This is the second of a two part series course (R&D Projects Planning & Communication; R&D Projects Management & Crisis Handling) designed for students with previous experience in R&D work. These two courses can be taken independently with no specific order.
The course introduces some of the most up-to-date perspectives of R&D project management. Students are expected to take their prior R&D experiences as a basis and utilize the workshops within the class discussion and group preparation time, case studies and group collaboration/co-competition to practice and learn efficient project management in a R&D environment and to realize the rapid advancement of linking today’s R&D and business model. Our project management is composed of four stages: a pre-launch, launch, execute, and implement stages. We are to use the four stages to develop a systematic project management strategy. The individual steps associated with these four stages will guide the student through the necessary steps to take a project from its early infancy to successful deployment in an efficient and effective manner. In this course, at the pre-launch stage, the student will learn about the following: (a) writing a project description, (b) undertaking an intra-project priority analysis, (c) stakeholder analysis, (d) complexity assessment, (e) scope and sizing of projects, and (f) project chartering. Within the launch stage, the student will learn how to develop (a) a task plan, (b) an organizational plan, (c) perform an estimation, (d) handle execution, (e) perform scheduling, and (f) learn how to maintain progress reviews and project control.
Due to the rapid changing operational environments, some discussions on the Agile Project management and its relationship to Scrum will also be briefly introduced.
The course will also include some of the latest developments on brainstorming implementation approaches, patent applications/preparations and intellectual properties discussions, etc. Students will learn to work in groups of four to six during the workshop sessions. The student must prepare in groups on the term project and homework assignments. Furthermore, the students are asked to make a PowerPoint presentation on a pre-assigned section of two books entitled, “Discovery-Driven Growth” and “Talent on Demand” (References 3 and 4 below).” It is expected that the study and report of these books will provide the student with a new perspective in linking business growth and talent development/training/retention in today’s highly dynamic internet world.
To ensure the students can retrieve the essences of this course, they will be required to analyze the selected NSC research reports and to describe how these Taiwan local enterprises reform their business structures in face of unpredictable economic situations.

課程目標(Course Goal)：
To expose the students to state-of-the-art project management skills and to solidify previous R&D experience and learn how to become efficient project managers and/or researchers.

課程要求(Course Requirements)：
As previous hands-on R&D experience is a must to truly benefit from this course, students taking this course must have some previous experiences in R&D, which may include special science and technology topics studies, research papers, etc.

參考書目：
i. Gopal K. Kapur, Project Management for Information, Technology, Business, and Certification, Pearson/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA (2005).
ii. Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur (Co-created by an amazing crowd of 470 practitioners from 45 countries), Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, John Wiley & Son, Hoboken, NJ, USA (2010).
iii. Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan, Discovery-Driven Growth: A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA, USA (2009).
iv. Peter Cappelli, Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA, USA (2008).