The Innovation Lab drops student teams into the senior leadership seat at an established mid-size company that has slipped behind on innovation. Professors pick from four industry tracks — SaaS (NovaTech), Healthcare (Meridian), Financial Services (Crestline), or Retail (Harbor & Main) — so the disruption narrative fits the course. Over 5 simulated years (played across 5 weeks by default, 8- or 14-week formats optional), teams sense the need for change, generate creative solutions under real constraints, build stakeholder buy-in, prototype and pivot when disruption hits, and scale sustainable innovation. Every decision affects four scoring pillars — Innovation, Adaptability, Stakeholder Trust, Financial Health — weighted 30/25/25/20 into a composite score. A random event fires each year; teams can adapt up to 2 decisions afterward for bonus points (a bad adaptation costs points). An LLM Critic writes narrative feedback after each year in a professor-tuned persona, and each student's written reflections are graded for individual contribution.
Share this with your team— printable one-pager for a chair or procurement./for-your-team/innovation-labYour company faces declining market signals, rising customer complaints, and aggressive competitors. Identify which signals matter and diagnose the real problem before it is too late.
Generate innovative solutions under budget, time, and cultural constraints. Decide how to allocate R&D resources and choose between incremental improvement and bold transformation.
Pitch your vision to skeptical stakeholders. Navigate resistance from middle management, address investor concerns, and build a coalition for change.
Allocate resources to build and test your ideas. Handle unexpected setbacks — a key supplier drops out, regulations change, or a competitor launches first. Adaptability is key.
Implement your innovation across the entire organization. Manage culture clashes, training gaps, and feedback loops. Prove that your change initiative can endure beyond the initial excitement.
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