• Capstone Project Part V: Visual Canvas [Due Monday] Use visual design thinking techniques to help sell your updated canvas
  • Revise your business model canvas based on what you learned so far. This should be the final text version of your business model canvas that you will submit with your capstone project report next week.
  • Create a visual canvas to sell your business plan.
    • In Word, Prezi, or PowerPoint, use images or icons to walk a potential investor or internal stakeholder through your Canvas to illustrate your business model and innovative ideas.
    • Identify potential objections or resistance and identify solutions to break through them.
    • Apply visual design thinking techniques to tell and sell your story,  such as those listed on Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010: p. 178).
  • Rubric for Capstone Project Part V: Visual Canvas

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Instructions:

Risk Management Plan exercise:  Imagine you are an executive at Uber, and you have been tasked with designing a new risk management plan for the company.  In drafting the plan, include the following items:

1. Categories of torts for which Uber might have liability (discuss which types of activities Uber engages in that give rise to potential tort liability)
2. Methods of mitigating risk (include not only legal methods, but also reflect on the ethical values at stake in many company risk management policies)
3. How the advent of driverless vehicles will affect Uber’s potential for legal exposure (provide analysis on how realistic driverless vehicles are, and how the law might adapt to this new technology)

There is considerable material available online that describes attributes of Uber’s business model and methods that create potential legal exposure for the company.  At a minimum, you will want to address the company’s potential liability for:

• intentional torts inflicted by drivers on riders (such as cases of assault)
• negligence of drivers who get in automobile accidents
• mishandling riders’ sensitive private data
• misclassifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees

The risk management plan you create need not be written like a business plan.  It can be a Power Point presentation with explanatory notes, a Prezi with audio voiceovers, or a video presentation that explains the plan.

Click the “Submit Assignment” link in the upper right corner to upload your assignment.

Rubric

Assignment Rubric – Risk Management Plan exercise

• Team Project: Project Management

As a group, design a presentation that you could give to a team of new hires. This presentation should address both parts of the assignment at an undergraduate business student level.  Use visual aids sparingly, but as needed. Add speaker notes to your presentation to help describe any additional content.

• Part 1: Many students are sometimes confused by the concept of critical path and want to believe that it is the shortest path through a network.
  • How would you explain to this student that this is not true?
  • Give an example of a situation in which project management is needed.
  • Name some commonly used project management software programs.
• Part 2: It has been suggested that “quality is free.”
  • Explain how improving quality can lead to reduced costs.  Does this suggest that “quality if free?”
  • What roles do operations managers play  in addressing the major aspects of service quality?
  • Use the basics of quality management (Denim, Juran, Crosby, and Ishikawa) to explain why “quality is free”.
• Team Project: Project Management Rubric

• Capstone Project Part IV: Future Scenario Canvas[Due Monday] Use the future scenarios technique to create an updated Canvas based on an environmental variable that differs from your current environment.
  • Create a simplified version of the four-quadrant future scenarios chart (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010: p. 187):
    • Identify two criteria that are likely to shape the future of the industry in which your business model/ value proposition operates.
    • Label the two axes and the four quadrants
    • Identify the quadrant in which your business model is currently located (current scenario).
    • Identify a quadrant that may be relevant to the future of your company or project (future scenario). (Note: while you would normally do multiple future scenarios, you do not need to create a business model canvas for each of the quadrants.)
  • Create a business model canvas that is appropriate for the future scenario.
  • In 1-2 paragraphs, briefly describe any background needed to understand your future scenario analysis and what you learned for your capstone project.
• Rubric for Capstone Project Part IV: Future Scenario Canvas

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This week’s content discussed some of the behavioral theories of leadership and their ethical implications. Consider and comment on the following questions:

1. Of the Iowa Study leadership styles (autocratic, democratic, and laissez faire), which style is most appealing to you? Are any of the styles ethically superior to any of the others? Why or why not?
2. With respect to the Michigan and Ohio Studies, do you think leaders who focus more on followers than on the job at hand are more ethical than other leaders? Is a balance better than being partial to one of the two dimensions? Given that the results of these studies were slightly different, which do you think got it mostright?

• Capstone Project Part III: Minimum Viable Product [Due Monday] Create and Test an MVP
  • Create the simplest, quickest MVP to test one or more key assumptions of your business model/value proposition.
    • Use anything you have at your disposal to create your MVP.
    • Use software of your choice to show your product or process: web link, photo, video, PowerPoint, etc.
  • Write a 2 page summary or record a 3-5 minute video that includes the following:
    • Identify the assumption(s) you tested
    • Explain how you used the MVP to test your assumption(s)
    • Describe what you learned from this test
    • Identify your next steps to refine your MVP and run your next experiment
  • Submit your MVP product and summary.

Rubric

Rubric for Capstone Project Part III: Minimum Viable Product

Utilize a modified version of the “Legal Reasoning Group Activity 14-10” on p. 279 of the textbook.  Assuming the facts given in the textbook, write a 2-3 page paper (double-spaced) that presents several perspectives on covenants not to compete:

1. What are the company’s interests in non-competes that justify their use and enforcement?  How would you evaluate these interests in light of your ethical framework and commitments?
2. What are the countervailing interests that work against enforcement of non-competes?  In other words, why should they not be enforced? Again, argue from your ethical perspective.
3. What are the interests of society at large in non-competes?
4. One trend in the past few years in some industries seems to be requiring summer interns at companies to sign non-competes, even when they are completing the internship for college credit.  Should a court enforce such a non-compete? Why or why not? (See Wall Street Journal article).  What about a fast-food sandwich shop that requires sandwich makers to sign a non-compete (See Forbes article)?  If a company has no intention of enforcing a non-compete under either of these circumstances (against summer interns or sandwich makers), what is the purpose of requiring the worker to sign?  And is that purpose ethical?
5. How should courts balance these competing interests?  Should courts enforce all non-competes given the social good of freedom of contract?  Or should they refuse to enforce these contracts because of antitrust concerns about restraints of trade?  Or should they reform and then enforce non-competes to be less onerous than is typical when drafted?

Rubric

Assignment Rubric – Covenants not to compete project

• Capstone Project Part II: Preliminary Customer Needs Analysis[Due Monday] Use design thinking to conduct a preliminary analysis of your customers needs and summarize your findings in a 2-3 page (single-spaced) document plus an empathy map.
  • Complete the following steps to gather data about your target customers and summarize what they need.
    • Collect and document data on your customers.
      • Interview, observe or access other available data about your target customers to gather answers needed to complete an Empathy Map. Document the steps or actions you took to collect and analyze this customer-related data (e.g., interviewed X, Y and Z using this 3-question interview protocol).
      • Note: if you are doing a redesign project within an existing company, your “customer” for this exercise could be company employees or business partners if those are the customers or users you need to satisfy.
    • Create a visual empathy map Download visual empathy map(Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010: pp. 130-133).
    • Analyze and summarize the implications of your empathy map.
      • Reflect on the process of creating the empathy map. What did this analysis confirm for you? What did you find unexpected?
      • What do these customer insights mean for the desired value proposition of your proposed innovation? What do customers need? Is it different from what you thought they needed prior to applying this technique? How does this information affect your approach to your business plan? It may help to review possible value propositions (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010: pp. 22-25).
    • Summarize your current understanding of the innovation you are proposing.
      • Describe in more detail than your proposal the idea you have for the product/process/technology that will address your customer’s needs.
      • Describe the assumptions that you have about your innovation that still need to be tested. (e.g., What design elements are necessary for your product to meet your customers’ needs? How will you measure if the product is successful or not? What do you expect to discover and accomplish by using the prototyping technique next week? What problems might you face in implementing the technique?).
    • Submit the following items:
      • 2-3 page paper addressing the topics above (i.e., data collection, analysis of empathy map and value proposition, summary of innovation)
      • Export your completed Visual Empathy Map as a PDF and then submit it to this Canvas assignment.

• Automotive Canvas (Group)[Due Saturday] In groups of 3-4, create a business model canvas for an existing automotive-related company
  • Use the business model canvas template to complete the following with your group
    • Make a copy of the business model canvas template(Links to an external site.) and share it with your group via Google Drive.
    • Select one disruptive trend in the automotive industry (see Gao, Kaas, Mohr & Wee, 2016) and identify a specific automotive-related company that has been affected by that trend
    • (Re)structure the company’s business model by creating a canvas motivated by the disruptive trend, filling in all 9 blocks of the canvas template.
    • Add a 1-2 paragraph explanation of how this business model would allow the company to respond to the trend. Clearly identify which trend you selected and the name of the company you are analyzing.
  • Have one group member submit the link to your group’s automotive canvas and the explanation. [Note: Deductions will be made for individuals who do not contribute meaningfully to the team’s work.]

• Write a 2-page single-spaced paper in which you apply an innovation theory to the Blockchain phenomenon.
  • Identify an innovation theory (i.e., disruptive innovation or diffusion of innovation adoption curve) to examine what is currently happening with Blockchains.
  • Describe key components of the theory, and explain how the theory applies to this particular innovation. Include additional research as needed to show how the theory matches the conditions that motivated the creation and spread of Bitcoin and/or blockchains.
  • Answer the following application questions:
    • Think of an industry not mentioned in the article. How will it be affected by blockchains?
    • What predictions does the theory make about the future of that industry?
    • What suggestions would you give to a manager in this industry dealing with the potential impact of this phenomenon?
  • Cite all borrowed content in APA format.

Rubric for Blockchain Paper