Course syllabus

IMS035 Project industrial design engineering

Study periods 1&2 2021, 15 credits

Department of Industrial and Materials Science

Division of Design and Human Factors

Examiner: Bijan Aryana

bijan@chalmers.se

Permanent Zoom space for all sessions: https://chalmers.zoom.us/j/65182396589

Schedule

https://chalmers.instructure.com/courses/15311/pages/schedule 

Introduction

The course focuses on integrating and expanding previously learned knowledge and skills in a practical development project. This means that the student will have both freedom and responsibility to plan and focus on both project and learning. Students are expected to extract relevant knowledge from previous courses, identify and add missing pieces, and apply these together in the planning, execution and communication of the project. As a part of this, the course will support reflection on progress and learning, as well as guide the student to develop their own approach to design through individual work. 

The lectures in the course will support the main project and cover areas such as systems theory and research-through-design to open up the understanding for the design space; company preconditions and marketing communication to effectively collaborate with a client; as well as compromising and prioritizing to increase capability to deal with complex design problems.

The solutions can cover a wide range of designs including but not limited to systems, products, services, processes, visualizations, and experiences.

Aim and learning outcomes

The aim of this course is that students should integrate and further develop the knowledge and skills gained within their previous education. Within a systems approach, they should learn to handle the uncertainty and complexity associated with industrial design engineering problems in a real-life setting, as well as reflect on current and continuous learning in the future.

Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to):

• Define and re-frame a design problem and draw the relevant system boundaries
• Understand the characteristics of the stakeholder organization, including its internal possibilities and external restrictions, and how these affect a development project
• Individually handle a design problem and develop confidence in their own capability
• Adapt the design process (including choice of approach, theory, and methods) to the problem 
• Balance multiple and contradictory requirements from different focus areas, such as technical, ergonomic, communicative, and aesthetic requirements, in a way that leads to a sustainable and ethical solution 
• Handle compromises and conflicting demands that arise during group cooperation 
• Use situation- and audience-adapted forms of communication with external stakeholders 
• Reflect on your own professional progress and identify needs and strategies for future learning

Organization

The course centers around a development project, typically run in collaboration with an external stakeholder. The project is carried out in a group, but with individual problem areas. Support is given throughout, both in peer-to-peer supervision groups and with expert consultancies. Furthermore the course includes a lecture series with contents that support the project, and individual reflection assignments.

In study period one, the course is focused on developing a theoretical foundation for the project, as well as giving freedom to participants to explore the problem and define a clear design brief. Therefore, this period mainly includes lectures, seminars and activities. In contrast, the second study period includes supervised individual and group project work. 

Sensitive information, intellectual property and patent issues

Sometimes the project teams will have to handle sensitive information in order to carry out their tasks. It also occurs that the project work results in patent-able inventions. Unless you sign any contracts with the companies, you will have full rights to the results you produce for your student team. Each student has the responsibility of not distributing received information or results to third parties. In addition, it is possible for an involved company to ask students to sign a secrecy agreement. Note that such an agreement may consider sensitive information received from the company as well as results produced by the student team. Be aware of contracts that make you give up the right to the results, including presenting them, produced by the team. 

To give you the best possible opportunity to benefit from and spread your results, Chalmers has guidelines that apply to co-operation between industry and the university. Normally, questions about intellectual property rights and secrecy are best managed by discussions between the project team, supervisor and company. If you need assistance in a more formal sense your supervisor and examiner will be able to support you.

The written assignments produced by each team are not published and thus are not open to the public unless agreed upon by the author and the involved company, but are to be considered an official document. Thus, it may be subject to external review if someone explicitly requests to see it. If the written assignment contains information received from organizations, such information may be considered confidential if within the prerequisites of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act. This legislation protects the business interests of companies and organizations in collaboration with the university. The document should be marked as “secret” or “confidential” to facilitate the handling.

The oral presentations are in practice public events, which means that sensitive information should be avoided. In case there are patent-able inventions, it is necessary to submit a patent application before the presentation or mask the particular invention. In some cases, private presentations can be planned. As a general rule, patent opportunities and intentions regarding the student’s results shall always be discussed and agreed with the company in advance.

Teaching team

Name	Role in the course	Email
Bijan Aryana	Course examiner, tutor and supervisor	bijan@chalmers.se
Siw Eriksson	Tutor and organizer	esiw@chalmers.se
Ralf Rosenberg	Co-supervisor	ralf@designkonsulterna.se
Cecilia Berlin	Guest Lecturer (qualitative data analysis)	cecilia.berlin@chalmers.se
Lars-Ola Bligård	Guest Lecturer (systems thinking)	lars-ola.bligard@chalmers.se

Examination and grading 

The course is graded: fail, 3, 4 or 5. The grade will be based on four assignments including three individual and one group assignments. Attendance at peer-to-peer supervision groups and expert consultancies is compulsory. 

Total points of all assignments is 100. The final grade will be calculated based on points using following guide:

80-100: 5, 65-79: 4 , 55-64: 3

The assignments and their share of the overall mark can be seen in the below link. Click on each assignment for full details:

https://chalmers.instructure.com/courses/15311/assignments 

Special circumstances due to the pandemic

We experience a unique and challenging situation due to the pandemic. As a result, the course delivery format is adjusted as follows:

- Lectures and peer review sessions will be online via Zoom. Sessions with smaller number of attendees will be in-person such as supervisory meetings and presentations. As the situation is developing, we will update you about this on a weekly basis. 

- We need to work together to run the course as smoothly as possible, therefore it is essential that you always contact the teaching team when you feel things are not working properly. We are always open to your comments so please do not hesitate to share your concerns with us. 

- It is important to discuss the activities outside the campus that cannot be done online with your supervisor to avoid any risk.

- Remember that companies also have their own policies and restrictions. You may also have limitations in accessing users. 

Rules or guidelines? 

Project IDE has a unique nature as you need to tailor your activities to a particular project. As a result, milestones and assignments’ contents in this syllabus are “guidelines” and not “rules” since for some projects there is a need for altering these guidelines. Your supervisor will help you in such cases. 

Project costs

The basic principle is that students do not have to pay for activities or resources needed for completing the project such as prototyping and participant recruitment. However, agreements between Chalmers and companies involved in the course may vary for each project, so cost allocations and the way costs will be administered are not exactly the same for all projects. Sometimes, you can directly use Chalmers internal resources instead of purchasing a service or product. Ask your supervisor before paying for anything related to the project to make sure that it can be covered by the budget, otherwise reimbursement may not be possible. 

Personal circumstances which may affect your performance

If your physical or mental health may affect your performance during the course, it is important to inform the course examiner as soon as possible and plan ahead. The same principle applies to functional variations (formerly called disabilities). Even some invisible and minor functional variations may affect your performance in certain types of assessments, therefore it is essential to inform such issues to the course examiner early in the course. Remember that the course examiner can suggest a different assessment format which suits your functional variation. 

The relation between learning goals, teaching elements, and examination

The relation between learning goals, teaching elements, and examination is provided in the following table.

 

	Teaching element					Examination element
Learning goal	Lectures	Workshops	Seminars / Presentation	Supervisory meetings / tutorials	Project work	Individual presentation A1	Individual report  A2	Group report A3	Individual Reflective Report A4
Define a design problem from a systems perspective and draw the relevant system boundaries	x	x	x	x		x	x
Understand the characteristics of the stakeholder organization, including its internal possibilities and external restrictions, and how these affect a development project			x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Individually handle a design problem and develop confidence in their own capability	x	x	x	x	x	x	x		x
Adapt the design process, including choice of approach, theory, and methods, to the problem and focus at hand		x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Balance multiple and contradictory requirements from different focus areas, such as technical, ergonomic, communicative, and aesthetic requirements, in a way that leads to a sustainable and ethical solution	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Handle compromises and conflicting demands that arise during group cooperation	x	x		x	x			x
Use situation- and audience-adapted forms of communication with external stakeholders			x	x	x	x	x	x
Reflect on your own professional progress and identify needs and strategies for future learning	x	x	x	x	x	x	x		x

Modifications compared to the course in 2020

• Both formative and summative assignments  are modified in terms of format and descriptions to increase clarity. This include changing A1 and A2 in order to make them more compatible with unique milestones of each project.
• More peer review sessions are added

Course Literature

Azim, S., Gale, A., Lawlor‐Wright, T., Kirkham, R., Khan, A., & Alam, M. (2010). The importance of soft skills in complex projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.

Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard business review, 86(6), 84.

Burns, D. (2013). Systemic action research: Changing system dynamics to support sustainable change. Action Research, 12(1), 3-18.

Checkland, P. (1999). Systems thinking. Rethinking management information systems, 45-56.

Cross, N. (2011). Design thinking: Understanding how designers think and work. Berg.

Engeström, Y. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. Perspectives on activity theory, 19(38).

Gharajedaghi, J. (2011). Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture. Elsevier.

Gustavsson, T. K., & Hallin, A. (2014). Rethinking dichotomization: A critical perspective on the use of “hard” and “soft” in project management research. International Journal of Project Management, 32(4), 568-577.

Hands, D. (2017). Design Management: The Essential Handbook. Kogan Page Publishers.

Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (2005). Participatory action research: Communicative action and the public sphere. Sage Publications Ltd.

Kimbell, L. (2011). Rethinking design thinking: Part I. Design and Culture, 3(3), 285-306.

Koskinen, I., Zimmerman, J., Binder, T., Redstrom, J., & Wensveen, S. (2013). Design research through practice: From the lab, field, and showroom. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 56(3), 262-263.

Lawson, B. (2006). How designers think. Routledge.

Loch, C., & Kavadias, S. (2008). Handbook of new product development management. Routledge.

Manzini, E. (2015). Design, when everybody designs: An introduction to design for social innovation. MIT Press.

Nardi, B. A. (1996). Activity theory and human-computer interaction. Context and consciousness: Activity theory and human-computer interaction, 436, 7-16.

Pant, I., & Baroudi, B. (2008). Project management education: The human skills imperative. International journal of project management, 26(2), 124-128.

Poggenpohl, S. H., & Satō, K. (Eds.). (2009). Design integrations: research and collaboration. Intellect Books.

PMI (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (ch 3. pp 51-68) 51(PMBOK® Guide)–Sixth Edition (Vol. Sixth edition). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Schön, D. A. (2017). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Routledge.

Simon, H. A. (1996). The Sciences of the Artificial. MIT Press Books, 1.