growth and prosperity. Exposes students to innovation through team projects as a structured process, while developing skills to handle multiple uncertainties simultaneously. Provides training to address these uncertainties through research methods in the contexts of materials technology development, market applications, industry structure, intellectual property, and other factors. Case studies place the project in a context of historical innovations with worldwide impact. Combination of projects and real-world cases help students identify how they can impact the world through innovation.

E. Fitzgerald

Innovation and Commercialization of Materials Technology

Focuses on the design of engineering systems to satisfy stated performance, stability, and/or control requirements. Emphasizes individual initiative, application of fundamental principles, and the compromises inherent in the engineering design process. Culminates in the design of an engineering system, typically a vehicle or other complex system. Includes instruction and practice in written and oral communication through team presentations, design reviews, and written reports. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Enrollment may be limited due to laboratory capacity; preference to Course 2 majors and minors.

D. Hart

Professor

Engineering Systems Design

Covers a broad range of topics in modern manufacturing, from models and structures for 21st-century operations, to case studies in leadership from the shop floor to the executive office. Also includes global perspectives from Asia, Europe and North America, with guest speakers from all three regions. Explores opportunities for new ventures in manufacturing. Intended primarily for Master of Engineering in Manufacturing students.

Professional Seminar in Global Manufacturing Innovation and Entrepreneurship

2.888

About the Class

Faculty