Experts in Team Innovation

• Innovation theory
• Budgets and their role
• Business understanding and modelling for engineers
• Market analysis
• The pitch and its role
• Business report writing
• Theory and tools for ideation and co-creation
• Theory and tools for collaboration

Throughout the course the student will gain experience-based knowledge of:

• Interdisciplinary collaboration and the meaning of teamwork, team roles, and team competences
• Innovation and entrepreneurship
• Business models, including customers and markets, financial considerations and feasibility.
• Relations between product, man, environment and quality, and also considerations concerning ethics, communication strategies, research and analysis

• Knowledge sharing within the team
• Analyzing the team’s personal and professional competences and how to apply these in the teamwork
• Applying tools for project management and collaboration
• Planning, implementing and documenting collaboration processes

• Applying idea generation techniques
• Understanding and systematically describing the needs and wants of the user
• Researching for market analysis and competitor analysis
• Devising financial budgets relevant for qualifying the business idea
• Composing a business model
• Applying own engineering skills

• Reflecting on and adjusting the project management and collaboration process of the team and project.
• Documenting the interdisciplinary teamwork process as an individual and as a team
• Investigating financial feasibility and an interdisciplinary collaboration process
• Outline personal learning objectives and reflect on the fulfilment of these

• Assessing the commercial feasibility of the business idea through e.g. the business model and financial considerations.
• Analyzing and mitigating risks related to the business idea and/or business model
• Assessing the business idea in a global perspective
• Arguing for the usefulness and innovativeness of the business idea and/or business model
• Reflecting on the ethical, environmental, social, and quality related issues related to the business idea and the business model
• Documenting the business idea and the business model
• Pitching the business idea
• Reflecting on the innovation process from idea creation to final business idea
• Reflecting on the relevance to the innovation process of team members’ engineering skills
• Reflecting on the relevance to the innovation process of own engineering skills

The course Experts in Team Innovation has two main learning objectives. Firstly it literally aims at making you an expert in teamwork by letting you collaborate interdisciplinary and preferably cross culturally. Secondly it aims at changing your mindset from traditional problem solving and optimization within your own field of interest to understanding how your engineering skills can create value for others. You and your team will develop the teamwork skills and work on the mindset change whilst participating in an innovation process.

In this course “innovation process” is defined as a two-step process. The first step is an ideation phase where your team identifies a business idea. In the second step your team then qualifies that idea. A business idea is ”the innovative idea” that solves a problem and fulfills a third party's need. The idea can be a radically or incrementally new product/service, it can be an improvement of an existing product/service, or it can be a production method or a new way of doing sales. A business idea can be applying new technology in a well-known context or applying well-known technology in a new context.

Your team will work either intrapreneurial or entrepreneurial. The intrapreneurial teams will work with a company. The entrepreneurial teams on the other hand will work as if they were to start their own company around their idea. Social entrepreneurship is also an option. This course is based on experience-based learning. A small traditional curriculum is provided to create a secure platform but the most important learning content is your own reflection on the two experiences designed for you: the interdisciplinary group process and the innovation process.

The course develops your innovation skills and deepens your understanding of group processes. The course thus aims at strengthening your general engineering competences. When you have finished the course, you will be able to plan and implement a multidisciplinary innovation process based on and using relevant innovation models and methods and assess the feasibility of this.

Form of instruction
Fascilitation, lecturing

Project descriptions can be prepared in collaboration with external parties. You may be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

The course replaces F-EIT5-U02 which can be credit transferred without approval by the study board.