Course 2021-2022 a.y.

Through the course sessions, several questions are addressed. Among the others, students analyze the following:

• Corporate entrepreneurship strategies: how can we enhance and use the entrepreneurial drive in the entire group to generate new growth options without losing the grip on costs and efficiency? Do we need to change our formal strategic planning system, organizational structure, and processes to embrace innovative business ideas from our subsidiaries?
• Project management: what are the most influential variables in a project environment? What are the tools and techniques that companies can leverage in order to plan and control complex projects?
• Manufacturing Foot-print redesign: how can a company properly plan this complex project? Which kind of risks and external events can be forecasted and related mitigation actions implemented? How can a company keep its plan under control?

• Recognize the need for a holistic approach to the analysis of corporate, business and functional strategies.
• Describe the major issues of the organizational and project management design.
• Define the most suitable way of approaching a complex process related to manufacturing and operations management decisions.
• Identify the relevant risks and related mitigation actions in a manufacturing footprint redesign project.
• Explain the most relevant  project KPIs to monitor a complex decision making process.

• Analyze the alignment between Corporate, Business and Functional strategies.
• Formulate a proper Project Management approach, and use the relevant tool (Pert, Gantt, BDS, etc.) applyed in this area.
• Evaluate the major issues of a Manufacturing Foot-print Redesign and develop a consistent decision making process to face and mitigate the related potential risks.
• Develop and interpret the relevant financial and non-financial performances related to the specific business case.

The course is designed as a “Learning Lab” in which students can develop several managerial skills such as team working, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and effective presentation.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Group assignments
• Interactive class activities (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

This course is characterized by the adoption of an experiential learning approach, through a Lab in which a real case study and simulations are intensively used. This teaching methodology lets the participant directly implement practices and tools learned in class, developing problem setting and problem solving skills, as well as team working ones. Thanks to the use of simulation tools, class discussion and the delivery of 3 group assignments, participants, living a realistic experience of the problems affecting project management and execution, can test their abilities and learning.

They can also appreciate the benefits that can be gained through the introduction of up-to-date managerial practices, which they have to implement during simulations and business games. This teaching methodology, heavily based on interaction and class participation, aims at providing students with a deep insight of the main problems and solutions peculiar to a multi-functional and compex problem through a learning experience that reproduces real life situations.

Given the nature of the course and its aims, the attendance is compulsory (100%). The final evaluation is based on Pass/Fail grade. In each of the first three modules students are requested to develiver specific Group Assignements.  These assignments are developed to test the student's knowledge acquired during the class sessions and their attitude in team working, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and effective presentation.

Non-attending students are required to deliver an individual report based on an assignment that will be discussed with the Course director.

This assignment is developed to test the student's knowledge acquired in terms of problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, and effective presentation.

The reading package is made of a series of specific teaching notes and case studies uploaded on the Bborad platform at the beginning of the course. In addition, in the last part of the course students are engaged in a simulation, based on a dedicated tool.

To be defined and uploaded on the Bboard platform at the beginnig of the course.