Curriculum & Courses

Note: This course starts with a 3-day on-campus Residency in late August and continues online thereafter. 

Knowledge-driven organizations increasingly dominate the economy. What are their attributes? What vision and strategy guides their development? How are they designed? What are the jobs necessary for this new workplace? This course has been designed to give students a grounding that will be important for their future working career. It will focus on how the global economy and all its subsequent ramifications has evolved from a predominantly industrial base to one based on knowledge.

The Foundations course will begin by giving students a historical perspective as to how the "knowledge" economy specifically came about. We will be using historical and economic data and models which offer a clear understanding as to how the global economy and organizations evolved into their current state-where value is produced by knowledge and ideas significantly more than the earlier industrial processes and operations. 

The course will then present detailed and comprehensive treatments of how societies, organizations and individual lives have been changed due to this great shift in the factors of production. The course will also focus on how networks, communities and practices work and have evolved to focus more on knowledge production and transfer than on the more industrial factors of production such as land, labor and capital. In addition, the course will examine the critical role of intangibles such as culture, trust and missions in the workings of organizations in this new era. Insights from anthropology, psychology and sociology as well as economics will be incorporated into the course curriculum.

A complex and comprehensive case study on NASA and their knowledge operations will be one of the key learning tools for this course as it proceeds.

In economic literature, scholars classify factors of production into three major categories: labor, or human services, capital, or manmade means of production, and land, or natural resources. As the complexity and knowledge intensity of industries engaged in manufacturing and service delivery have increased, knowledge has emerged as the fourth factor of production. According to Peter Drucker, the recognized founder of modern management, knowledge is the primary economic resource that allows workers to manipulate ideas, problem solve, and innovate—land, labor, and capital are becoming restraints rather than driving forces of the economy.

This course examines the knowledge processes, practices, and governance mechanisms that activate knowledge to drive performance, innovation, continuous improvement, and create competitive advantage. We kick-off by reading Robert Grant’s article on the knowledge-based view of the firm. Grant, an economist and professor of strategic management at Georgetown University, describes how firms integrate, combine, and coordinate individual and firm knowledge to produce goods and services.

After this theoretical introduction, students will learn and apply a series of models and frameworks that address how to capture and disseminate critical knowledge to people performing productive work. For example, Business Model and Value Proposition Design (Alexander Osterwalder), Jobs-To-Be-Done Framework (Clayton Christensen), Operational Model Design, (Cambell and Blenko), and Knowledge Jam (Katrina Pugh).

After building a business model, the focus will shift to practical methods to operationalize knowledge to make it productive. Students will learn how to create a technology architecture, identify strategies to enable findability, adopt an adaptive leadership approach to business transformation, and propose a disciplined knowledge governance program.

The course culminates with the design of a transformational project that integrates the concepts and models presented in this course. Students will create a project charter and work plan to guide the transformation from traditional ways of working to processes and practices that fully leverage knowledge.

Digital natives ‘built upon an algorithm’ are profoundly changing the structure of entire industries (e.g.: Google/Advertising, Redfin/Real Estate, Netflix/Entertainment). C-suite executives now view analytics as a strategic priority and investing in acquiring data, data scientists and analytical technologies.

The goal of this course is to enable you to develop a pragmatic, executive level understanding of business analytics, data science and business intelligence as well as the critical management skills needed for success in this field. Through readings, assignments, lectures, guest speakers (previous guests include executives from Google, UPS, Microsoft, McKinsey, NY City, World Economic Forum) and class discussion, students learn why and how organizations are ‘competing on analytics’ to improve decision making and optimize performance. Case examples (e.g.: Disney, Arsenal F.C., Unilever, Caterpillar, USAA, Zillow, Target, UPS) highlight the ways firms are building business strategies around sophisticated analytical capabilities.

Students learn how organizations use analytics to innovate and create new digital products and services. They also study how analytics is profoundly transforming the way businesses operate. Rather than “relying on their gut” when pricing products, understanding customers, maintaining inventory, or hiring talent, managers increasingly rely on data analytics and process optimization to improve efficiency, manage risk, enhance profitability, and deliver superior results. An analytical sophistication framework (descriptive, predictive, prescriptive, autonomous) illustrates how different management challenges require specific types of solutions.

A key executive challenge for these organizations is to prioritize investments in data, expertise, and technology as part of a cohesive strategy that optimizes results. Using a real organization, students learn how to apply the DELTA+ model to assess an organization’s analytical capabilities and devise a roadmap to build a robust, analytical capability.

While not a statistics or programming course, students will gain insight into the different types of quantitative techniques (e.g., optimization, NLP, forecasting, simulation, neural nets, Bayesian, regression, genetic algorithms) as well technologies/tools for business intelligence, modeling, machine learning, and AI (e.g., SAS, Tableau, Spark, Excel, MATLAB, PowerBI, Oracle Analytics) and languages (Python, R).

In a world of increasing complexity, the age of the lone genius is over. Now work happens in teams. Those teams may be globally distributed, involving people with a variety of expertise, work styles, and culture. Research shows that diverse, highly credentialed teams create some collaboration challenges. At a larger scale, organizations are now collaborating with other organizations, government agencies, volunteers groups, and even competitors in shared pursuit of even more ambitious mission and strategy. In this course, we look at the components of healthy collaboration and what it takes to design and lead a healthy collaboration, regardless of its size.

The exponential growth of information and data—combined with software that can understand and learn from experience—provides entrepreneurs with tremendous opportunities to bring innovative customer-focused solutions to market. While there are no direct paths to bring a new product idea to market, there are easily identifiable milestones that can guide the way from idea generation to product profitability. This course will explore the process of early-stage development of knowledge-driven, data-intensive digital products like Spotify, Netflix, Watson, and TripAdvisor. The goal is to create a hands-on entrepreneurial experience at its most elemental and visceral level—ideation, brainstorming, interacting with customers, building a founding team, developing a business model, managing risk, investigating competitors, pitching the business to potential investors, and creating an interactive mobile app prototype (a design proof of concept for your business idea) through an iterative user-centered design process.

In this course, we use Eric Reis’ startup method from his book, Lean Startup, as a foundation for creating and testing new ideas. Students learn to validate their new product ideas in the market by immediately engaging with customers to gauge whether their idea solves a problem better than alternative solutions. Building on the insight generated by customer interviews, students design a business model using the Lean Canvas approach designed by Ash Maurya and iterate their ideas based on Design Thinking (Tim Brown) principles. Throughout the course, we will shift from learning to the rapid application of new frameworks to speed up product design and development.

Students will be exposed to all the pressures and demands of real-world start-ups by participating in teams tasked with creating weekly deliverables required to launch a new business. The user-experience skills and methods that are taught in this class are in demand by employers and startups across nearly every industry and reflect the latest best practices used to create today’s most widely used and award-winning digital products. The skills developed in this class apply to many real-world business problems that require an agile and iterative approach.

How do organizational leaders invest in digital technologies and capabilities to catalyze digital transformation? Moreover, how do corporations and institutions create an effective portfolio of digital investments that are aligned — continuously over time — with the organization’s mission and strategy? This course provides an introduction to digital transformation, and the modern (digital) “place” of work, such as intranets, search appliances, analytic dashboards, enterprise social media, mixed reality, and content management. Feeding the digital workplace are “sources of record,” including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), HR systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), IoT sensors, and digital marketing. Finally, we look at likely future scenarios for work and how organizations can prepare for digital transformation and beyond.

How do organizational leaders invest in digital technologies and capabilities to catalyze digital transformation? Moreover, how do corporations and institutions create an effective portfolio of digital investments that are aligned — continuously over time — with the organization’s mission and strategy? This course provides an introduction to digital transformation, and the modern (digital) “place” of work, such as intranets, search appliances, analytic dashboards, enterprise social media, mixed reality, and content management. Feeding the digital workplace are “sources of record,” including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), HR systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), IoT sensors, and digital marketing. Finally, we look at likely future scenarios for work and how organizations can prepare for digital transformation and beyond.

This course has been designed for students looking to learn how to effectively consult with clients, peers, and others. This course is a guide for living in a time of free agency, outsourcing, and cross-functional work. Consulting skills are essential to design, recommend, implement, and sell your ideas and programs. The need for expertise goes far beyond having the best idea. It is knowing how to create an idea using a process that builds collaborative relationships and ensures successful adoption of your expertise.

Drawing on examples from a variety of organizations, this course will focus directly on strategies and tactics for designing services and products for organizations or institutions. The entire course and assignments will focus on working with a client to assess the environment, create a prioritized business case, and conclude with an implementation plan. Topics will include whole systems development, strategies for engagement, diagnosis to discovery, ethics and managing your consulting relationship, change management, and establishing yourself as a trusted advisor.

This is a hands-on course where students are expected to identify an existing consulting assignment (internal or external) that we will work throughout the class to help their client improve its effectiveness and competitiveness. Illustrative examples, case studies, interactive exercises, faculty expertise, and special guest leaders will be used to build your confidence and capability for consulting to clients.

Note: This course starts online and concludes with a 3-day on-campus Residency in December. 

The IKNS Capstone project is the culmination of the students’ immersion in this executive-level program, and an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the cross-disciplinary curriculum. Working individually and in small teams, students do a consulting project for an organization seeking to initiate or improve its information and knowledge processes, or to expand revenue opportunities from intelligent, knowledge-enabled products. Clients benefit from applied and scholarly research, analysis, and insight from students, who, guided by faculty, bring considerable professional and academic credentials. Students benefit from applying their learning in an environment that is at the same time realistic and supported by IKNS faculty and sponsors, and from getting exposure to a new industry, KM function, and network of practitioners. Capstone projects showcase IKNS student learning, are well-articulated, are moderately complex, and can be conducted virtually (outside of New York, and/or in New York with remote students). Industry and nonprofit “sponsors” are curious, motivated, well-networked professionals who can help the students bring to light the insights and vision of their organization. Student projects might include:

• Improving knowledge-sharing patterns and incentives
• Designing a business analytics competency for decision-making
• Improving or introducing knowledge networks or communities
• Improving or introducing social media and other collaboration processes
• Redefining information architectures, taxonomies and tagging for maximum engagement
• Expanding the repertoire of tacit knowledge sharing approaches
• Introducing knowledge-based products as incremental revenue streams
• Defining a knowledge and information governance model, and expanding the capacity to act
• Defining a KM vision from the ground up, with roadmap, program, and technology evolution

Student teams form just before the third intensive study in August-September. Intensive study involves introductions to research methods, team-collaboration, consulting basics, and project management. Student work entails secondary research, expert or employee interviews, model development joint design of processes, operations, and technology; analysis and improvements to content or technology, new product or practice planning, and client training and presentations. Students strive for not just lofty strategies, but practical action.

The Capstone Project Seminar culminates with an on-campus, intensive component. During this intensive, students will convene in New York City on the Columbia University campus to present their final capstone presentations before their classmates, capstone sponsors, and Columbia University faculty.  Students are required to attend and actively participate in all intensive events.

Note: This course starts with a 3-day on-campus Residency in late August and continues online thereafter. 

Knowledge-driven organizations increasingly dominate the economy. What are their attributes? What vision and strategy guides their development? How are they designed? What are the jobs necessary for this new workplace? This course has been designed to give students a grounding that will be important for their future working career. It will focus on how the global economy and all its subsequent ramifications has evolved from a predominantly industrial base to one based on knowledge.

The Foundations course will begin by giving students a historical perspective as to how the "knowledge" economy specifically came about. We will be using historical and economic data and models which offer a clear understanding as to how the global economy and organizations evolved into their current state-where value is produced by knowledge and ideas significantly more than the earlier industrial processes and operations. 

The course will then present detailed and comprehensive treatments of how societies, organizations and individual lives have been changed due to this great shift in the factors of production. The course will also focus on how networks, communities and practices work and have evolved to focus more on knowledge production and transfer than on the more industrial factors of production such as land, labor and capital. In addition, the course will examine the critical role of intangibles such as culture, trust and missions in the workings of organizations in this new era. Insights from anthropology, psychology and sociology as well as economics will be incorporated into the course curriculum.

A complex and comprehensive case study on NASA and their knowledge operations will be one of the key learning tools for this course as it proceeds.

In economic literature, scholars classify factors of production into three major categories: labor, or human services, capital, or manmade means of production, and land, or natural resources. As the complexity and knowledge intensity of industries engaged in manufacturing and service delivery have increased, knowledge has emerged as the fourth factor of production. According to Peter Drucker, the recognized founder of modern management, knowledge is the primary economic resource that allows workers to manipulate ideas, problem solve, and innovate—land, labor, and capital are becoming restraints rather than driving forces of the economy.

This course examines the knowledge processes, practices, and governance mechanisms that activate knowledge to drive performance, innovation, continuous improvement, and create competitive advantage. We kick-off by reading Robert Grant’s article on the knowledge-based view of the firm. Grant, an economist and professor of strategic management at Georgetown University, describes how firms integrate, combine, and coordinate individual and firm knowledge to produce goods and services.

After this theoretical introduction, students will learn and apply a series of models and frameworks that address how to capture and disseminate critical knowledge to people performing productive work. For example, Business Model and Value Proposition Design (Alexander Osterwalder), Jobs-To-Be-Done Framework (Clayton Christensen), Operational Model Design, (Cambell and Blenko), and Knowledge Jam (Katrina Pugh).

After building a business model, the focus will shift to practical methods to operationalize knowledge to make it productive. Students will learn how to create a technology architecture, identify strategies to enable findability, adopt an adaptive leadership approach to business transformation, and propose a disciplined knowledge governance program.

The course culminates with the design of a transformational project that integrates the concepts and models presented in this course. Students will create a project charter and work plan to guide the transformation from traditional ways of working to processes and practices that fully leverage knowledge.

In a world of increasing complexity, the age of the lone genius is over. Now work happens in teams. Those teams may be globally distributed, involving people with a variety of expertise, work styles, and culture. Research shows that diverse, highly credentialed teams create some collaboration challenges. At a larger scale, organizations are now collaborating with other organizations, government agencies, volunteers groups, and even competitors in shared pursuit of even more ambitious mission and strategy. In this course, we look at the components of healthy collaboration and what it takes to design and lead a healthy collaboration, regardless of its size.

Digital natives ‘built upon an algorithm’ are profoundly changing the structure of entire industries (e.g.: Google/Advertising, Redfin/Real Estate, Netflix/Entertainment). C-suite executives now view analytics as a strategic priority and investing in acquiring data, data scientists and analytical technologies.

The goal of this course is to enable you to develop a pragmatic, executive level understanding of business analytics, data science and business intelligence as well as the critical management skills needed for success in this field. Through readings, assignments, lectures, guest speakers (previous guests include executives from Google, UPS, Microsoft, McKinsey, NY City, World Economic Forum) and class discussion, students learn why and how organizations are ‘competing on analytics’ to improve decision making and optimize performance. Case examples (e.g.: Disney, Arsenal F.C., Unilever, Caterpillar, USAA, Zillow, Target, UPS) highlight the ways firms are building business strategies around sophisticated analytical capabilities.

Students learn how organizations use analytics to innovate and create new digital products and services. They also study how analytics is profoundly transforming the way businesses operate. Rather than “relying on their gut” when pricing products, understanding customers, maintaining inventory, or hiring talent, managers increasingly rely on data analytics and process optimization to improve efficiency, manage risk, enhance profitability, and deliver superior results. An analytical sophistication framework (descriptive, predictive, prescriptive, autonomous) illustrates how different management challenges require specific types of solutions.

A key executive challenge for these organizations is to prioritize investments in data, expertise, and technology as part of a cohesive strategy that optimizes results. Using a real organization, students learn how to apply the DELTA+ model to assess an organization’s analytical capabilities and devise a roadmap to build a robust, analytical capability.

While not a statistics or programming course, students will gain insight into the different types of quantitative techniques (e.g., optimization, NLP, forecasting, simulation, neural nets, Bayesian, regression, genetic algorithms) as well technologies/tools for business intelligence, modeling, machine learning, and AI (e.g., SAS, Tableau, Spark, Excel, MATLAB, PowerBI, Oracle Analytics) and languages (Python, R).

The exponential growth of information and data—combined with software that can understand and learn from experience—provides entrepreneurs with tremendous opportunities to bring innovative customer-focused solutions to market. While there are no direct paths to bring a new product idea to market, there are easily identifiable milestones that can guide the way from idea generation to product profitability. This course will explore the process of early-stage development of knowledge-driven, data-intensive digital products like Spotify, Netflix, Watson, and TripAdvisor. The goal is to create a hands-on entrepreneurial experience at its most elemental and visceral level—ideation, brainstorming, interacting with customers, building a founding team, developing a business model, managing risk, investigating competitors, pitching the business to potential investors, and creating an interactive mobile app prototype (a design proof of concept for your business idea) through an iterative user-centered design process.

In this course, we use Eric Reis’ startup method from his book, Lean Startup, as a foundation for creating and testing new ideas. Students learn to validate their new product ideas in the market by immediately engaging with customers to gauge whether their idea solves a problem better than alternative solutions. Building on the insight generated by customer interviews, students design a business model using the Lean Canvas approach designed by Ash Maurya and iterate their ideas based on Design Thinking (Tim Brown) principles. Throughout the course, we will shift from learning to the rapid application of new frameworks to speed up product design and development.

Students will be exposed to all the pressures and demands of real-world start-ups by participating in teams tasked with creating weekly deliverables required to launch a new business. The user-experience skills and methods that are taught in this class are in demand by employers and startups across nearly every industry and reflect the latest best practices used to create today’s most widely used and award-winning digital products. The skills developed in this class apply to many real-world business problems that require an agile and iterative approach.

How do organizational leaders invest in digital technologies and capabilities to catalyze digital transformation? Moreover, how do corporations and institutions create an effective portfolio of digital investments that are aligned — continuously over time — with the organization’s mission and strategy? This course provides an introduction to digital transformation, and the modern (digital) “place” of work, such as intranets, search appliances, analytic dashboards, enterprise social media, mixed reality, and content management. Feeding the digital workplace are “sources of record,” including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), HR systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), IoT sensors, and digital marketing. Finally, we look at likely future scenarios for work and how organizations can prepare for digital transformation and beyond.

How do organizational leaders invest in digital technologies and capabilities to catalyze digital transformation? Moreover, how do corporations and institutions create an effective portfolio of digital investments that are aligned — continuously over time — with the organization’s mission and strategy? This course provides an introduction to digital transformation, and the modern (digital) “place” of work, such as intranets, search appliances, analytic dashboards, enterprise social media, mixed reality, and content management. Feeding the digital workplace are “sources of record,” including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), HR systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), IoT sensors, and digital marketing. Finally, we look at likely future scenarios for work and how organizations can prepare for digital transformation and beyond.

This course has been designed for students looking to learn how to effectively consult with clients, peers, and others. This course is a guide for living in a time of free agency, outsourcing, and cross-functional work. Consulting skills are essential to design, recommend, implement, and sell your ideas and programs. The need for expertise goes far beyond having the best idea. It is knowing how to create an idea using a process that builds collaborative relationships and ensures successful adoption of your expertise.

Drawing on examples from a variety of organizations, this course will focus directly on strategies and tactics for designing services and products for organizations or institutions. The entire course and assignments will focus on working with a client to assess the environment, create a prioritized business case, and conclude with an implementation plan. Topics will include whole systems development, strategies for engagement, diagnosis to discovery, ethics and managing your consulting relationship, change management, and establishing yourself as a trusted advisor.

This is a hands-on course where students are expected to identify an existing consulting assignment (internal or external) that we will work throughout the class to help their client improve its effectiveness and competitiveness. Illustrative examples, case studies, interactive exercises, faculty expertise, and special guest leaders will be used to build your confidence and capability for consulting to clients.

Note: This course starts online and concludes with a 3-day on-campus Residency in December. 

The IKNS Capstone project is the culmination of the students’ immersion in this executive-level program, and an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the cross-disciplinary curriculum. Working individually and in small teams, students do a consulting project for an organization seeking to initiate or improve its information and knowledge processes, or to expand revenue opportunities from intelligent, knowledge-enabled products. Clients benefit from applied and scholarly research, analysis, and insight from students, who, guided by faculty, bring considerable professional and academic credentials. Students benefit from applying their learning in an environment that is at the same time realistic and supported by IKNS faculty and sponsors, and from getting exposure to a new industry, KM function, and network of practitioners. Capstone projects showcase IKNS student learning, are well-articulated, are moderately complex, and can be conducted virtually (outside of New York, and/or in New York with remote students). Industry and nonprofit “sponsors” are curious, motivated, well-networked professionals who can help the students bring to light the insights and vision of their organization. Student projects might include:

• Improving knowledge-sharing patterns and incentives
• Designing a business analytics competency for decision-making
• Improving or introducing knowledge networks or communities
• Improving or introducing social media and other collaboration processes
• Redefining information architectures, taxonomies and tagging for maximum engagement
• Expanding the repertoire of tacit knowledge sharing approaches
• Introducing knowledge-based products as incremental revenue streams
• Defining a knowledge and information governance model, and expanding the capacity to act
• Defining a KM vision from the ground up, with roadmap, program, and technology evolution

Student teams form just before the third intensive study in August-September. Intensive study involves introductions to research methods, team-collaboration, consulting basics, and project management. Student work entails secondary research, expert or employee interviews, model development joint design of processes, operations, and technology; analysis and improvements to content or technology, new product or practice planning, and client training and presentations. Students strive for not just lofty strategies, but practical action.

The Capstone Project Seminar culminates with an on-campus, intensive component. During this intensive, students will convene in New York City on the Columbia University campus to present their final capstone presentations before their classmates, capstone sponsors, and Columbia University faculty.  Students are required to attend and actively participate in all intensive events.