Professional, Part-Time Course Schedule

Fall – Year One

SEVI 52103: Business Foundations for Innovators and Entrepreneurs

Introduction to the fundamental business concepts an entrepreneur needs to know to evaluate and launch a successful new venture. Topic areas include recruitment, selection, motivation and management of employees, market analysis and the marketing mix, financial strategies and accounting for funds, economic considerations, and the management of operations.

ISYS 53203: Development with Digital Innovations

This course exposes graduate business students with the ever evolving environment of modern software development. Using a hands-on approach to exploring modern software development tools and techniques students will learn how to conceptualize, design, and implement software product prototypes using a variety of emerging technologies. Students will gain understanding of how to evaluate digital innovations for inclusion into an ever-evolving software development environment to help accelerate development. Skills will focus on providing students the ability to quickly design and implement functional prototypes for business use-cases while exploring the introduction of innovations in the market.

Spring – Year One

SEVI 52303: Human Centered Design

This course will serve as a highly hands-on experience through the human-centered design process, organized around the following modules: design research, problem identification, concept generation & creativity, prototyping, testing, communication & visualization. Within this course, students have the structure and space to be collaborative, creative, and agile, enabling them to rapidly design viable solutions for their organizational partners.

SEVI 52403: Product Management

This course presents an integrated overview of the field of product management. Through this interactive course, students will be able to take organizational innovation ideas formed in the pre-requisite Human Centered Design course to the next level by learning and implementing the fundamentals of product management which included improving technical acumen, strategy development, business modeling, product market fit, understanding OKR's, EPIC's, and Retrospectives.

Summer – Year One

SEVI 54403: Principles of Product Design & Prototyping

Principles of Product Design and Prototyping develops foundational skills in product design, including hands-on experimentation with digital design and prototyping tools (e.g. Autodesk, Solidworks, Adobe). This course will pair readings, lectures, and hands-on mini-workshops to build confidence and capability in product design in the context of the student' own ideas.

SEVI 58603: Experimental Product Analytics

This course is designed to enhance students' data fluency as related to product testing and development in both the pre-market validation and post-market optimization phases, thereby closing the loop on new product development. The course focuses on A/B design, testing, and data interpretation. It places a strong emphasis on the scientific method of hypothesis testing using artificial intelligence.

Fall – Year Two

SEVI 58803: Venture Creation Lab¹

This course is the capstone project that equips students with the entrepreneurial skills to develop a new venture. Students have the unique opportunity to build on product ideas developed earlier in the program. Using lean startup methodologies, students will conduct market analyses, develop the product or service offering, and design the business model with cohesive go-to-market and human and financial strategies. The course emphasizes crafting impactful pitches, actionable business plans, and a range of financing methods including bootstrapping, government grants, and more formal investment strategies.

SEVI 54303: Legal, Social, and Economic Context

In this class, we will cover a variety of issues important to product development, including intellectual property and liability issues, industry and competitor analysis, supply chains and sales channels, and social and environmental issues. The course will combine readings guest lectures, and project work that applies concepts to the students' specific projects.

Spring – Year Two

SEVI 58903: Enterprise Innovation Lab²

This course is a hands-on, team-based course in which students partner with real companies to tackle complex problems at scale. Each team is assigned a challenge and must identify, size, and prioritize the underlying problem before designing solutions. Guided by faculty experts and industry mentors, students create customized deliverables and project timelines that directly advance sponsor goals. The course emphasizes innovation frameworks, user insights, product roadmaps and cross-functional collaboration to deliver tangible solutions with measurable business impact.

SEVI 58703: Storytelling & Stakeholder Management

This course is a master class on influence and the art of the pitch, to executives and investors. Students will learn communication skills in storytelling, smart brevity, and meaningful metrics and analytics that support decision making. IN addition, students will learn how to create slide decks with high impact visuals. Finally, students will learn interdisciplinary leadership skills and networking that generate buy-in across functions like engineering and design, and a range of other stakeholder groups.

¹SEVI 53203 New Venture Development I may be substituted for SEVI 58803 Venture Creation Lab with prior approval.

²SEVI 54103 New Venture Development II may substitute for SEVI 58903 Enterprise Innovation Lab with prior program director approval.

Full-Time Course Schedule

Fall – Year One

SEVI 52103: Business Foundations for Innovators and Entrepreneurs

Introduction to the fundamental business concepts an entrepreneur needs to know to evaluate and launch a successful new venture. Topic areas include recruitment, selection, motivation and management of employees, market analysis and the marketing mix, financial strategies and accounting for funds, economic considerations, and the management of operations.

ISYS 53203: Development with Digital Innovations

This course exposes graduate business students with the ever evolving environment of modern software development. Using a hands-on approach to exploring modern software development tools and techniques students will learn how to conceptualize, design, and implement software product prototypes using a variety of emerging technologies. Students will gain understanding of how to evaluate digital innovations for inclusion into an ever-evolving software development environment to help accelerate development. Skills will focus on providing students the ability to quickly design and implement functional prototypes for business use-cases while exploring the introduction of innovations in the market.

SEVI 53203: New Venture Development I

Focuses on the identification and analysis of new venture opportunities and how entrepreneurs acquire the human and financial resources needed to develop successful businesses. Topics include market analysis, development of products and services, negotiation, developing and executing business plans, and new venture financing. Students are required to complete summer assignments before the course begins in the fall semester.

Spring – Year One

SEVI 52303: Human Centered Design

This course will serve as a highly hands-on experience through the human-centered design process, organized around the following modules: design research, problem identification, concept generation & creativity, prototyping, testing, communication & visualization. Within this course, students have the structure and space to be collaborative, creative, and agile, enabling them to rapidly design viable solutions for their organizational partners.

SEVI 52403: Product Management

This course presents an integrated overview of the field of product management. Through this interactive course, students will be able to take organizational innovation ideas formed in the pre-requisite Human Centered Design course to the next level by learning and implementing the fundamentals of product management which included improving technical acumen, strategy development, business modeling, product market fit, understanding OKR's, EPIC's, and Retrospectives.

SEVI 54103: New Venture Development II

A large-scale, real world, 10 week project involving hands-on work addressing issues faced by managers in partnering firms. Corequisite: Instructor consent.

Elective

Summer – Year One

SEVI 54403: Principles of Product Design & Prototyping

Principles of Product Design and Prototyping develops foundational skills in product design, including hands-on experimentation with digital design and prototyping tools (e.g. Autodesk, Solidworks, Adobe). This course will pair readings, lectures, and hands-on mini-workshops to build confidence and capability in product design in the context of the student' own ideas.

SEVI 58603: Experimental Product Analytics

This course is designed to enhance students' data fluency as related to product testing and development in both the pre-market validation and post-market optimization phases, thereby closing the loop on new product development. The course focuses on A/B design, testing, and data interpretation. It places a strong emphasis on the scientific method of hypothesis testing using artificial intelligence.

Elective

Program Overview

The Master of Science in Product Innovation prepares students to turn great ideas into great products that shape the future. Learn the language of design, engineering, and business through experiential courses that push you to innovate around the product’s desirability, feasibility, and viability.

Top skills include problem identification, creative thinking, AI, product feature prioritization, social influence, rapid prototyping, data fluency, and business model design and validation.

Two Pathway Options

The Master of Science in Product Innovation degree is offered in a part-time (5 semesters, 6 hours per semester) format or a full-time (1 year, 12 hours per semester) format. Courses are taught through a blended-delivery format with both face-to-face and online components.

Part-time Students: Part-time students meet in-person for class one Saturday per month with remote work on the weeks in between. We work hard to create a manageable schedule for busy working professionals returning to school.

Full-time Students: Full-time students follow a similar format as part-time students but often have elective and capstone courses which meet on weeknights instead of the traditional one Saturday session per month. This compressed course schedule is designed for individuals who are not employed full-time and have greater flexibility in their day and time to devote to a heavier course load.

Capstone Options

New Venture Development Option – Students may choose a two-semester immersive startup development experience. This pathway consists of taking New Venture Development I in the fall and New Venture Development II in the spring. Students will have the opportunity to more fully develop their venture and compete in a variety of student business plan and business model competitions, nationally and internationally.

Enterprise Innovation Option – Students may choose a two-part immersive startup and enterprise innovation experience. This pathway consists of taking Venture Creation Lab in the fall and Enterprise Innovation Lab in the spring. Through this contrasting experience, students gain the best of both worlds: 1.) the end-to-end skills needed to develop a new venture and deep understanding of the business model to support it in a small, agile environment and 2.) the collaboration and prioritization skills needed to launch new products, services, or systems at scale in a large corporate setting. In Enterprise Innovation Lab, student teams work on a current challenge defined by the industry project sponsor to build, pitch, and present a working product.

The small cohort size of each group enables students to have a high level of engagement with faculty, project sponsors, and industry advisors in both pathways.