Briefing note on BAEN 542 Prototyping and BAEN 545 Qualitative Research Models from Paul Cubbon

Any questions: please contact: paul.cubbon@sauder.ubc.ca

These two course outlines are now available for Period 4 online. These two half-module courses are designed to be taken in parallel to make up 1.5 credits, but if you only want to take one of them you may do so. Given that these are short courses, and recognizing that you will have just returned from global immersion, there is no significant preparation. However, you are expected to attend all classes and be prepared to the extent needed to participate actively.

Both courses are intended to offer you a change of pace from conventional courses, and are “learning by doing” applied classes. There are no text books or reading packs, but there are some online resources, and these will be added to on an optional, self-customized basis to allow you to develop your learning interests.

The Qualitative Research course is intended to help you build on your learning with Dale in Market Research, on your experiences in Project 2 in Fall, and the learning that many of you have been having in the last month in BAEN 506 Technology Entrepreneurship and/or Brand Management. In all of these courses you have been required to design questionnaires and conduct interviews with only limited guidance. And you have found out how hard it is to do this well and to get useful results.

This course will drill down deeper on “how” and also cover some additional techniques that can provide actionable insights, especially in the early stage of a venture or problem investigation. You will have opportunities to customize your work to connect it to other projects that you are already working on, or to apply the concepts and tools to something new. The projects will, naturally, require some time, but the intention is that they do not need to be heavily time-consuming.

The Prototyping course was designed with the BAEN 506-507 Technology Entrepreneurship and BINV track students in mind, but anyone who is interested can take it.

• Books – the 2 books listed are optional, and certainly not required (Copies of both will be available in class for people to view).
• Website – preliminary material up by Mon Feb 11th, with major revision posted by Mon Feb 25th.
• No reading costs, no lab fees. Prep work and limited readings –  students can expect ~3-8 hours to work on the two projects, depending on complexity of their chosen topics for Projects 1 and Projects 2.