Please be advised: the information contained on this page is a general overview of the course. As course information is subject to change from one semester to another, please check DukeHub for the most accurate and up-to-date information about EGRMGMT courses.
At a Glance
- Instructor(s): Greg Twiss
- Semester(s) typically taught: Fall and Spring
- Units: 3.0
- Grading scale: Graded (A-F)
- Required or elective for MEM degree? Elective
- If elective, applicable elective track(s): Customer Experience and Product Design, Product Management
- Pre-requisites: n/a
- Recommended previous courses: n/a
Course Description/Synopsis (from DukeHub)
Managing Product Design: Concept to Realization is an opportunity for students to gain practical experience creating a business and managing a design team that produces a real product under realistic cost, schedule, and performance constraints. Students will form a semester-long “company” that will create coherent business and technical strategies, and design, build, and demonstrate a functional product prototype. Teams will be assisted by managing external technical resources and receiving feedback and guidance from an advisory board. Objectives:
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- (i) Provide students “a real-life as possible” end-to-end product design and development management experience with responsibilities in business operations and technical management, spanning conceptual design to detailed design, delivery, and presentation;
- (ii) Opportunity to gain realistic experience building a tangible and functional software and electro-mechanical consumer product under market, technical, schedule, and budgetary constraints;
- (iii) Offer project-based experience directly managing designers and other technical specialists; and
- (iv) Provide students with direct experience in considering and managing “Design-for-X” (DfX) tradeoffs including, cost, manufacturability, repair/reuse, and environmental factors.
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Course Syllabus (Most Recent)
EGRMGMT 590 MPD Syllabus Spring 2025
A Word From the Faculty
“Successful product design and development involves choreographing the interplay between multiple business and technical disciplines. From early customer needs understanding and conceptual design to detailed design, manufacturing , and delivery development teams must consider and choose from many competing tradeoffs and development options. Managing Product Design (MPD) is an opportunity to gain practical experience in this choreography: managing a business and engineering design team, and producing a real product under realistic cost, schedule, and performance constraints. Students will participate in a semester-long “business team” producing coherent business and technical plans and delivering a functional product prototype.” –Greg Twiss, course instructor
Student Testimonials (from Course Evaluations)
- “This was a course that I had chanced upon due to a shortage of electives but I am SO HAPPY I stuck with it. Prof Twiss designed a truly great experience not just a course. As a person who has never experienced what a start-up environment – This was a crash course in it. I really liked that all our learnings were from real life experiences both from our end and Prof Twiss’.”
- “The course was very different from conventional courses because we had a lot of practical work. We not only listened to lectures but also built something from scratch.”
- “The course was one of the most intensive. Engineers from different disciplines collaborated to build a product, a smart one. I enjoyed the course and has an amazing learning curve for every product aspirant.”
- “Novel idea, opportunity to work with undergrads and actually got a platform to build something from scratch.”
- “We were able to make an actual product from scratch which helped us in gaining lot of exposure. We learnt how to function in teams and deal with the technical staff. We understood how to deal with constraints and issues by finding a way out.”
- “Prof. Twiss is a master designer and he is the king of making prototypes. His knowledge in designing and fabricating new products is unparalleled. His teaching style was very enjoyable.”
Previous Semester Course Evaluations
- Fall 2021
