Skunkwork as a learning methodology - Findings from venture development projects in industry

This paper presents in some detail findings and experiences gained from a new course entitled
“Innovation Engineering” (IE). This course is offered in the Technology Management Programme (TM)
at Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
The incentive for developing the new course was the need for a more integrated and practical
approach where technical, customer and application problems from reality confront the participants.
The driving force behind this change of focus has been the ambition to emphasise real life situations
and generate a deeper market understanding as well as extensive insights into innovation and product
development than was covered by a previous course. In addition to product planning we also wanted
to introduce the role of an intrapreneur and to get an extension of the concept of product development.
A challenging task was to introduce intraperneurship into the curriculum. The theoretical treatment of
the subject is covered by traditional lectures supported by literature. But what about providing some
hands-on experience of intreprenurship in practice? In order to achieve that, four companies were
engaged (all of them global with technology as a core competence). At each of these companies
company representatives and the instructors of the course agreed upon a venture project during precourse
meetings. Thus learning arenas for the students were established.
The course was divided into two subprojects, one minor project and one major project. The minor one
was an introductory project, which aimed at providing the students with insights into the current status
of the company. A goal was also, to give the students the opportunity to identify a potential project on
their own. Alternatively the company provided one. The main project was to adopt the role of an
intrapreneur in the company setting, undertake the project development task and deliver the results in
the form of a business plan.
The students were divided into four project teams comprising nine individuals each. For each and
every one of the teams, pre-defined roles of responsibility within specific areas such as project
leadership, engineering design, logistics etc., were to be covered by the team members. A supervisor
was assigned to handle a specific area for each of the teams.
The evaluation of the course was based on interviews of students and representatives of the
companies and on a survey. In their roles as course leaders, the authors also evaluated and reflected
upon the process (as action research) and documented insights and experiences. Some examples of
the findings from the evaluation of the projects obtained from industry representatives and the
students are:
• The students initially felt quite uncomfortable with the “fuzzy” structure of the projects.
However, as the course proceeded the students (and the teams) created their own structure
and a clear maturation process could be identified.
• The outcomes of the projects have clearly contributed to industry. In one of the projects a
patent has been applied for and in another one there is a clear market opportunity provided by
the students, which the hosting company is now going for.