Some time ago I wanted to write an article to retrospectively review my time on the 2018 Multidisciplinary innovation masters at Northumbria University; however I never seemed to have the time. I wanted to give an overview of what the course was about, what did we as students actually do, and give some thoughts for perhaps upcoming students.
What was the course about?
The course is a twelve month masters which is framed through three main modules:
- Design-led innovation,
- Responsible Innovation Practice,
- Strategic Innovation Practice
The course uses applied design thinking and employs service design, lean innovation concepts to tackle wicked problems (and places students in a similar situation as if it you were in a design studio or creative agency.
What does this mean in practice? What do students do?
The course is 80-90% project-led and client facing.
In practice terms this means you are working together as students, either in small groups or in one big team to tackle challenges from clients from a wide range of sectors, including third-sector (voluntary), corporates, small one-man bands, to even more abstract notions of organisational structure.
During this, we often found ourselves looking at creative briefs (or even making our own ones!) and fed the results through a chain of design thinking processes, applying methods, modes of work, etc to address the issues at hand.
Often projects are 2-3 weeks long, often they were much shorter than that. Our final project was approximately 12 weeks long.
How does it compare to an MBA?
I have not done an MBA, but I felt there was a lot of cross-over from an MBA; obviously it’s cheaper – but it doesn’t mean its not as intense.
From my casual reading of MBA courses, this course has elements of team-building, pitching, strategy development, concept creation, and because you’re often working in teams there are elements of emotional intelligence, scoping venture creation (but not necessarily making a venture) and framing opportunities through a business model.
What did I get from the course?
For over a decade I’ve been involved with web/IT or app development in one way or another; and I’ve often been the one who writes the code; and as anyone who has ever worked in that vertical before will tell you – writing code, apps or whatever is a fast-paced environment, working on sprints or fast-turn arounds to get features built and products shipped.
Because of this you’re only exposed to a very narrow field of delivery, as a coder/developer you’re often in “output mode” or “delivery mode”; you are delivering and, rarely, are you asking “why”.
This is what I feel I got the most from this course. It got me to do all the stuff you do before you write a single line of code.
Now naturally, this seems obvious; that’d you’d ask the client lots of why questions – or use systems analysis to understand how a client’s system currently works; and yes, whilst I do agree with you — the best IT companies or self-employed people will indeed ask this question. However, its framed through the lens of delivering a product.
Whereas here, you get not only to ask the “why” questions, but you look at all aspects, and all of the answers are from a transactional point of view.
This idea of looking at issues from needs analysis, transactional and transformative points of view helped me understand not only what goes into a product/service/intervention, but also; why any of this is important at all.
Personally, I thought the course was very good, and closely aligned to what its like to work in a design agency; and also places you in positions where you are uncomfortable and pushes you to address it head-on. The speed of project delivery also lends itself to the usage of Agile practices.
What didn’t the course do?
There is no LEAN, Agile, SCRUM practices explored. Do not expect that by going on this course you will exit with a Prince2 certification, SCRUM certification or a blackbelt in Agile/LEAN methodologies; this is not that type of course.
Also, this is not an IT course; do not expect to be coding anything – but that doesn’t mean you can’t, or shouldn’t. Indeed, I would challenge you to do something different, print a 3d prototype and so forth.
Perhaps, this is my critique. Luckily, I have some background and exposure to SCRUM and agile practices (not all of them, but enough to get things done), but I was left disappointed that we didn’t cover these aspects; and I think its certainly one of the things I’d like to see more of.
Another critique I had at the time I’ve thought about was the course seemed to lack theory, and often found myself comparing it to a software engineering course; where theory is 70-90% of your workload.
But thinking more about it, I realise that this lack of theory delivered as taught is perhaps done on purpose; they only have a year — and it gets you to explore the theory of ideas yourself, in your own time.
Indeed, I often found joy that I could explore ideas and concepts I’ve had for a number of years through books in the library, or spend an hour in the library properly watching and taking notes of a video, rather than wasting this time.
What I’ve found is the course drives you to push yourself; and was a very positive experience for me and am sure should be considered if you’re looking for a role that mixes product, design, innovation.