Outline

Overview

This unit presents students with an opportunity to apply their knowledge and hone foundational skills in innovation and entrepreneurship: creativity and ideation; design thinking and empathy; opportunity framing, identification and construction; experimentation and hypothesis validation; systems thinking; critical thinking; project management; and networking skills. The unit introduces various frameworks and processes for developing ideas and opportunities into viable business/social venture concepts; and requires students to apply them. The unit requires students to engage with the disciplines and industries/sectors in which they are interested, where they actively search for and construct opportunities. Students are introduced to and work with the Business, Lean and Impact-Gap Canvas frameworks. At the completion of this unit, students have a 'bank' of business/social venture opportunities ready for further validation and development as well as an insights map of their own understanding and knowledge of their chosen discipline or industry

Unit details and rules

Unit code	SIEN1001
Academic unit	Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Credit points	6
Prohibitions ?	None
Prerequisites ?	None
Corequisites ?	SIEN1000
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	No

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Steven Maguire, steven.maguire@sydney.edu.au

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Assignment	Big Ideas Pitch Reflective Video Blog	25%	Week 05 Due date: 02 Sep 2022 at 21:00	3 minutes
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Rapid Prototyping Portfolio Blog about groupwork experience + podcast about challenge + visual mapping	40%	Week 10 Due date: 14 Oct 2022 at 21:00	Blog (700words), podcast (2min), visual
Outcomes assessed:
Presentation	Prototype Presentation at Project Fair Presentation of group-generated prototype/solution to classmates.	35%	Week 13 Due date: 31 Oct 2022 at 09:00	20 mins
Outcomes assessed:
= group assignment ?

Assessment summary

Big Ideas Pitch: Students create a reflective video log (vlog) about a grand challenge we are facing as a global society. They describe a ‘wicked problem,’ e.g., climate change, migration, or specific breakthrough technology that they feel passionate about. The video frames the theme's relevance by pointing out its historical origins, the stakeholders involved, and why it leads to problematic consequences. Students elaborate on why they feel emotionally touched by this issue and which change they would like to see in the world. They identify levers to ignite meaningful change for a better tomorrow.

Rapid Prototyping Portfolio: Students showcase their learning journey and personal development triggered by this unit's class materials and group work. The ePortfolio – a carefully curated collection of their work – contains (1) a reflective blog about the group dynamics of working in a co-creative team, (2) a mini-podcast explaining how their understanding of a grand challenge and the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in addressing it has evolved, and (3) a visual impact and stakeholder mapping of the proposed solution developed in the project group.

Prototype Presentation at Project Fair: Project groups present the prototype solution/initiative they developed. They curate a small exhibition using posters, images, multimedia elements, decorative props, etc., to create an interesting experience. During alloted time, they host an interactive guided tour. In this assignment, students practice their ability to host participatory events and engage in experience design - crucial skills in the knowledge economy.

Assessment criteria

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85-100	Awarded when you demonstrate the learning outcomes for the unit at an exceptional standard, as defined by grade descriptors or exemplars outlined by the Business School.
Distinction	75-84	Awarded when you demonstrate the learning outcomes for the unit at a very high standard, as defined by grade descriptors or exemplars outlined by the Business School.
Credit	65-74	Awarded when you demonstrate the learning outcomes for the unit at a good standard, as defined by grade descriptors or exemplars outlined by the Business School.
Pass	50-64	Awarded when you demonstrate the learning outcomes for the unit at an acceptable standard, as defined by grade descriptors or exemplars outlined by the Business School.
Fail	0-49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see guide to grades.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

You may only use artificial intelligence and writing assistance tools in assessment tasks if you are permitted to by your unit coordinator, and if you do use them, you must also acknowledge this in your work, either in a footnote or an acknowledgement section.

Studiosity is permitted for postgraduate units unless otherwise indicated by the unit coordinator. The use of this service must be acknowledged in your submission.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Innovation and entrepreneurship: A team sport. In the first module, we talk about the dramatic shift towards collaboration, creativity, and decentralisation in the digital economy. Which skills and values do you need as a future innovator? And why is this not the time of highflyers but team players? Why is collaborative leadership the innovator's best friend? What makes a perfect entrepreneurial team?	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 02	Collaborative leadership. We look at how innovation leaders adopt new organisational designs to facilitate a culture of collaboration. And, which skills, mindsets, and tools do you need to become a successful collaborative leader? We will also experiment with our collective imagination to lay the fundament for your group projects.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 03	Creativity: Wonder and rigour. We explore creativity and become co-creators ourselves! We will uncover some unexpected and unpleasant truths about the imperative to be creative and innovative. And, you will learn more about your habitual role in groups to better realize co-creative potential.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 04	Communicating innovation and entrepreneurship. The first step to realizing your ideas? They need to be communicated well! This week you will learn more about narratives that have been tried and tested since the dawn of time. How can you develop a compelling public narrative, what are the essentials of an entrepreneurial pitch, and how can visual thinking help you engage people? We will also explore how a culture of generative feedback is essential for every innovation team.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 05	Collective imagination space. This week we will push the boundaries of what’s possible and play with the impossible. We explore today’s major systemic axes of change and see which factors constrain us in imagining desirable futures. Your collaborative innovation journey starts here! Together with similarly interested students you map the ecosystem of your grand challenge and generate wild ideas to address it. From there, we create project groups and start building a co-creative team culture.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 06	Innovation journey. Time to narrow down your opportunity! We host a panel of academics, leaders and students in USYDs innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. You get a better view of the resources and networks available to you. You will then move out, interviewing a local expert in your field of interest, which will help you to formulate a problem statement and narrow down possible customer/stakeholder personas.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 07	Imagineering. Collectively sharing our lessons from the innovation journey and learning more about the crucial role of failure and a systems thinking mindset in innovation processes, you will get practical tools that will help you to validate your opportunity further. How can you unlock customer/stakeholder insights to get from a stage of imagination to engineering?	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 08	Make. break. repeat. We kick-off of a three-week design sprint, where you co-create, prototype, and iterate your innovation/solution. You bring your project to life and make a range of decisions regarding a preliminary business model that suits you and your targeted customer/stakeholder segments. We will introduce you to design thinking and the business/lean/impact canvas, from which you can draw to develop your project in an iterative, feedback-rich, and fast-paced experimental way.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 09	The agile way. We dive into agile methodology for project management and leadership in self-organising, multidisciplinary teams. You will have some time to experiment with your personal toolbox and learn more about agile pioneers, like Atlassian or Spotify. Then, you will have a chance to apply your new tools, as you position your solution and prepare its potential market entry.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 10	Rapid prototyping dojo. You present your draft projects to an experienced mentor, take feedback from this test onboard, and refine your solution according to what you’ve learned. We will also explore how you can further validate your solution through interviews and customer data.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 11	Make it real. We will prepare for your final presentations by delving into experience design as the process of creating meaningful experiences both online and offline, centred around the user. You will also get a primer on how to host engaging, participatory events that do more than ‘pushing’ out information. Finally, we will look at questions around going legal, investor relations, and intellectual property protection that face every entrepreneur.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 12	Project fair. Student groups present their projects by hosting an interactive 20min event around them.	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 13	Leaving well. We round up this semester's content and engage in a playful retrospective of what we have learned	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Massa, P. (2021). Entrepreneurship in the Wild. MIT Press. (Textbook)
Brown, B. (2012). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, pp. 31-56. New York, NY: Avery.
Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. The New York Times.
TED Talk (Video): Margaret Heffernan: Forget the Pecking Order at Work
Gino, F. (2019). Cracking the Code of Sustained Collaboration. (Cover story). Harvard Business Review, 97(6), 72–81.
Elias, S. R. S. T. A., Chiles, T. H., & Crawford, B. (2021). Entrepreneurial imagining: How a small team of arts entrepreneurs created the world’s largest traveling carillon. Organization Studies
TED Talk (Video): Simon Sinek: Why good leaders make you feel safe
Catmull, E. (2008). How Pixar fosters collective creativity. Harvard Business Review, 86(5), 65–72.
Bernstein, Ethan, Francesca Gino, and Bradley Staats. "Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (A)." Harvard Business School Case 415-015, August 2014.
Catmull, E. (2008). How Pixar fosters collective creativity. Harvard Business Review, 86(5), 65–72.
Bernstein, Ethan, Francesca Gino, and Bradley Staats. "Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (A)." Harvard Business School Case 415-015, August 2014.
Hastings, R., & Meyer, E. (2020). No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention (Section One: First Steps to a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility). Penguin Press.
Itzchakov, G., & Kluger, A. N. (2018). The Power of Listening in Helping People Change. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2–7.
The Way We Work, a TED series (Video): LeeAnn Renniger: The secret to giving great feedback
Reeves M., Goodson, B., Whitaker, K. (2021). The power of anomaly: To achieve strategic advantage scan the market for surprises. Harvard Business Review, July-August
Murray, F. and Johnson, E. (2021). Innovation starts with defining the right constraints. Harvard Business Review
Rayner, T. (2018). Hacker Culture and the New Rules of Innovation, pp. 69-118 (Chapters 4-5). London; New York: Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. Identify and describe a personal focus as entrepreneur and innovator, and use it to discover potential business, technological, social development or cultural opportunities that demonstrate creativity and originality.
LO2. Analyze opportunities and contrast strengths and weaknesses.
LO3. Assemble and work productively in a team to develop the opportunity.
LO4. Present the most promising business, technological, social development or cultural opportunities.
LO5. Identify and describe in actionable detail the next three steps to develop further the idea.
LO6. Seek opinions, perspectives and evaluations from customers, users, stakeholders and/or experts and consolidate learnings.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

This is the first time this unit will be offered.

Additional information

Business School Policies

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect

Current students

SIEN1001: Innovators' Skills and Actions

Semester 2, 2022 [Normal day] - Remote

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect