Design Management *

33 MAJOR COURSES

1. Elements & Principles of Design

This is a 2 credit foundation course. Students are introduced to the elements and principles of design, encouraged to observe them and try and explain/interpret their direct and indirect interpretations. Gestalt’s principles are also introduced. Based on their interpretations, try and recall how are these used in various forms of design whether product, fashion, architecture or graphic. Further, observe the significance of the elements and principles in various cultures. Readings are from diverse disciplines like Psychology and Marketing with Design to understand the linkages of Design with various disciplines. The course has simple assignments on an exploration and interpretation level.

2. Introduction to quantitative methods

This course is designed to give undergraduate students an introduction to decision making. The use of quantitative techniques is increasingly being adopted in all areas of human endeavour. The need to collect, analyze and interpret mathematical output is increasingly being appreciated for arriving at conclusions or in strategic decision making. This course will deal with fundamental concepts required to model, analyse and solve quantitative problems arising in any discipline. A student undertaking this course can have little to no formal introduction to mathematics and statistics at the higher secondary level.

3. Introduction to people management

This course introduces the basic context, concepts and importance of people management in organizations to students. It incorporates application of psychological and sociological concepts to provide understanding about how people work in organizations. The course familiarizes students with the fundamental ideas of organizational behavior and human resource management and prepares them for the advanced courses under the specialisation. It is designed as an essential first course for students of management and entrepreneurship, to familiarise them with the practices of managing people in organizations.

4. Introduction to the Internet of Things

This course teaches the basic ideas of protocols and computer communication using Arduino and other kits to build “things that do what you want”. Students should be able to write basic programs that control artifacts such as temperature sensors and take action such as moving a car under the shade in response. This course builds on Students familiarity with programming and computational modelling.

5. Materials and processes for design

This course will give students an opportunity to explore properties of different materials; materials from the natural world as well as man-made world. Students will have hands-on experience of interaction with some of those materials. It will also enable the students to understand the basic nature of tools and material relationship.

6. Introduction to finance and accounting

The course is aimed at baptizing the students to the vocabularies of accounting theories and practices. Beginning with the accounting concepts, introducing the basic tenets in maintaining the books of accounts, the course finally culminates into the preparation of the financial statements like income statement, balance sheet as well as the cash flow statement. It also covers the bank reconciliation statement and bills of exchange.

7. Design explorations with Lines and Shades

Knowledge and skill of sketching and drawing is the foundation to any design discipline. This course offers training in sketching as one of the means of visual representation. The focus is on structured and decorative lines enabling developing a keen sense of observation, interpretation and representation using various tools, techniques and mediums. The course also helps in experiencing space in terms of perspective; sharpens the ability to analyze and appreciate the visible or hidden structure of things. Readings are from diverse disciplines like Psychology and Marketing with Design to understand the linkages of Design with various disciplines.

8. Introduction to sustainability

This course introduces the concepts of sustainability to the student. It will deliver the insights of societies and the consequences they will have to encounter in the face of global change, ecosystem degradation and resource limitations. Some of the sub-topics covered in this course include population, ecosystems, change management, energy, agriculture, water, environmental economics and the like.

9. Managerial economics

This course provides a foundation of economic theories and models for use in managerial decision-making.  The course provides students with an overview of theories of demand, supply, production and competition and equips them with the tools and techniques to make effective economic decisions under different business environments.

10. Accounting for managers

Financial accounting provides the means of recording and reporting financial information in a business. Accounting plays a vital role as an information system for monitoring, problem solving and decision-making. This course provides the fundamentals of financial accounting and goes on to demonstrate how accounting fits into the overall business environment of an organization. In addition to this, management accounting systems, which have a strong internal focus can be effective tools in providing information that is useful in decision making at all levels in the organization. Management accountants play a strategic role in developing and providing both financial and non-financial information that is critical to the success of an organization.

11. Marketing management

This course provides a conceptual framework to the students to understand the function of marketing in an organization. The course helps students to apply the marketing concepts and theories to solve case studies and projects. The course makes them vigilant of the marketing happenings in the real world and therefore importance of creating effective marketing strategies.

12. Organisational behavior

This course is an introduction to organizational behaviour for undergraduates. It discusses behaviour in organizations at individual, group & organizational levels and provides an understanding of the underlying aspects that drive behavior. It provides insights into the different theories and their application in the organizational context. It also enables students to understand the utilisation of different tools and practices in directing individual actions towards organizational objectives.

13. Research methods in management

The objective of the course is to enable students to understand the role and importance of research in improving managerial decisions when faced with uncertainty. Research methods are applied in all functional areas of business viz. Operation management, accounting, finance and marketing. The issue facing managers is not a shortage of information but how to use the available information to make better decisions. Learning this course helps students recognise that data are inherently variable and that the identification measurement, control, and reduction of variation provide opportunities for quality improvement.

14. Design drawing and visualization

Design Drawing helps in conceptualizing, visualizing and communicating design ideas. Students would explore themes from nature and man-made environment and represent them creatively. The course has a framework of iconic, symbolic and metaphorical representations. Students then would be able to translate the intended ideas for communicating visually.

15. Colors and creative compositions

This course introduces concepts of Color, Visual Composition, use of Typefaces and Layout. Color is considered to be the soul of design. A good design pulsates with life if done well with colors. They help in generating emotions and ideas, express messages, keep the viewer engaged and have a lasting impact. Composition and layout will focus on arranging visual elements in a systematic and coherent way to achieve desired visual impact and to communicate. Students will also be introduced to the concept presenting information and graphical elements in a structured way using grid. Knowledge and skill of typefaces are essential to endow a durable visual form to any visual communication.

16. Planning and Policymaking in India

Institutional mechanisms and structures play a critical role in transforming policy rhetoric into policy outcomes. This course introduces the students to the key institutional mechanisms and structures that contribute to realization of policy goals and in turn influence the policies in India. The course will explore Indian political and administrative systems, and discuss the role and contributions of various policy tools and mechanisms employed for Planning and Policy making in India. The varied facets of Indian government and politics are discussed to understand how various political, socio-economic, cultural, infrastructural, technological and global factors determine institutional change and its evolution, and how this has impacted its performance over time. Budgets, Five Year Plans and NITI Aayog are important institutional mechanisms that are central to the implementation of the policy goals. In addition, the structures established through the process of decentralization allow for effective implementation of policies at the local level. In recent times, programmes run in a mission mode have been the channel to translate policies into action. This course will enable the student to critically examine these institutional mechanisms and structures, their characteristics, dynamics and delivery in India.

This course will focus on the different facets of human development: education, health, gender, the family, land relations, risk, informal and formal norms and institutions. While studying each of these topics, it will ask: What determines the decisions of poor households in developing countries? What constraints are they subject to? Is there a scope for policy (by government, international organizations, or NGOs)? What policies have been tried out? Have they been successful?

17. Green design

Green design focuses on the use of recycled materials, renewable energies and reduced waste of energy and materials. The students will be sensitized for the ecological concerns and sustainable design concepts. The course will focus on providing design solutions that are environmentally friendly.

18. Financial management

This course in financial management provides a detailed understanding of the finance function and its interrelationship with other areas of business. It seeks to develop the foundation for financial management concepts. It primarily helps the student to understand how businesses make investment, financing, working capital management and dividend decisions and what are the key factors that influence these decisions.

19. Design thinking for managers

Design thinking (DT)  is a powerful tool to tackle the unstructured & the unknown. DT is a ‘human centered’ approach to problem solving which emerged at stanford in the 1960’s primarily as a systematic, immersive approach to product design. In recent years, it was found that these approaches can be extended to a wide category of ill-structured, real-world problems, both in emerging and developed markets alike. DT is getting increasingly popular not only across top corporates, but also in rural, semi-urban and underserved sections of society. Given the diversity of challenges that we face today, it therefore becomes necessary to have thinkers and doers who can focus on addressing such challenges. Dt helps in building those capabilities.

20. Legal Aspects of Business

This course aims to provide conceptual understanding and interpretation of business & economic legislations governing corporate environment.

21. Strategic Management

The objective of this course is to develop strategic planning and execution skills within a rapidly changing environment, crystallize the linkages between business decisions and financial performance, install a bottom line focus and the simultaneous need to deliver customer value, internalize how important it is to use market data and competitive signals to adjust the strategic plan and more tightly focus business tactics, promote better decision-making by helping you see how your decisions can affect the performance of others & organization as a whole, facilitate learning of important business concepts, principles and ways of thinking, experience the challenges and rewards of the entrepreneur by starting up and running a new business venture and build confidence through knowledge and experience

22. Integrated marketing communications

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is a concept of integrating activities of marketing, selling, advertising, sales promotion, and other forms of communication activities at the marketplace, to build and maintain brand value and brand equity for products and services. The course is expected to offer an overall perspective of marketing communications and promotion -- theory and practice - with activities including advertising, public relations, sales promotion, events, personal selling, direct marketing, and on-line promotion for overall effectiveness and success of the brand and the marketing company.

23. Machine learning 1: Introduction

This course provides a basic level analysis of machine learning algorithms. This course will introduce supervised learning algorithms such as decision tree learning, support vector machines, and neural networks, unsupervised learning algorithms including k-means and hierarchical clustering. Evaluation of learning algorithms and dimensionality reduction techniques will also be discussed.

24. Machine learning - 2: Introduction to deep learning

This course covers introductory aspects of deep learning techniques. Some of the tools we learn are deep learning techniques, including Convolutional networks, RNNs, LSTM , deep auto encoders. Applications of Deep learning to text mining , image and Video Processing will be covered . Applications of deep learning to Business and Social media analytics will also be introduced.

25. Tinkering Laboratory

This laboratory course is supplementary to the 'Introduction to the Internet of Things' course. This course allows a student to be hands-on with the concepts, as well as the protocols and electronic communication using Arduino and other kits. The student is expected to build “things that do what you want” and effectively utilize technology to solve societal and environmental issues.

26. Economics of Design

This course will help the students design solutions that have been influenced by principles of economics. The course also includes the process of evaluating the design, as well as teach the societale and environmental consequences of a design.

27. Creative Team Dynamics

In this course students are introduced to the theory of organizational settings and the team dynamics. Tjis includes sub-topics such as providing active feedback, designing an incentive structure and the like. Students are introduced to the concept of human motivation (theories of motivation) as well as building teams (of people with creative skills), besides effectively resolving conflicts between individuals and teams.

28. Marketing research and consumer insights

This course helps in understanding the nature and scope of marketing research in marketing management decisions. It showcases how to support marketing decisions with technical, research and managerial skills. It develops an appreciation for various concepts pertaining to research process and data analysis. It helps in comprehending the underlying patterns or relationships for a large number of variables. Finally, it helps in understanding the significance of preliminary data analysis and application of advanced analytical methods.

29. Product and brand management

An idea is incomplete without taking it forward to a product or an app. The success rate of products launched in the market is less than 8 %. This course helps understand the role of a Product Manager from marketing perspective and various other related aspects of decision making in product development. Product Management, thus proves to be an important and basic course for all those students who are seeking a career in product, marketing , brand, retail, sales and also product design or user interface design.

30. Integrated marketing communications

Integrated marketing communication (imc) is a concept of integrating activities of marketing, selling, advertising, sales promotion, and other forms of communication activities at the marketplace, to build and maintain brand value and brand equity for products and services. The course is expected to offer an overall perspective of marketing communications and promotion -- theory and practice - with activities including advertising, public relations, sales promotion, events, personal selling, direct marketing, and on-line promotion for overall effectiveness and success of the brand and the marketing company.

31. Navigating the field

In this course, the students will learn the fundamental concepts of narrative, goal assessment, human capital and intellectual development. The students must be able to 'sense and describe' the value of their competencies, and must have high-level knowledge of engaging with folks from the industry.

32. Readings in Innovation & Design

This is an independent study course where the student will collaborate with a faculty mentor on topics of interest, and at the same time aligned with the design management major. This 2 credit course will require the student to collate research articles of interest, study it thoroughly and make presentations to a team of faculty members.

33. Startup Strategy

Entrepreneusr and start-up frims are wanting to execute and implement their ideas and take their products to the market. These firms will need people that understand the process of doing it. This course will allows the student to study different types of start-up organizations and evelauate their strategies to go-to-market.