Graduate Courses
Product Design and Development 15.783J, 2.739J (12 units, Spring Semester)
with Profs. Maria Yang and Jerome Arul
This is an interdisciplinary course that presents modern product development methods, focusing on the cross-functional nature of product design activities and decision making. Topics include:
- Design thinking skills
- Product planning
- Customer needs analysis
- Concept development
- Industrial design
- Concept testing
- Prototyping
- Design for environment
- Product architecture
- Project management
Team projects involve the development of a new product from identification of the opportunity, to concepts, prototypes, and testing.
The course is taught primarily for students in the Sloan MBA Program and its Entrepreneurship and Innovation track, Leaders for Global Operations Program, System Design and Management Program, Mechanical Engineering Graduate Program, and for students from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Download the Product Design and Development syllabus in PDF format
Product Development Methods 15.782 (3 units, Spring Semester)
This course covers modern tools and methods for product design and development, including design thinking, agile development, product planning, identifying customer needs, concept generation. Lectures meet jointly with 15.783 PDD.
Executive Courses
Managing Complex Technical Projects
A two-day seminar is designed for professionals managing large, technical, development projects. The course presents the research conducted at MIT in the areas of project management, system engineering, and development organization. Prof. Eppinger teaches participants how to model projects using the design structure matrix method. Industrial examples include applications in the automotive, aerospace, electronics, telecommunications, and equipment industries.
Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services
A one-week course is designed for professionals working in various product and service development roles. The course presents state-of-the-art product development techniques related to product planning, concept development, project management, and organization of the process of developing services, software, business processes, and manufactured goods.
Mastering Design Thinking
This three month course is delivered in our Self-Paced Online format which enables participation at your own pace using interactive videos, practice quizzes, presentations, assignments, and discussion forums. Upon completion, you will earn a certificate from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Technical Project Management
This 21-week course focuses on: identifying the foundational principles of teamwork and performance in technical projects, facilitating high performance across various project standards, methods, concepts, and architectures (such as agile, stage-gate, waterfall, flow, spiral, and set-based), evaluating charters, creating plans, establishing teams, supporting ongoing progress, handling changes and risks, and promoting and adapting to a high-performance culture, understanding the agile approach to project management and execution, employing advanced project management methods for planning, control, and adaptation and leading teams and designing projects for high performance.
Custom Executive Programs
Prof. Eppinger also directs and teaches in MIT’s custom executive education programs. For information about MIT Executive Education custom program offerings, please contact the office of MIT Sloan Executive Education. For custom on-site training programs by Prof. Eppinger, please contact him directly.