Course Syllabus
Welcome to Product Studio
All of you have already gotten started with the pre-work in the weeks before coming to campus. While some of this syllabus is repeated from the pre-work syllabus that you've already seen, please be sure to read everything carefully, since we have added important new information for the duration of the fall.
Your Year in Studio
The world is transformed by builders — individuals who combine engineering, business, design, and leadership skills to build new products, services, and business models. The studio experience will train you to become a world-class builder. The best way to learn to become a builder is by doing it!
You will have two opportunities to build this year.
In the fall Product Studio, you will learn and practice a systematic process for creating a new venture to solve a company-supplied Product Challenge, which will be in the form of a How Might We (HMW) question. During this process, you identify, develop and validate a new product idea from the ground up, working closely with 3–5 teammates and a company advisor from the company that identified the HMW.
Then, late in the fall and throughout the spring, you will work with other students to create your own team and develop a new product or service based on a venture opportunity that you will identify. With your (second) team, you will take this venture through one of three tracks: BigCo Studio, PiTech Studio, or Startup Studio.
Throughout this process, you will learn a number of important skills: how to conduct research and interview stakeholders, how to generate new ideas, how to evaluate and select ideas, how to smartly de-risk your idea, how to intelligently validate your ideas, how to work effectively as a team, how to develop a product roadmap, how to create objectives for your product or service, how to measure your progress, and so much more. It's going to be a great year, and we are looking forward to it!
Who We Are
| Karan Girotra Dyson Family Professor of Management Professor, Technology & Operations girotra@cornell.edu |
Josh Hartmann Chief Practice Officer jhartmann@cornell.edu |
Shaw Li Product Coach sl2692@cornell.edu |
| Leandra Elberger Studio Director leandra.elberger@cornell.edu |
Tyler Rhorick Studio Operations Lead trhorick@cornell.edu |
Naomi Cervantes Studio Associate nc369@cornell.edu |
Interacting with the Studio Team
We encourage you to use your time with the instructors well when you meet them each week, but we know that things will come up in between, and we want to make sure you can continue to get help in between meetings.
If you have questions about course processes, post them in Slack to #product-studio-fall2021 so that others can learn from the question and the answer. You are more likely to get an answer more quickly this way. Sending a DM to individual Studio team members is not an effective way to get these questions answered.
As with all text messaging services, misunderstandings are going to happen, so always approach each interaction assuming positive intent, and ask for clarification if something seems ambiguous. While we will try to be as responsive as possible, we do not monitor Slack 24/7.
Of course, if you have personal inquiries, you can reach out to the appropriate individual team member on Slack. Start with Shaw for project, grading, and content-related queries; Leandra for team issues; and Tyler and Naomi for logistics and operations queries.
Our Approach to Learning
The best way to learn to be a builder is by actually building stuff in real life. Learning in the studio happens through four activities, each of which contributes about 25 percent of your learning:
- Consuming. Learn the tools and processes for building by watching videos, reading content, attending lectures, and discussions. This is the traditional learning that you are likely most familiar with.
- Applying. This is where you take what you've learned and apply it to your real-world venture whether by conducting research, interviewing stakeholders, generating ideas, evaluating them, or de-risking your venture.
- Getting Feedback. Doing goes only so far, so you'll have to learn to gather and evaluate feedback. What do others think about your ideas, outputs, and plans? Which feedback do you take, which do you ignore, and which do you adjust?
- Redoing and Iterating. You learn to build by making mistakes, correcting your mistakes, and trying again. You will likely need to redo most things you do in this course — it takes a few attempts to get it right.
Our Cadence
Entrepreneurship is inherently asynchronous, meaning that in a normal setting it's impossible to predict the duration of each of the steps builders take to create a new product or service. But we are tied to an academic calendar, so we need to impose a calendar for each of the teams to complete their deliverables so we can stay together.
We have given great thought to this cadence based on the experiences of past iterations of Product Studio, but we may choose to adjust it based on what we see from the class and public health guidance from the university.
We have organized the course into four "epics," each of which will contain several week-long "sprints." Each sprint corresponds to a step in our builder process. Sprints include some instruction on principles, skills, and best practices for that step, comprehension check assignments and they conclude with a large deliverable, based on applying the sprint's learnings to your venture.
Sprints will run from Sunday to Sunday each week for 15 weeks, with this cadence:
- Sunday 12 noon: We will release the content for each sprint here on Canvas. We expect you to have completed watching the online material and be fully prepared to apply this content before class on Tuesday.
- Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:45 to 7:15 p.m.: This is dedicated time for you to work with your teams on your venture. This is your workshop time when you and your teammates should work together as a team — and, apart from the kickoff meeting each Tuesday, you are free to work from any spot on campus you feel comfortable. But our expectation is that you are in-person and present with your teammates — this is not a time for non-studio work or appointments. (Don't let your team down.)
- Tuesday, 2:45 p.m.: We will meet for a 1-hour context-setting and group Q&A session. This is where you will get additional background on the sprint's content and can ask any questions you have about the same.
- This is required and we expect you to be there. Due to capacity constraints, each week half the teams will be able to attend in the auditorium (where we will be). The remaining teams will be able to use tables in Bloomberg rooms 161/165 and 061/071. Instructions will be sent via Slack each Tuesday before class.
- For people unable to be there, there will also be a Zoom link available. Participation is more difficult over Zoom, so this is intended for those who are not feeling well to stay engaged — it is not intended to give you the option to elect to take Product Studio as a fully remote course. But if you are not feeling well, we want you to stay home as necessary, following the steps outlined here. If you are joining from another location, we expect you to be fully engaged with cameras on.
- We might call on individual students to test their preparation and comprehension of the online content. There will also be occasional in-class exercises and quizzes which will be graded, so we expect every student to have a laptop or tablet.
- Weekly check-in: Since the lectures are asynchronous, we are making a large investment to meet every team weekly. You are required, as a team, to meet with Karan, Josh, or Shaw for a 15-minute check-in each week during our Tuesday and Thursday times. Whom you meet will rotate week to week. This is your moment to show us your progress and where you might be hitting roadblocks. These will be both in-person and, at times, over Zoom.
- If you need more help outside of these check-ins, we expect you to be proactive in asking us for additional time. (We might skip check-ins on weeks with Maker Days, crits, or where the sprint content so necessitates.
- We expect every team member to be present and engaged for check-ins.
- Weekly status: Your team's weekly status report is due by the end of the day every Saturday.
Assignments
There will be four types of assignments throughout the semester.
- Accompanying most sprints will be a modest comprehension check/practice exercise that each of you will need to submit individually, either in the module content or in class on Tuesday. These will typically be weighted at 100-300 points, depending on effort.
- You and your team will then work to apply the sprint's content to your product or service, with a larger deliverable that you will submit as a team. (Very occasionally the sprint deliverable might be an individual assignment, but this will be well marked in Canvas.) These will typically be weighted between 500 and 3000 points, depending on effort.
- Each week your team is expected to complete a status report, weighted at 100 points per week. Attendance at checkins is also 100 points, with one excused absence per student.
- Each of the four Maker Days will conclude with a deliverable for your team. The fourth Maker Day (December 2-3) will constitute your final exam. Maker Day deliverables will carry weights between 1000 and 5000 points.
Canvas will always be the single source of truth for all assignments, and all assignments, due dates, and weightings will be clearly visible, so we encourage you to check here first and keep a close eye for updates.
Grading
Grading in Studio courses has inherent subjectivity, but our intent is to make it as fair and transparent as possible. We will evaluate you based on the effort and hustle you demonstrate to apply what you've learned to your HMW.
Assignments will be scored based on a total number of points. Late assignments will be penalized 10 percent per day after the deadline (This is applied automatically by Canvas). We will be moving quickly and we need everyone to stay current, so there will be no mechanism for making up missed assignments.
At the end of the semester, we will apply a relative scale to the total points. The median overall score will be a 3.5 on a 4-point scale, meaning that about half the students will get some sort of an A grade. After each Maker Day, you will receive an update on where you stand.
Software You’ll Use
Canvas
The syllabus, course lecture content (i.e., modules), and assignments, and key dates will be managed in Canvas. Canvas is the authoritative information source for the course and you should refer to it for all dates such as assignment due dates or class calendars. Submissions of assignments can only be accepted via Canvas. Do not email or slack these assignments to members of the Studio team. If you are having technical trouble with Canvas, please contact Tyler Rhorick over Slack.
Slack
You should already be in our Slack instance at cornelltech.slack.com. The primary channel for Product Studio is #product-studio-fall2021 . You should create a channel for your team and for other affinity groups. Some of your other classes at Cornell Tech may also have Slack channels here.
To support you during your time at Cornell Tech, we have also upgraded our Slack to include Grow premium (a 2019 Cornell Tech Startup Award Recipient) so you can regularly give feedback to fellow students while working on team assignments.
All communications on Slack are subject to Cornell Tech's Standards of Professional Conduct. (Don't be a jerk on Slack or anywhere else.)
Zoom
You can sign up for Zoom using your Cornell NetID by visiting https://cornell.zoom.us/.
If you choose to use a virtual background, please generate a standard professional Cornell background here and use it. We ask you to avoid using animated or other complex backgrounds which can be distracting and ill-suited for professional settings.
Miro
We often find Miro is a great tool for visualizing information like the rich picture assignment in the pre-work and for a number of assignments during the semester. Miro offers a free education plan which all students are eligible for.
FAQs
Q: What if we want to change teams during the semester or before spring Studio?
We do not allow changes of teams for your Product Challenge teams.
We expect teams will pivot and change what they are working on, as your understanding about the industry and problem space deepens. (In fact, we would be surprised if you don’t pivot.) As such the working unit is the team, and the team should not be wedded to a specific solution for their product or service.
Q: How much tech will we need to build during the fall semester for Studio?
A substantial amount. Your final deliverable is an opportunity validated with primary real-world data (i.e. data you collect directly about use, adoption, etc.) — which is virtually impossible to collect without exposing to customers and stakeholders some form of a working product, in the form of a pilot or a prototype that tests critical pieces of technology and how they fit together to fill a need.
Q: What is the intellectual property agreement between the company advisors and students?
All companies that work directly with a student team will be required to sign the Cornell Standard Project Agreement without any modifications or additions .
Because all work created during the semester is considered in public domain, your product roadmap is available at the end of the semester so that you, your team, or your company advisor can continue to work on the project after Product Studio, at their choosing.
Q: What if we want money to do “XYZ?”
There are a variety of free or low-cost technical solutions available to Cornell Tech students. Also, IT@Cornell has resources that are available to all Cornell University students.
The Studio does not require any textbook purchases for any courses, so you might consider software licenses or small hardware purchases as lab or textbook for Studio. Anything less than $150 you should expect to cover on your own.
If your team requires technology or hardware outside of this scope, you can make a formal request for purchase by the Studio by filling out this form.
Please note that we are likely only to approve requests for purchases that can benefit multiple people/teams and will also be available for future cohorts (ex: hardware devices that we can add to our device library). We are unlikely to approve requests for software licenses for individuals, as we have found that there are usually free or cheap alternatives. We expect you to be scrappy as you are building!
Q: What if I find an error in the content on Canvas?
We aren't perfect and sometimes we make errors, whether that be simple typos or links that aren't accessible. If you find something wrong, please report by taking a simple screenshot and describing the error Slack a message to Shaw. We use the screenshot only to identify where in Canvas to make the correction.
Q: Where can I see previous Product Studio projects completed in the Studio?
2019 projects: http://studio-fall-2019.cornelltech.io/
Other years: http://buildboard-10044.cornelltech.io/
Other Important Information
Course Summary:
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