MBA7507 Leading Enterprise Change: Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation
3 Credits

This course will go deep into the principles of innovation - disruptive, product (Agile), process (Lean), customer experience (Design Thinking), and business model innovations. Participants will learn how key tools like Agile, Lean and Design Thinking become the corner stone of innovation projects and processes that help teams to become more effective and help executives to build an innovation culture. Today, even the most conservative of industries are being pushed to transform themselves towards digital excellence. We will see several examples of firms that have gone through this transformation. Strategy, Innovation, and Culture are inseparable and they are the three key weapons of every entrepreneurial leader confronting ever increasing VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environments. This course provides the participants a set of strong principles and common language for leading their teams and their enterprises through uncharted terrains. When this course is offered exclusively for firms in the healthcare industry, the case studies and the assignments will be chosen appropriately.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: MBA7507
  • Number of Credits: 3

OIM7503 Experiment to Scale
(Formerly MOB7503)
3 Elective Credits

If you took and passed MOB7503, you cannot register for OIM7503, as these two courses are equivalent

Innovators in all industries are searching for ways to bring products and services to market at an even faster pace and to scale. However, companies face a myriad of challenges that make such growth difficult, namely: environmental uncertainty, unquestioned industry standards, and seemingly stagnant organizational cultures. And while ideating and prototyping new ideas becomes more manageable for firms, bringing those ideas to scale is still elusive Experimentation has recently been revered as the way forward to address these challenges. In this course, students will study historical and more recent experimentation techniques from technology and operations management. Students will compare and contrast these techniques and apply them to a project.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM7503
  • Number of Credits: 3

OIM7511 Future Lab: Complex Problem Solving for Social Impact
(Formerly MBA7502)
3 Elective Credits

If you took and passed MBA7502, you cannot register for OIM7511, as these two courses are equivalent

Sinan Erzurumlu, Faculty Director at FutureLab & Prof. of Innovation and Ops Mngment
Cheryl Kiser, Executive Director, The Lewis Institute & Babson Social Innovation Lab

FutureLab combines the entrepreneurial mindset and social design principles to engage students, organizations and community to explore pioneering entrepreneurial challenges and create economic and social/environmental progress for selected partner organizations. The FutureLab is a discovery and action-learning lab. It involves experiential learning in service to address challenges in real time and in real contexts. As a FutureLab student partner, you will collaborate with an ensemble of faculty members and partner organizations to explore their challenges and develop solutions for social impact at scale. You should be prepared to engage in an active learning environment and apply principles of complex problem solving for social impact.

Given the increasing preference shown by employers for demonstrated problem solving experience, this lab will provide you with the opportunity to add a very realistic problem solving experience to the portfolio of qualifications on your resumes. We envision regular, ongoing interaction with our partners, with details to be determined in collaboration with these partners. You will gain skills in creativity, critical thinking, innovation, complex problem solving, social change, entrepreneurial leadership and influence. Depending on the demands of the project, you will apply these skills towards framing the problem and co-creating solutions with community and partner organization.

The 14-week lab experience is designed for active learning, experimenting, generating and launching an implementation plan. Student partners of prior semesters addressed various problems, such as improving the efficiency and effectiveness of key patient care processes for a major academic medical center and analyzing the mobility challenges of older adults for governmental organizations. It is important to know that this is a team-based engagement and anticipate the flexible investment of time and effort that high-performance teams and deep work often demands. This Lab requires a high willingness to work in a flexible timeframe and framework. Student partners may be interviewed prior to class by the Lab faculty team.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM7511
  • Number of Credits: 3

OIM7512 Future Lab: Design-led Innovation
(Formerly MBA7503)
3 Elective Credits

If you took and passed MBA7503, you cannot register for OIM7512, as these two courses are equivalent

The FutureLab is a discovery and action-learning lab. It involves experiential learning in service to address challenges in real time and in real contexts. As a FutureLab student partner, you will collaborate with an ensemble of faculty members and partner organizations to explore their challenges and develop solutions for social impact at scale. You should be prepared to engage in self-paced team projects in an active learning environment. You will combine the entrepreneurial mindset and apply principles of complex problem solving for social impact.


Given the increasing preference shown by employers for demonstrated problem solving experience, this lab will provide you with the opportunity to add a very realistic problem solving experience to the portfolio of qualifications on your resumes. We envision regular, ongoing interaction with our partners, with details to be determined in collaboration with these partners. You will gain skills in creativity, critical thinking, innovation, complex problem solving, social change, and entrepreneurial leadership and influence. Depending on the demands of the project, you will apply these skills towards framing the problem and co-creating solutions with community and partner organization.
The 14-week lab experience is designed for active learning, experimenting, generating and launching an implementation plan. Student partners of prior semesters addressed various problems, such as improving the efficiency and effectiveness of key patient care processes for a major academic medical center and analyzing the mobility challenges of older adults for governmental organizations. The focus of the Lab is going to be on mobility and connectivity challenges. It is important to know that this is a team-based engagement and anticipate the flexible investment of time and effort that high-performance teams and deep work often demands. This Lab requires a high willingness to work in a flexible time frame and framework. Student partners may be interviewed prior to class by the Lab faculty team.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM7512
  • Number of Credits: 3

OIM 7506: Global Health Innovation Lab

3 credits

Improved health is central to a country's economic and social development, with 10-30% percent of gross national product (GDP) per capita attributed to differences in countries' investments in health and education over the long term. Global Health Innovation Lab is a learning-by-doing course where student teams are paired with students from universities around the world to identify and solve problems related to the development and implementation of health innovations in low and middle income settings. For our second offering of the course, students will be paired with medical students from Unifacisa Educaçâo in Campina Grande, Brazil.Students will be assigned to a high priority project challenge from a healthcare-related organization in Brazil. Based on the challenge presented by the organization, students will follow the design thinking process, paired with approaches from healthcare management and entrepreneurship, medical anthropology and sociology, and information technology to prototype and test solutions that address organizational challenges. Organizational challenges may relate to care delivery services or technologies needed within clinic settings or in the community.The students will be expected to interact with the partner organizations regularly to make progress. Students will be connected with alumni or other experts as they need additional project support. Student teams are assessed based on their teamwork, project progress, and completion of course readings and activities. Students will have the opportunity to share their projects with the broader global health community through the Kerry Murphy Healey Center for Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Babson.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM7506
  • Number of Credits: 3

OIM7580 Independent Research
1.5-3 Credits

Independent research is available for all academic divisions. Registration is manual for students through Graduate Programs and Office of Graduate Academic Services.

Independent Research provides an opportunity to conduct in-depth research in areas of a student's own specific interest. Students may undertake Independent Research for academic credit with the approval of a student-selected faculty advisor, the appropriate division chair, and Graduate Academic Services. Please note that a student is responsible for recruiting a faculty advisor through the student's own initiative and obtain the advisor's prior consent/commitment before applying for an independent research project. The research project normally carries 1.5 or 3 credits.

For more information and a proposal outline please visit: http://www.babson.edu/Academics/graduate/mba/Pages/independent-research.aspx

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM7580
  • Number of Credits: 3

OIM6110 Information Technology
(Formerly MIS6110)

If you took and passed MIS6110, you cannot register for OIM6110, as these two courses are equivalent

This course prepares students to become digital innovators-global entrepreneurs and business leaders who can make strategic business decisions involving data, digital products, and digital services; experiment with information technologies and platforms; build and work in diverse teams; and create social, environmental and economic value from data in a business context.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM6110
  • Number of Credits: 1.5

OIM9550 Innovating with Wearable Technology
(Formerly MIS9550)
1.5 Intensive Elective Credits

If you took and passed MIS9550, you cannot register for OIM9550, as these two courses are equivalent

Meeting Dates TBD

Drop Deadline TBD

Digital entrepreneurs should be agile experimenters, capable of innovating by combining available technologies and services into digital products and platforms. In this course students will learn about the lean digital startup and follow agile principles to conceive and create a wearable technology device with a clear value proposition. The course will include an introduction to wearable hardware programming and involve hands-on work with an open source wearable technology prototyping platform.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: MSBA Elective (Grad),Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM9550
  • Number of Credits: 1.5

OIM9521 Innovation Processes
(Formerly MOB9521)
1.5 Intensive Elective Credits

If you took and passed MOB9521, you cannot register for OIM9521, as these two courses are equivalent

Over the past two decades, a combination of changes in political, technological, and cultural arenas have dramatically affected the way in which companies, organizations, and individuals innovate. In this course, we will explore the critical parameters of various innovation processes, learn about their advantages and disadvantages, and compare the contexts in which these processes operate. The goal of this course is to develop an understanding of what it takes to design and operate various innovation processes.


In the first offering of the course, the emphasis will be placed on open innovation processes, design thinking and lean start-up, and coordination issues of complex innovation processes.
This course is positioned between our existing offerings Product Design and Development (MOB-7555), which provides an in-depth experience on the project level, and Leading Innovation: Creating Organic Growth (MOB-9525), which discusses managerial and strategic challenges on the firm level in the context of industry and competition. In contrast, the new course Innovation Processes will focus on the mechanisms of how design and manage effective innovation processes.

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: MSBA Elective (Grad),Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM9521
  • Number of Credits: 1.5

OIM7501 Introduction to Database Management
(Formerly MIS7501)
1.5 Elective Credits

If you took and passed MIS7501, you cannot register for OIM7501, as these two courses are equivalent

SQL forms the cornerstone of all relational database operations. The ability to write the SQL language is essential for those who develop database applications. This course provides a solid foundation of the SQL programming language that enables students to build, query and manipulate databases. Working in SQL Server Management, the students will be actively engaged in a hands-on classroom experience.

The list of topics include: Understand entity-relationship modeling (ER Model) at the conceptual level; Data design terminology, SQL Basics, Joins and Views, Conditional Logic, Procedures, Functions.

Prerequisites: None

  • Program: Graduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
  • Course Number: OIM7501
  • Number of Credits: 1.5