The Venture Design Studio: A Design Thinking Approach to ...

Alex Bruton, ICSB 2010 Distributed to delegates of Experiential Classroom XI 1

The Venture Design Studio: A Design Thinking Approach to

Teaching and Learning for the Conception, Communication

and Innovation of New Venture Concepts*

By Alex Bruton

It has been said in recent years that little evidence exists to show that the business planning

process enables entrepreneurial learning. This paper advances a design thinking approach to

teaching and learning for the conception, design, characterization, prototyping, testing, pitching

and innovation of new venture concepts. The curricular approach and the associated scholarly

inquiry project are described, as are the encouraging results obtained as we have begun

implementing the so-called Venture Design Studio as part of our renewed and now cross-campus

entrepreneurship offerings. This includes an approach to assessment that facilitates student-led

learning, engages experienced entrepreneurs as “choreographers” and results in the design of

new venture models that are both highly innovative and highly feasible. The number of used

textbook stores and student-bars being proposed has been driven down in favour of significantly

more ventures deemed to be highly scalable. Implications are discussed for the design of

curricula that help students reach into and catalyze innovation within their local ecosystems.

Introduction

Educational Context and Challenges

Calls are being made around the world for new approaches to education (Owen et al. 2006;

Guntram 2007) on the premise that we are part of an information society characterized by:

technology-savvy students who learn more by absorption and experience than by reading a

* The author acknowledges the support of the Mount Royal Teaching and Learning Scholars program and

the Bissett School of Business, and thanks his colleagues Stephen Kenny, Laurie Jensen, Carolyn

Sterenberg, Vance Gough, Patti Derbyshire and Douglas MacDonald for their input and roles in teaching

the Venture Design Studio the first time through.

Alex Bruton (PhD) is an Assistant Professor and Teaching and Learning Scholar at the Bissett School

of Business at Mount Royal University. He has academic, industrial and entrepreneurial experience,

including roles in engineering, in product management, as an inventor, as co-founder of an Innovation

Department, as a business consultant and most recently as VP Business Development for a technology

start-up. He is a passionate teacher, has spoken to audiences up to 500 in size on over 40 occasions in six

countries, and has led the development of a renewed entrepreneurship curriculum for delivery to students

across Mount Royal. His research interests include innovation and the scholarship of teaching and

learning for entrepreneurship.

Address correspondence to: Alex Bruton, Bissett School of Business, Mount Royal University, 4825

Mount Royal Gate, SW, Calgary, AB, Canada, T3E 6K6. Tel: 403-440-8725. E-mail:

[email protected].


training manual or attending a course (Brown 1999); a shift in the focus of creativity from

generating original content to the timely rip-mix-burn reshaping of existing content (Ito 2007);

increasing requirements for interdisciplinary work carried out by teams across functional and

institutional boundaries (Guntram 2007); new ways of perceiving and organizing knowledge in

society (Weinberger 2005) and in the educational sector (Cunningham and Duffy 2000); and new

forms of teacher and learner interaction enabled by innovative technologies and approaches to

copyright (Dillon and Bacon 2006). And it is frequently argued that Web 2.0 technologies are

causing a disruption in higher education much like those that took place or are taking place in the

music, newspaper, book and television industries (Christensen, Johnson and Horn 2008; Tapscott

and Williams 2010). In order to survive in the networked, global economy of the future,

universities are being told to embrace collaborative learning and collaborative knowledge

production (Tapscott and Williams 2010) and teachers are being encouraged to shift their

practices from the traditional teacher-centered transfer of subject-area-focused knowledge to the

development of resources and practices that teach students the skills required to learn,

collaborate and build knowledge on their own (Owen et al. 2006; Guntram 2007).

National and Regional Motivation

The Council of Canadian Academies (2009) has indicated that “Canada‟s poor performance

in respect of innovation is due to the prevalence of business strategies that do not emphasize

innovation as a key competitive tool,” and its president has said (Nicholson 2009) that “how to

teach this is perhaps the greatest challenge and opportunity facing educators in the 21st century.”

Alberta‟s Value Added and Commercialization Task Force recently recommended actions

(Martin 2007) for overcoming a reliance on commodity resources and assuming a leading role in

the global knowledge economy. Their report heavily informed today‟s Alberta Action Plan


(Government of Alberta 2010) and emphasized the roles that universities need to play in order to

create the "ideal training ground and launch pad for [the] new entrepreneurs who will help shape

Alberta's economic future and sustainable growth."

The Entrepreneurial Education Context

At a time when the field of entrepreneurship is debating and seeking its own legitimacy

(Katz 2008) and charting its path forward (Kuratko 2004) and when many researchers, such as

Kuratko (2004), Alberti, Sciascia and Poli (2004) and Pittaway and Cope (2007), are seeking to

better understand and advance the role of entrepreneurship education, we suggest that there is no

discipline in which the shifts described above are more relevant than in entrepreneurship. And as

those calls for change are being made, debate about and research into how to best teach

entrepreneurship continue to be wide-reaching and extensive (Alberti, Sciascia and Poli 2004;

Pittaway and Cope 2007) and there are questions as to whether the business school is the best

place to teach entrepreneurship (Gibb 2002; Kirby 2004). In addition, questions persist about the

appropriateness of traditional approaches to learning how to conceive of and start successful new

ventures. For example, despite the ubiquity of the business planning process in entrepreneurship

education (Honig 2004) and typically high levels of excitement about its use as a teaching

method (Roldan et al. 2005), little evidence exists that the business planning process helps

student entrepreneurs learn (Honig 2004) (even if it might have other benefits in a new venture

setting as suggested by Delmar and Shane (2003) and others).

This Study

Aim and Central Questions

This paper is written in direct response to the challenges outlined above. The main purposes

are: 1) to introduce the Venture Design Studio (VDS), a novel approach to teaching and learning


for the conception, design, characterization, prototyping, testing, pitching and innovation of

highly innovative and highly feasible new venture concepts; and 2) to report on work taking

place in order to add a level of rigorous scholarly inquiry to what is happening in our classrooms

and at their interface with our regional entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since an early pilot of the

VDS took place in the September 2008 semester as part of our entrepreneurship curriculum

renewal project, we have felt that the approach may have advantages over a traditional textbook

or case-based course, business planning process and competition, and other modern approaches

to entrepreneurial teaching for similar learning outcomes. However, despite having had this

anecdotally-informed gut feel up to this point, we had not been able to rigorously describe what

happens when students learn in this way, to understand how exactly learning takes place in this

way, or to make an evidence-based claim about whether and in what ways the approach might be

better suited than other methods. The aim of the work being reported here is to take a step toward

answering these questions in a way that can be generalized for use by teachers, learners,

practitioners and researchers. The central questions at this stage of the research are:

1. How well does the concept of design thinking lend itself to teaching and learning for

new venture conception, communication and innovation?

2. What happens when people learn to conceive of, characterize, design, prototype, test,

pitch and innovate models of new ventures that are highly innovative and highly

feasible in an experiential, authentic and computer-supported design environment?

The Experiment, Data Sources and Methods Used

The VDS is an authentic and highly experiential 12 to 16-class activity that is iterative in

nature and makes up over half of a new first-year undergraduate course called The

Entrepreneurial Experience. Students from across campus work in teams of four (of their


choosing) to design, represent and pitch new venture concepts. As has been mentioned, their

objective is to develop a venture concept that is both very innovative and very feasible - a

combination they find out quickly is not easy to achieve. Every three classes they draw on

custom topic materials, submit and share their ventures through a collaborative web environment

(a customized wiki), do a videotaped elevator pitch in front of a panel of experienced

entrepreneurs, and assess their own performance. The whole experience builds to a final

competition at which students from each class go head to head and only four (of between 100

and 160) students have their submission crowned the venture with the highest potential value.

A wealth of data was collected for the study using the collaborative web environments

created by over 120 students in four classes. These include: student surveys; videotaped elevator

pitches and snapshots of their written work (available at each of four design iterations as learning

took place); and reflections and self-assessments (also available at each iteration).

The second of the above central questions is a “what is question” meaning that we seek to

more fully understand what is happening for students throughout the learning process (Hutchings

2000). Although the results of a quantitative survey are available, the methodology at this stage

of the research has involved more of a phenomenological approach (Creswell 2009) in which

qualitative methods are being used to describe and systematically analyze the student experience

and learning outcomes throughout the learning process.

Background

The Design Thinking Hype

It has been suggested in recent years that the process of innovation should be modeled on

the concept of design thinking (Dunne and Martin 2006; Brown 2008), and this has gained a lot

of attention in the popular press; whether business people read Fortune, BusinessWeek, the New


York Times or Fast Company, for example, they are being told that design thinking is the new

driver of innovation, a new competitive weapon, and a means of unlocking breakthrough ideas.

But despite this attention, the idea of applying design approaches to management remains largely

undeveloped (Dunne and Martin 2006), and a review of the academic literature yields a lack of

generalizable data-informed studies that can speak to how well design thinking works when

applied to the innovation process. In other words, other than the sometimes-recurring cases

described in the above-mentioned publications and popular press articles, it is not clear whether

and in what situations modeling the process of innovation on design thinking would improve an

individual or a firm‟s capacity to innovate. This conclusion has also been reached by Jahnke

(2009) who describes his forthcoming work which promises to provide some empirical evidence.

Having said all this, it behoves the forward-thinking business educator not to ignore the

hype until enough such evidence is available. After all, we have heard many times in many ways

that design boosts innovation. For example: strategic management, design management and

innovation management scholars have long suggested incorporating design early and throughout

many stages of management to increase and accelerate innovation (Kotler and Rath 1984; Borja

de Mozota 2003; Trott 2005; Chhatpar 2007); innovation scholars have urged innovators not to

ignore the design process (Verganti 2006; Utterback et al. 2006); and management scholars

advise us that design strengthens innovation generally, and leads to greater profits (Slywotzky et

al. 2002; Boland and Collopy 2004). And whether sufficient empirical evidence exists or not, it

is hard to expect our students or the entrepreneurs with whom they work to ignore the appeal of

the many books and journal articles being published today about the use of design thinking

techniques for achieving innovation (Beckman 2007; Johansson and Woodilla 2009; Martin

2009; Brown 2009).


Design Thinking for Business Education in North America

Design and design thinking are the topics of several recent articles predicting or calling for a

shift in how business schools offer their services. For example, Cooperrider (2008) suggests that

“future business schools will look more like design schools – alive with design studios,

interdisciplinary teams, and rapid prototyping – where managers act as designers who recognize

disruptive, unexpected innovation opportunities.” And it is reported in Dunne and Martin (2006)

that Toronto‟s Rotman School of Management website says that “we are on the cusp of a design

revolution in business,” and as a result, “today‟s business people don‟t need to understand

designers better, they need to become designers.”

Despite these calls for change, design thinking is only evident today in a small number of

educational programs in North America, with only a few of them at the undergraduate level

(Weightman 2009). The following are cited as examples by Weightman (2009): the D-School at

Stanford University (cross-disciplinary course offerings including design thinking); the design

department at Carnegie Mellon University (undergraduate and graduate design programs with

links to the MBA in the business school); the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of

Technology (dual degree in design and MBA, as described further in Alexis and Hassan 2007);

the Segal Design Institute at North Western University (masters combined with MBA); and the

University of Toronto‟s Rotman School of Management (MBA stream). And although there are

few institutions offering design thinking at the program level, it should be noted that some

educators are looking at teaching design thinking at the course level in the fields of engineering

(Dym et al. 2005), information systems (Wang and Wang 2008), and business (Ungaretti et al.

2009).


Design Thinking for Entrepreneurial Teaching and Learning

We are not aware of any prior work done to implement a design thinking approach to

teaching and learning within an entrepreneurship program, but it is important to note the work of

Duening (2008) in which a theoretical framework was advanced specific to the challenge of

developing curricula for teaching entrepreneurship. Based on the “five minds for the future”

approach of Gardner (2007), Duening proposed five “minds for the entrepreneurial future” meant

to provide an intellectual foundation for entrepreneurship education and curriculum

development. One of these was a so-called “designing mind,” for which the following curricular

approaches were recommended (Duening 2008):

Design thinking is inherently interdisciplinary and combinatory. Students should be

challenged to work on projects that require multiple perspectives to achieve acceptable

outcomes.

Designing requires relentless prototyping. Students should be taught to review their ideas

with trusted others for feedback that results in evolutionary and incremental

improvements in their original concepts.

The outcome of design is a narrative or story. Students should be encouraged to review

an entrepreneurial venture and develop a compelling story about it to share with others.

We also note the work of Jacoby and Rodriguez (2007) who share the belief “anyone

pursuing innovation, given the right training and mindset, can think of him or herself as a

designer.” It is with these comments and the work of Duening (2008) in mind that we set out in

early 2008 to implement a design thinking approach to teaching and learning for the conception,

communication and innovation of highly innovative and feasible new venture concepts.


Results: A Tour of the Venture Design Studio (VDS) Curricular Landscape

As described earlier, the VDS is an authentic and highly experiential 12 to 16-class activity

that is iterative in nature and makes up over half of a new first-year undergraduate course in

entrepreneurship. To introduce and fully describe the VDS in the sections that follow, we will

use the map of the curricular landscape that is shown in Figure 1. This map was proposed by

Bruton (2010a) to contain the essential elements that shape the design and intention of an

entrepreneurial curriculum, and to highlight the various domains of research and scholarly

inquiry important to a SoTLE project. It can also be thought of as a map that describes the

curricular landscape at the program, course and topic levels.

Why Does This Kind of Learning Need to Take Place (Figure 1a)?

As shown in Figure 1a, the first point on the map of the landscape prompts us to answer the

question of why the learning needs to take place at all. This was addressed early in our

curriculum development process (and in the Introduction to this article). Very broadly speaking,

the VDS was designed to help meet the needs and respond to the calls for change within higher

education and to the roles of entrepreneurship programs within our regional ecosystems and the

lives of our students. It provides an example of how collaborative learning and collaborative

knowledge production are being embraced at our university, as has been urged by Tapscott and

Williams (2010), and, as such, it has required of our teachers a shift in their practices from the

traditional teacher-centered transfer of subject-area-focused knowledge to the development of

resources and practices that teach students the skills required to learn, collaborate and build

knowledge on their own, as has been called for by Owen et al. (2006) and Guntram (2007). At

the regional economic level, the VDS contributes to meeting the demand for highly qualified

personnel within our regional innovation ecosystem; it is part of our ongoing and very deliberate


attempts to create the ideal training ground, launch pad and network into the ecosystem for the

new entrepreneurs who will help shape Alberta's economic future and sustainable growth, as

called for in Martin (2007) and Government of Alberta (2010). Generally from a scholarship

standpoint, the inquiry we are carrying out as part of the delivery of the VDS has been designed

to help meet the need for generalizable answers to questions about how to best teach

entrepreneurship, as called for in Kuratko (2004) for example. Specifically, we hope that this

work will help educators answer questions about how best to teach students to conceive of,

communicate and innovate highly innovative and highly feasible new ventures. The general need

for this can be found in many publications including those referred to in Kuratko (2004). Above

all else, we have been guided throughout our curriculum renewal process by a vision of

providing our students with the best, most relevant learning experience possible. It has been our

goal to design and create a curriculum that provides an intense, immersive and challenging

entrepreneurial learning experience like no other in North America during which students can

pursue their passions and gain experience relevant to their lives and careers. The VDS is a key

component of our plan to meet this vision.

Who Are Our Learners (Figure 1b)?

An articulation of an in-depth understanding of who your students are is the second point on

the landscape, shown in Figure 1b. Mount Royal University is an undergraduate university with

over 13,000 students and offers four-year degrees in disciplines such as arts, science and

technology, communication, business, health and community studies, and teaching and learning.

The course in which the VDS is offered is the first course in our new minor and it is available to

students in any discipline of study across campus as part of their General Education

requirements. As such, students going through the VDS have varied interests, backgrounds and


experiences, and may not have taken any previous course in business. Their average age is 20

years old and this is usually their first exposure to entrepreneurship.

c) WHAT is success?

[objectives = desired outcomes]

a) WHY learn it?

[purpose]

b) WHO learns?

[audience]

f) HOW WELL?

[assessment of outcomes]

d) WHAT will be learned?

[not just content]

e) HOW can I enable?

[not just pedagogies]

of learner (course/topic)

of teacher (course/topic)

self

peer

instructor

self

learner

peer

levels

core constructs

fundamental elements

ways of thinkingand practice

threshold concepts

troublesomeknowledge

types of knowledge learning theories

teaching and learningactivities (TLAs)

curriculum-level

course-level

self

learner

peer

metaphors of learning

offerings and structure

major

minor

course

topic/activity

topic/activity

course

declarative

procedural

conditional

functioningroles (learner, teacher)

approaches to learningcontent

topics

theories

concepts

principles

information

topic

course

program

institution

knowledge acquisition

knowledge participation

knowledge creation

proximal

distal

student performance

student learning

program performance

Figure 1: Map of the SoTLE Landscape (Bruton 2010a; adapted from O’Brien 2008 and Alberti et al. 2004)


What Defines Success – Learning Objectives (Figure 1c)?

As shown in Figure 1c, the learning objectives, or desired learning outcomes, are the next

stop on the landscape. Overall, the VDS aims to contribute to the course goal of providing

students with an authentic experience and a taste of what it is like to be an entrepreneur. The

specific student learning objectives for the VDS are:

1. To experience forming and working with an entrepreneurial team;

2. To collaboratively create new knowledge in the form of a prototype new venture

model;

3. To access appropriate internal and external value networks in order to test the

venture model and offering(s);

4. To present the outcomes of the earlier three objectives by communicating the value

of the underlying new venture concept in an elevator pitch;

5. To innovate the venture concept such that is judged to be both highly innovative and

highly feasible; and

6. To learn about themselves and their personal practices as entrepreneurs.

What Must Be Learned – Not Just Content (Figure 1d)?

As shown in Figure 1d, the fourth point on the curricular landscape has to do with defining

what will be learned. As discussed in O‟Brien (2008), it is important that this is not just limited

to defining content and, as proposed in Bruton (2010a), it is better if content definition is left

until last in favour of first considering the core constructs, types of knowledge and fundamental

elements being imparted to the students. This is done here for the VDS.

Core Constructs. To meet the objectives of the VDS outlined above, students must

tackle two core constructs: 1) what is the entrepreneurial business model as defined by Morris,


Schindehutte and Allen (2005) and others referenced therein; and 2) how does one carry out

business model innovation as defined by Markides (2006) and Chan and Mauborgne (2005). In

other words, we are requiring that our students learn to conceive of, characterize, design,

prototype, test, pitch and innovate models of new ventures. We use the term venture model

throughout the activity (rather than business model, for example) to emphasize that students are

encouraged to do this for any type of new venture, including for and not-for profit ventures and

those within new and existing organizations. We distinguish this from the term venture concept

because we see the venture model as an articulation and prototype of a venture concept.

Types of Knowledge. A major element that sets the VDS curricular design apart is the

kind of knowledge the students need to master in order to achieve the objectives. We target

functioning knowledge, which is defined by Biggs (2003) as knowledge within the experience of

the learner that is based on a performed understanding. This is shown at the top of Figure 2 along

with the other types of knowledge he tells us our curricula might address. In other words, a

student cannot succeed in the VDS without the going through learning that takes place as one

actually designs and innovates a business model. As Biggs (2003) tells us, mastering this kind of

functioning knowledge also requires that the student goes through the learning required to

develop a solid foundation of knowledge about business models and their innovation (declarative

knowledge), to carry out the associated procedures or enact the required skills (procedural

knowledge), and to know when, why and under what conditions to use the other types of

knowledge (conditional knowledge). And so it becomes our job as designers of the curriculum to

provide an authentic learning environment in which the student can learn from experience and

gain all four types of knowledge about business models and their innovation.


Fundamental Elements. Speaking about ways of thinking and practice, O‟Brien (2008)

points out that it is generally accepted “across the academy that knowledge is itself a

construction of particular social and cultural communities (Berger and Luckmann 1967) and that

all such communities orient to the specific and shared aims, activities and ways of achieving

them that comprise and make distinctive that community (Wenger 1998).” The community of

entrepreneurs that our students join before and after graduation is most certainly no exception to

this. We have tried therefore to articulate and build into the VDS curriculum the relevant ways of

thinking and practice common to successful entrepreneurs. As they go through the VDS, we have

seen evidence of students adopting the following ways of thinking and practice for example:

thinking about challenges as opportunities to create value; seeing oneself as an agent of change;

accepting and even yearning for criticism; tolerating ambiguity; and being open to taking risk.

functioning

conditional

declarative procedural

knowledge about things,gained vicariously

knowledge of the steps, sequences and actions

knowledge about when, why and under what conditions to apply the declarative and procedural

knowledge within the learner’sexperience + performingyour understanding

Figure 2: Relationships between Different Types of Knowledge (after Biggs (2003))

According to O‟Brien (2008), threshold concepts are concepts that:

Represent fundamental ways of thinking and knowledge within the field;

Are transformative, in that learning about them changes the way students think about the

phenomena or area of application; and

Once understood open up a deeper level of thinking that in turn affords access to other

important concepts within the field.


Examples of threshold concepts we see evidence of students learning in the VDS include:

that a group is different from a team; that having “skin in the game” is usually a condition for

greater success; and that in the eyes of an investor one‟s experience and passion can be more

valuable than one‟s venture idea. Also according to O‟Brien (2008), troublesome knowledge is a

kind of transformative knowledge that “brings into view aspects of troublesomeness that are less

about difficult concepts and more to do with the challenges inherent within a change to one‟s

inner landscape, perspective and worldview (O‟Brien 2008; Perkins 2006).” In entrepreneurial

learning, threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge seem to have been addressed in the

context of learning from „critical events‟ that cause one to question previously taken-for-granted

beliefs and assumptions (Deakins and Freel 1998; Cope and Watts 2000; Cope 2003), and to

reframe one‟s understanding to create a shift in mindset (Applebaum and Goransson 1997). We

have made room for this type of learning in two ways in the VDS. First is through the nature of

the authentic and experiential curriculum design, outlined in more detail below. Second, as Cope

(2003) suggests, is through opportunities for critical self-reflection that have been built into the

learning process in order to encourage this sort of higher level of learning and capture it when it

occurs. We have seen evidence of students gaining troublesome knowledge in the VDS as a

result of: the breakup of an entrepreneurial team; seeing a good idea receive support because it

was pitched more convincingly than a great idea; recognizing and being tempted by the

perceived gains that would come from misrepresenting their work; and receiving conflicting

advice from two equally accomplished and well-respected entrepreneurs.

Content. Custom content was developed for the VDS in four areas of focus shown in

Table 1. Even though we require our students to get all the way up to a functioning

understanding of the core concepts (recall Figure 2), we have selected the content in Table 1 so


as to favour breadth over depth; the idea in this first undergraduate course in entrepreneurship is

to provide just enough depth for them to innovate on a venture model while providing the

breadth required to be authentic to the experience.

Table 1: Topics, Content and Design Goals by Iteration of the Venture Design Studio

Iteration Design goal Topics and content

1 What value will you create and

for whom?

(factors related to the offering,

market and team fit)

Who‟s your target customer?

customers, buyers and users; pre-adoption use case;

want, need or “should” being met; individuals vs.

markets; size and trend

What‟s your economic offering?

commodity, good, service, experience; mixes of

offerings; features of your offering; related offering(s)

What‟s your value proposition?

benefits vs. features; costs; value; value proposition;

articulation using a value curve

Team, experience, specific knowledge and fit

team members; experience; general and specific

knowledge; team fit with proposed venture

2 As above +

How will you create the value?

(factors related to industry

structure and internally derived

competitive advantages)

Internal value chain

generic internal value chain; your internal chain;

what/whether to outsource

Key strategic resource(s)

resources and capabilities; valuable, rare, costly to

imitate, used by the organization; key strategic

resource(s)

Industry value chain

generic industry value chain; your place in the chain;

your specific value network

3 As above +

What is your competitive

strategy?

(factors related to competitive

landscape and strategic

position)

Types of competition and competitive landscape

direct competitors, substitutes, alternatives; your

competitive landscape;

Generic strategic position

broad, focused; your cost structure; low cost,

differentiated; your strategic position; same for

competitors

4 As above +

How sound is your economic

logic and look-ahead?

(factors related to economic

logic and the ask)

Economic logic

direct costs; burn rate; purchase price; bottom-up

sales forecast; breakeven; adjusting your venture

model

Look-ahead

what does first revenues look like; investment

required to get to first revenues; the ask


Naturally, this content gives rise to a number of topic-level learning objectives relating to the

declarative, procedural, conditional and functioning knowledge being gained. These, the full

content and all of the resources for the VDS can be accessed freely at Bruton (2010b).

How Do We Enable the Learning (Figure 1e)?

The section of the curricular landscape shown in Figure 1e speaks to how we enable the

learning that has been defined above. This includes clearly articulating the nature of the teaching

and learning activity itself, recognizing the roles that teachers and learners need to take to make

it happen, and identifying the dominant metaphors and theories of learning.

Structure and Nature of the Activity. It was at this point in the curriculum design that

we turned to the recent discussions about design thinking for innovation and began a process that

eventually yielded the Venture Design Studio framework shown in Figure 3. This studio-based

teaching and learning activity models the innovation process on the concept of design thinking as

proposed in (Dunne and Martin 2006; Brown 2008). As shown in Figure 3a, the Venture Design

Studio takes place over four iterations spread over a ten week period. Additional content and new

design goals are presented to the students at the start of each iteration (recall Table 1), along with

additional assessment criteria (to be discussed later). Each iteration is comprised of three

scheduled lecture hours, as shown in Figure 3c, and implements a curricular “design for

learning” for students graduating into today‟s global society and knowledge economy (Selander

2008). As shown in Figure 3b and c, this means that: 1) in the first class of an iteration the stage

is set, tasks are described and goals are clearly articulated; 2) between the first and third classes

the students go through a process of forming and transforming knowledge (referred to in class as

creative jamming) and representing their work in a collaborative website (custom wiki) that is

visible to the whole class; 3) during the third class they present their venture models in an


elevator pitch to a panel of external judges and, together with the judges, do some meta-

reflection on the product; and 4) shortly after the third class they do some personal reflection on

the learning process and their personal practice. As shown in Figure 3a, they also reflect on their

learning personal practice at the end of the course as part of a personal practice project.

CLASS 1:stage-setting

topic content and assessment criteria are posted

teams review ahead of time

introduction and examplesare shared

teams begin design work

teams review and continue design work

CLASS 2:jam

session

focused design work takes placeand deliverables are prepared: 1) the collaborative venture model; 2) the elevator pitch.

guidance and coaching is received

teams finalize their deliverables and prepare to pitch

CLASS 3:pitch

and reflect

teams pitch to judges and videotape

an “investment” round takes placeand the class reflects together

students complete their individual reflectionsand self-assessment

teacher assesses deliverables in full and posts results and videos of pitches for the entire class to see

iteration 1

iteration 2

iteration 3

iteration 4summativefeedback & evaluation

formativefeedback

first day of class

last day of class

stagesetting

STEPS IN THE LEARNING PROCESS

TIME LINEFOR THE COURSE

TIME LINEFOR EACH DESIGNITERATION

a) b) c)

other activities

personalpractice project

formativefeedback

formativefeedback

Figure 3: The Venture Design Studio Activity

This process for learning to conceive of, characterize, design, prototype, test, pitch and innovate

new venture models is true to the concept of design thinking which, as Brown (2008) tells us,

results in creative and innovative breakthroughs not just as a result of brilliant minds and

lightening strikes but as “the result of hard work augmented by a creative-human centered

discovery process and followed by iterative cycles of prototyping, testing and refining.” In that


spirit, we encourage and enable our students to: act as designers; follow passions; seek

inspiration; immerse themselves in and see the real world; brainstorm; look for patterns; seek

help, criticism and user input (especially in the prototype stages); embrace failure and start over

if necessary; and build their ideas iteratively.

Teachers’ and Learners’ Roles. As recommended by Selander (2008) the teacher is

required to intervene and facilitate throughout this type of learning process, clarifying concepts,

encouraging where possible, and highlighting signs of learning. We have observed top

performing student teams shift from positions 1 to 2 to 3 in Figure 4 for example; consistently,

top teams are involved in and direct their own learning. And teachers have had to do their part by

shifting their practices toward true facilitation, delegation and consultation to the process.

interested

involved

self-directed

dependent

authority,coach

motivator,guide

facilitator consultant,delegator

learners’roles

teachers’ roles

1

2

3

Figure 4: Roles Required of Teachers and Learners (after Grow 1991) in the Venture Design Studio

Theories and Metaphors of Learning. Figure 5 provides a sketch of the curricular context for

the VDS. It takes place in the first course, called The Entrepreneurial Experience, which is in

Phase 1 of the minor. As shown, we think of the learning taking place in that phase through the

lenses of the constructivism and social constructivism learning theories. Social constructivism is


a process of learning through working with others, whereby knowledge and meaning are

collaboratively constructed by team members (Marshall 1996; O‟Brien 2008). Because of the

nature of the design of the VDS, the teacher needs to think in these terms. Unlike many

approaches to teaching and learning entrepreneurship, which are based on knowledge-acquisition

and participation metaphors of learning, teachers in the VDS environment view learning more as

a process of knowledge creation for innovation as described in (Paavola and Hakkarainen 2005).

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

BY PHASE:

LEARNINGTHEORIES:

COURSES:

PHASE OF PROGRAM: Phase 1 Phase 2

innovation andcreativity

options

entrepreneurialexperience

student-directedproject courses

entrepreneurial toolset outcomes

personal mindset and brand outcomes

knowledge-creation capacity outcomes

network, team and communication outcomes

opportunity

modeling andstart-up

start-up tosurvival

growth

entrepreneurialconsulting

social constructivism

Phase 3

constructivism

Figure 5: A Sketch of the Curricular Context for the Venture Design Studio


We view the latter point as important because, unlike the acquisition and participation metaphors

which focus on adopting knowledge individually or in groups, the knowledge creation metaphor

of learning focuses on creating and developing new material and conceptual artifacts (such as

business models), and on conscious advancement, discovery and innovation (Paavola and

Hakkarainen 2005). This distinction is important given the nature of entrepreneurial learning and

its importance in today‟s knowledge-based economy and society.

How Well Has the Learning Taken Place – Assessment (Figure 1f)?

As shown in Figure 1f, the last stop on the curricular landscape speaks to how well the

learning has taken place. This includes assessment of learning outcomes and the products of the

learning.

Assessment. The assessment strategy for the VDS was very carefully designed using the

notion of constructive alignment. As described in Biggs (2003), this means that the learning

activities, the assessment methods, and the learning objectives are all consistent with and

supportive of each other. We have also taken care to ensure they are consistent with the ways of

thinking and practice of successful entrepreneurs. Constructive alignment is often a challenge to

achieve in entrepreneurship where it is not at all unheard of to find complete misalignment. For

example: a teacher lecturing on business planning (the learning activity) and the students

delivering a business plan (to be assessed), all with the hope that the student will be able to one

day start their own business (the actual learning objective). As such and in order to support the

learning objectives defined earlier, we defined the assessment schedule shown in Table 2.

Students are assessed at the end of each iteration in four different ways: 1) by their teacher

playing an advisory role; 2) by a panel of two to three experienced entrepreneurs playing the duel

role of potential investor and advisor; 3) by themselves as nascent entrepreneurs; and 4) by their


peers playing the role of shareholders. This provides them with a wealth of constructive and

formative feedback every iteration that is quite authentic to what a real entrepreneur would

receive over time. As shown in Figure 3 and Table 2, only the feedback from the last iteration is

used as a summative evaluation. We note that the students are not assessed directly on the quality

of their pitch. Rather, the elevator pitches are assessed in exactly the same way as the prototype

venture models (using the rubrics in Table 3 and Table 4 which are based loosely on the work of

Fiet and Patel (2006)). This has kept the focus of the pitch on the potential value of the venture

and how to communicate that value clearly and convincingly. Interestingly, it has not precluded

the teaching and learning of best practices in how to do an elevator pitch but, rather, has

encouraged the students to seek out those practices on their own, experiment with different

combinations that may be appropriate to their situation, and learn from each other.

All of this feedback is provided to the students at the end of every iteration through the same

collaborative website the students use to develop and submit their work. Because every team can

see the work submitted and feedback received by every other team, they learn from each other

between iterations.

Products of the Learning. Finally, we share what has turned out to be a very powerful

assessment-related tool for communicating with and motivating the students when providing

them with feedback. Because the rubrics in Table 3 and Table 4 have been designed to speak to

the innovativeness and feasibility of their venture concepts, respectively, it is possible to

determine the relative positions of their ventures in each of these dimensions. In turn, it is

possible to graph the relative positions of all the venture concepts in a class, as shown in the

example in Figure 6a. We create two such plots after every iteration: one based on the

assessment of the prototype venture models submitted through the collaborative web site and one


based on the judges‟ assessment of their pitches. Students and teachers both report how this

serves to focus the whole venture model design process around getting ventures into “the top

right corner” of Figure 6a; the common goal quickly becomes the iterative design of venture

concepts that are both highly innovative and highly feasible. This has had the effect of driving

down the number of used textbooks stores and student-bars being proposed and significantly

increasing the number of ventures that are deemed to be highly scalable with solid potential for

growth; students tend to either select a new concept or find ways to make their concepts more

innovative. They report feeling safe doing this because of the trusting and collaborative

environment that develops and because only the last iteration counts toward their grade. This

trend can be seen by comparing Figure 6a with Figure 6b.

Table 2: Assessment Done At Each Iteration of the VDS

Type Assessment Contribution to mark

Teacher

(as advisor)

The teacher assesses the students‟ new venture

model based on their collaborative web site

The rubrics in Table 3 and Table 4 are used

These three components

are worth an equal amount

and together make up the

VDS total of 35 percent of

the final grade in the

course

Full feedback is provided

every iteration but only

marks received in the final

iteration count toward the

final grade

Judges

(as advisor/

investor)

A panel of external judges assesses the students‟

new venture concept based only on their elevator

pitch

The rubrics in Table 3 and Table 4 are used again

Self

(as nascent

entrepreneur)

Each student assesses his or her own learning

against four outcomes:

Entrepreneurial toolset outcomes;

Network, team and communication outcomes;

Collaborative knowledge creation outcomes;

Personal mindset and entrepreneurial identity

outcomes.

Rubrics like the one in Table 5 are used for each

of these categories

Peer

(as shareholder) Every iteration the students vote individually for

the venture concept they think will win

Provides a bonus mark in

the course: 1 percent for

each investment made in

the winning venture


Table 3: Assessing the Innovativeness of a New Venture Model

The venture’s offering is very clear to me and presents a compelling value proposition to the buyer/user

strongly disagree strongly agree

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

For this type of venture the following are true:

1. The buyer and user are very compelled by the offering - the venture has identified a very significant “need”, “want” or “should”

2. The offering is very clearly articulated – I have no questions about the commodity, good, service or experience

3. The buyer is encouraged to make a decision to purchase 4. Price, switching and adoption costs are small relative to the buyer’s overall costs

I believe the venture’s choice of customer (buyers and users) could lead to significant value creation


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


1. There is a very large number of potential buyers and users 2. The number is growing significantly 3. Buyers have appropriate financial capability 4. Customers are not likely to backwards integrate (i.e. not likely to become a competitor of the venture)

I believe the supplier situation is very favorable


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

For this type of situation the following are typically true:

1. It would be very easy to switch suppliers, e.g.

There are many possible suppliers ventures like theirs could choose from

Suppliers are providing undifferentiated materials 2. And/or, suppliers are motivated to supply to the venture, e.g.

There are few other buyers; the venture promises to sell in large volumes; the venture has developed a unique relationship with its supplier

3. Or, ventures in the industry do not depend highly on suppliers, e.g. in a consulting industry 4. And suppliers are not likely to forward integrate (i.e. not likely to become a competitor of the venture)

I believe the venture’s strategic position would lead to significant value creation


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Although there are exceptions, a new venture of this type typically:

1. Has a very highly differentiated position or represents a low-cost leadership position relative to others in the industry

2. Starts off focused, i.e. targets a niche at first, and plans to target a broader group of customers over time 3. Has few competitors, substitutes and alternatives sharing the same strategic position


Table 4: Assessing the Feasibility of a New Venture Model

I believe the team’s fit with the proposed venture will lead to significant value creation


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

For this type of team and venture the following are true:

1. I have been told enough about the team members to make a reasonable assessment 2. The team inspires my confidence and I would invest in all of its members 3. Team members have relevant prior experience (jobs, education, social relationships, hobbies, etc…) 4. That experience provides them with relevant specific knowledge (people, places, timing, circumstances,

technologies, etc…) 5. It is clear that their specific knowledge forms the basis of their venture’s offering

I believe the venture has one or more key strategic resources that are valuable, rare, and costly to imitate


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


1. The team/venture brings at least one key strategic resource to the table with the potential to provide a significant competitive advantage, e.g. physical, financial, team members, offering (good, service, experience), reputation, technology, raw materials, geographic locations, specific know-how, etc…

This key resource is valuable, rare and costly for others to imitate 2. No (or very few) other ventures possess the same key resource(s) 3. Other ventures would find it too costly to acquire the same key resource(s) 4. It is hard to find a substitute for its key resource(s)

I believe the venture’s competitive situation is very favorable


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


1. The team has provided a sufficiently realistic picture of the competitive landscape and there are no omissions in their analysis

2. The venture has a significantly different value proposition from that of its direct competitors 3. The benefits do not outweigh the costs of substitutes and alternatives

I believe the breakeven numbers are sound and the plan to develop a prototype is a reasonable next step


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


1. Indicators like the following seem consistent with the venture and industry, and seem to be based on reasonable assumptions:

The price to the customer; The sales needed to breakeven on direct costs and burn; The sales forecast; The gross margin or gross margin percentage

2. The proposed prototype or trial would help them get to first revenues 3. The money requested is in the right ball park for getting to the prototype stage


Table 5: Sample Student Self-Assessment

I have demonstrated an excellent understanding of the entrepreneurial toolsets we learned in this iteration


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Pick and describe at least 2 specific examples that show you what you learned this iteration and why you deserve the grade you gave yourself above:

This might help:

1. In this iteration you had to learn and apply the tools in the following topics: 1) Team, specific knowledge and alignment; 2) Who’s my customer?; 3) What’s my economic offering?; and 4) What’s my value proposition? You used these to come up with the seed of a new idea. And you learned about pitching.

2. People with a high grade in this area are able to provide:

Examples of what you know now that you didn’t know before

Recognizing how you learned and how that ties back to your learning styles

Learning about the concepts on your own time, ahead of the classes in which they were used

Learning about the steps and procedures required to implement each topic

Understanding how the topics work together to help you come up with an idea for a new venture

Examples where you explained or clarified the concepts for your teammates

Applying the topics to your own venture, and specific examples of how you applied what you learned

Things that you would do differently next time based on what you learned

Other things you did that you feel provide evidence of your learning

feasibility

innovativeness

high

high

low

low

feasibility

highlow

a) first design iteration b) last design iteration

team 1 team 1team 2

team 2

team 3

team 3

Figure 6: Visualizing the Evolution of the Innovativeness and Feasibility

of Ventures throughout the Iterative Design Process


Summary and Concluding Thoughts

We have introduced The Venture Design Studio, a design thinking approach to teaching and

learning for the conception, design, characterization, prototyping, testing, pitching and

innovation of new venture concepts. Based on our experience and the data-based evidence

available to date, we propose that this is a very attractive approach to entrepreneurial learning for

curricula that aim to provide students with an authentic entrepreneurial experience and the

opportunity to reach into and catalyze innovation within their local ecosystems. For example, the

data tell us that: student response to its introduction has been overwhelmingly positive; they

frequently express a desire for the approach, their preference for the delivery medium, and their

feeling of gaining skills relevant to their careers and new ventures; students were able to meet or

exceed all learning objectives to do with toolset, mindset and network building, and collaborative

knowledge creation; students report applying the VDS approach (and content) in other courses,

including their business planning course; students‟ abilities to persuasively pitch their concepts

were vastly improved as a result of the iterative nature of the process and the collaborative

network from which they received feedback; students became versed in and aware of

entrepreneurial ways of thinking and practice, threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge to

a level not usually associated with classroom approaches, including business planning; local

entrepreneurs and venture capitalists were engaged with and provided regular feedback on

student learning and their prototypes; and learners, teachers and experienced entrepreneurs all

reported (anecdotally) that the resulting new venture concepts were considerably more

innovative and feasible than those resulting from other approaches with which they are familiar.

To rephrase Cooperrider (2008) a little: some of our classrooms now look more like design

schools than they used to – alive with a design studio, interdisciplinary teams, and prototyping –


where student entrepreneurs act as designers who seek out disruptive, unexpected innovation

opportunities. And to respond to Dunne and Martin (2006), we too see merit in thinking like

designers, at least so far as teaching and learning for the conception, communication and

innovation of highly innovative new venture concepts.

We look forward to our future work, the plans for which include: describing in more detail

what happens when students learn in this way; understanding how exactly learning takes place in

this way; and making claims based on more evidence about whether and in what ways the design

thinking approach might be better suited than other teaching and learning methods for meeting

similar objectives. We also look forward to applying the design thinking approach to other

innovation processes in our classrooms and within our regional innovation ecosystem.

Finally, we close by acknowledging that this research is in its early stages and that much

more remains to be learned. However, because student response has been so strong to their

learning experience, because so many of the typically hard-to-teach learning outcomes seem to

be teachable in this kind of environment, and because we have (finally!) seen a very convincing

shift away from used textbooks stores and student-bars (even in this first undergraduate course),

we are thrilled to be sharing what we have learned to date.

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