Master of Product Design & Development Management

The Master of Product Design & Development Management (mpd²) program is designed for professionals who want to master the concepts and tools of product design and development. You will learn about creativity, innovation, lean design, design strategy, product innovation, end-user research, marketing, and project and product management, as well as business and financial issues. The highly-focused curriculum, taught by senior faculty from academic and business, is designed to assure our graduates a pathway to senior management. You’ll quickly understand why Business Week has endorsed this program as one of the top programs of its kind in the world.

Curriculum

The curriculum consists of 24 required courses; each course is five weeks long. Courses are open only to mpd² students, and all students take the same classes in sequence.

Overview

The courses range from those typical of a professional design and development curriculum, including material selection, understanding through design, obtaining meaning from data, protecting intellectual property, creativity and innovation, human factors, lean design, and project management, to those typical of a business curriculum, such as marketing, finance, accounting, organizational behavior, leadership, negotiation, and decision-making.

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Fall 1

MPD 400-0: Introduction to Product Design and Development

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Sept. 24, Oct. 2, 8, 16, 22
• Instructor: Michael Saubert

Understanding the Process: Phase Gate and criteria including market identification, market requirements, fuzzy front end, scenario planning, and prototyping.

MPD 450-0: Effective Communication

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Sept. 24, Oct. 2, 8, 16, 22
• Instructor: Beth Bennett

Communication within the corporate environment: public speaking, live presentations, reports, and emails. External communication: interaction with clients/partners, domestic and foreign, crisis communication. Interpersonal and team communication, navigating difficult conversations.

MPD 430-0: Materials Selection- Managing Choices

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Oct. 30, Nov. 5, 13, 19, Dec. 4
• Instructor: Stephen Carr

Materials selection; understanding of properties. Methodologies and procedures for material selection; assuring suitable material for given applications. “Cradle to cradle” reuse practices. Manufacturing processes to determine capital and piece part variable costs.

MPD 442-0: Team Building and Organizational Behavior

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Oct. 30, Nov. 5, 13, 19, Dec. 4
• Instructor: John Boyce

Living with and exploring corporate culture(s), team building, motivation, managing change, feedback and mentoring. Cross-cultural issues in the global marketplace. Applying proven concepts in an organizational environment.

Winter 1

MPD 420-0: Accounting Issues for Product Development

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Jan. 7, 15, 21, 29, Feb. 4
• Instructor: Robin Soffer

Understand the financial statements with emphasis on the Income Statement and Balance Sheet. Understanding, analyzing and explaining the financial performance of a company for managerial decision making. Additional focus on areas of importance to new product teams including variable costing, cost analysis, cost allocations and development of projections for new products.

MPD 410-0: Understanding through Design

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Jan. 7, 15, 21, 29, Feb. 4
• Instructor: Greg Holderfield

Strong emphasis on right brain creative thinking for service design. Study will include: ethnography, consumer empathy, creative collaboration, brainstorming, design language, brand, storytelling, and the culture of innovation within business.

MPD 424-0: Financial Issues for Product Development

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Feb. 12, 18, 26, Mar. 4, 12
• Instructor: Leo Brubaker

Financial skills for product development: valuation, capital structure, corporate governance, risk management, and financial modeling including Monte Carlo methods. Product cost analysis.

MPD 444-0: Negotiation/Conflict Resolution

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Feb. 12, 18, 26, Mar. 4, 12
• Instructor:  Thomas Gibbons

Win-win negotiation, power in negotiation, planning and conduct of negotiation. Minimizing and resolving conflicts, tactics and ethics in negotiation. Objective standards in disputes.

Spring 1

MPD 432-0: Leading with Data Visualization and Analytics

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 1
• Dates: Mar. 25, Apr. 2*, 8, 16*, 22 & May 1, 7, 15, 21, June 5
  • *These classes will be in the PM
• Instructor: Anthony Orzechowski

This course is focused on providing leaders in product development the methods to drive more effective decisions and actions through data analytics.  The course will emphasize the use of simple effective visual methods to achieve this.

MPD 408-0: Global Product Design and Supply Chains

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Mar. 25, Apr. 2*, 8, 16*, 22
  • *These classes will be in the AM
• Instructor: Achal Bassamboo

The challenges and opportunities of global product development. Recent history, economic conditions and the techniques pursued by companies competing in the global economy. Leveraging the global supply and design chains across a variety of industries and contexts.

MPD 445-0: Project Management

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: April 30, May 6, 14, 20, June 4
• Instructor: Mark Karasek

Apply project management basics to successfully deliver technology intensive products and services. Identify the scope, schedule and resources required for deliverables with a high degree of certainty and those with high uncertainty. Match the PM techniques to the needs of the organization.

Fall 2

MPD 406-0: Human Factors

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Sept. 25, Oct. 1, 9, 15, 23
• Instructor: Russ Branaghan 

Human cognitive and physical capabilities and limitations applied to the design of products, processes and services. The design of controls, displays, and human-computer interaction. Design for differing abilities.

MPD 416-0-20 and MPD 416-0-21: Customer Driven Opportunities

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 1
• Dates: Sept. 25, Oct. 1, 9, 15, 23 & Oct. 29, Nov. 6, 12, 20, Dec. 3
• Instructors: Bob Schieffer 1 5wk and John Hartman 2 5wk

Integration project starting point, exploring ‘new to the world’ opportunity. Integrates all aspects of product development in a hands-on team project for identifying unmet, under met and unarticulated needs supported by using various research techniques with quantifiable results.

MPD 458-0: Intellectual Capital Strategy

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Oct. 29, Nov. 6, 12, 20, Dec. 3
• Instructor: James Conley

Management of innovations and intellectual property. Understanding patents, copyrights, secrets, trademarks. Value translations, value transference. Regulatory and international issues. Using intellectual property as corporate strategy.

Winter 2

MPD 402-0: Management of Product Innovation

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Jan. 8, 14, 22, 28, Feb. 5
• Instructor: Jim Wicks

Planning, organizing and creating a product innovation culture. Innovation roadmaps, resource deployment, competencies, partnerships and alliances for sustained innovation productivity.

MPD 403-0: Creativity and Innovation

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Jan. 8, 14, 22, 28, Feb. 5
• Instructor:  Robert Schwartz

The human process of creativity and innovation. Tools and techniques for enhancing creativity: thinking out of the box. Case studies of creativity, innovation, and invention.

MPD 405-0: Agile Management of Software Product Design & Development

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Feb. 11, 19, 25, Mar. 5, 11
• Instructor: Chris Riesbeck

Project Management for software: requirements, work breakdown structure, time/cost estimation. Risk management, development methodologies, scope creep. Motivating and maintaining productive teams. Understanding MVP (minimal viable product).

MPD 404-0: Essentials of Design

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Feb. 11, 19, 25, Mar. 5, 11
• Instructor: John Hartman  

Principles of the visual aspect of design. Deeper understanding of designing for micro-segmentation audience. Development of design dedicated to team integration project.

Spring 2

MPD 401-1: Principles of Marketing

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Mar. 26, Apr. 1, 9, 15, 23
• Instructor: Candy Lee

Understanding and integration of key marketing principles into the management of product development. Identification and application of audience centric goal setting, segmentation, branding, positioning, and promotion techniques to ensure growth of products and services.

MPD 411-0: Lean Design

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Mar. 26, Apr. 1, 9, 15, 23
• Instructor: Mark Karasek

Design for manufacturing, recycling, serviceability, upgradeability, reliability, safety, life-cycle. Predicting products costs. Strategy for platforms, motivation, management implementation. Optimizing integration project.

MPD 449-0: Global Leadership in a Smart and Connected World

Course Description

• Class time: AM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Apr. 29, May 7, 13, 21, June 3
• Instructor: Robert Schwartz

The challenges of leadership of product development teams in a corporate or entrepreneurial environment including how to nurture talent; how to consider growth in a complex, global world; how to lead ethically; how to be a financially literate leader.

MPD 409-2: Business Model Design

Course Description

• Class time: PM
• Credits: 0.5
• Dates: Apr. 29, May 7, 13, 21, June 3
• Instructor: Walter Herbst 

Culmination of integration project bringing together all aspects of product development in a single hands-on team project from ideation through product prototyping to include business and marketing plans.

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