Summary of group projects

Groups

Four to five students
Deliberate mix of engineering, MBA, and SIMS students
Your initial group makeup will be chosen by the instructor to meet the goal of mixing fields and interests based on the initial course survey. (Initial voluntary groupings typically do not achieve this mix.) Pairwise exchanges among groups are permitted, as long as they are between students with similar backgrounds (both MBA students, both EECS students, both SIMS students, both non-EECS engineering students). Inform the instructor of any changes.
If any students drop the course, the instructors may have to ask students to move between groups to maintain balance. To minimize this, groups will not be formed initially until several weeks into the semester.

Due dates

The due date and time for projects are noted on the class calendar. See “grades” for policies on late project reports and other grading issues on the projects.

Projects summary

There will be two projects:

First project: Evaluation of a product or industry segment or company in terms of the concepts from the course. [details]
Second project: Consideration of both sides of a controversial issue, including a class debate. Two groups will address each issue, taking the two sides. [details]

Group organization

Each project group should designate two people for each project (it is a good idea to rotate these responsibilities between the first and second project):

A group leader, who will coordinate the group, set up meetings, lead group discussions, etc.
A group webmaster, who will the responsibility for gathering and integrating written inputs, soliciting comments, and formating and posting the final report.

Outcomes

For both projects your primary outcome will be a presentation posted to the web using an audio annotated Powerpoint presentation supplemented by written background materials. For the second project, in addition you will participate in a classroom debate with another group on the issue (and they) have chosen.