Karl Ulrich

Current Courses (Fall 2024)

• IPD5150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

  IPD5150401

  IPD5150402

  IPD5150403

• MEAM4150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

  MEAM4150401

  MEAM4150402

  MEAM4150403

• OIDD4150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

  OIDD4150401 ( Syllabus )

  OIDD4150402 ( Syllabus )

  OIDD4150403 ( Syllabus )

• OIDD5150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

  OIDD5150401 ( Syllabus )

  OIDD5150402 ( Syllabus )

  OIDD5150403 ( Syllabus )

All Courses

• IPD5150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

• MEAM4150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

• MGMT4180 - India Startup Ecosystem

  The objective of OIDD/MGMT 418 and the Wharton India Fellows program is to introduce Penn juniors to the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem in India through a course covering topics in entrepreneurship, innovation, venture capital and technology in India and then matching students to a specific short-term project with a Bangalore-based early-stage startup or rapidly scaling company. Students will complete preliminary work on the project assignment during the course, and then travel as a group to Bangalore with the instructor for a two week immersion in the company to which they have been assigned for their entrepreneurship project. Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship will cover airfare and lodging expenses for students selected as Wharton India Fellows for the duration of the 2 week immersion in India. For more information: https://entrepreneurship.wharton.upenn.edu/wharton-india-fellows/

• MGMT7310 - Technology Strategy

  The course is designed to meet the needs of future managers, entrepreneurs, consultants and investors who must analyze and develop business strategies in technology-based industries. The emphasis is on learning conceptual models and frameworks to help navigate the complexity and dynamism in such industries. This is not a course in new product development or in using information technology to improve business processes and offerings. We will take a perspective of both established and emerging firms competing through technological innovations, and study the key strategic drivers of value creation and appropriation in the context of business ecosystems. The course uses a combination of cases, simulation and readings. The cases are drawn primarily from technology-based industries. Note, however, that the case discussions are mainly based on strategic (not technical) issues. Hence, a technical background is not required for fruitful participation.

• MGMT8010 - Entrepreneurship

  MGMT 801 is the foundation coures in the Entrepeurial Management program. The purpose of this course is to explore the many dimensions of new venture creation and growth. While most of the examples in class will be drawn from new venture formation, the principles also apply to entrepreneurship in corporate settings and to non-profit entrepreneurship. We will be concerned with content and process questions as well as with formulation and implementation issues that relate to conceptualizing, developing, and managing successful new ventures. The emphasis in this course is on applying and synthesizing concepts and techniques from functional areas of strategic management, finance, accounting, managerial economics, marketing, operations management, and organizational behavior in the context of new venture development. The class serves as both a stand alone class and as a preparatory course to those interested in writing and venture implementation (the subject of the semester-long course, MGMT 806). Format: Lectures and case discussions

• OIDD4150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

• OIDD4180 - India Startup Ecosystem

  The objective of OIDD/MGMT 418 and the Wharton India Fellows program is to introduce Penn juniors to the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem in India through a course covering topics in entrepreneurship, innovation, venture capital and technology in India and then matching students to a specific short-term project with a Bangalore-based early-stage startup or rapidly scaling company. Students will complete preliminary work on the project assignment during the course, and then travel as a group to Bangalore with the instructor for a two week immersion in the company to which they have been assigned for their entrepreneurship project. Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship will cover airfare and lodging expenses for students selected as Wharton India Fellows for the duration of the 2 week immersion in India. For more information: https://entrepreneurship.wharton.upenn.edu/wharton-india-fellows/

• OIDD5150 - Product Design

  This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.

• OIDD6140 - Innovation

  The course is first and foremost an intensive, integrative, project course in which student teams create one or more real businesses. Some businesses spun out of the course and now managed by alumni include Terrapass Inc. and Smatchy Inc. The project experience is an exciting context in which to learn key tools and fundamentals useful in innovation, problem solving, and design. Examples of these tools and fundamentals are: problem definition, identification of opportunities, generating alternatives, selecting among alternatives, principles of data graphics, and managing innovation pipelines. The course requires a commitment of at least 10 hours of work outside of class and comfort working on unstructured, interdisciplinary problems. Students with a strong interest in innovation and entrepreneurship are particularly encouraged to enroll. Please read carefully the syllabus posted on-line before registering for this course.

• OIDD6520 - Des&Dev Web-Based Prod

  This course is designed as an introduction to the process of product design with a focus on Web-based desktop and mobile consumer products and services. This is a course on designing products as distinct from (and complementary to) building a business. The course is implemented as a team-based experiential learning exercise; students learn the design process by developing multiple prototypes of a Web/mobile-based product or service. Teams will apply different prototyping techniques (paper, wireframes, landing pages) over multiple iterations of their project. This is not a course on Web engineering. Technical skills are not a prerequisite. Neither should students expect to learn specific programming tools or techniques. This is not an entrepreneurship course. Students do not analyze business models, market size, pricing, costs, etc. This class introduces an iterative, data-driven, experiment-based design process. Through their project, students will practice multiple design iterations and gain exposure to tools for designing digital products and services.

• OIDD6540 - Product Management

  The course provides the student with a number of tools and concepts necessary for the contemporary practice of product management. The course is most relevant to those who hope to work as product managers, as well as for entrepreneurs who will typically serve as their venture's initial product managers. General managers and other functional managers may also find the course valuable to better understand the product management function. The key modules in the course comprise (a) creating something from nothing, (b) design and design thinking, (c) performance measurement and the communication of quantitative information, (d) agile development processes, and (e) managing growth. Alumni guest speakers in interesting product management roles will typically be scheduled weekly in the course. Many examples, tools, and methods will come from technology-based industries, but applications will also be drawn from financial services and consumer products. Most assignments will be completed for a focal product selected by each student, which could be an entrepreneurial project, something related to current or prior employment, or simply a product of personal interest. A recent Canvas site for the course is here, and should be viewable by the public. https://canvas.upenn.edu/courses/1575358 Other Information: Pedagogy includes lectures, small-group discussion, current and historical cases, podcasts, documentary films, and application of tools to a focal product. Most assignments are individual. PLEASE NOTE: Only Wharton MBA students may register for OIDD 6540.

• OIDD6950 - Ssf Regional Seminar

  As part of the Wharton Semester in San Francisco (SSF) program, this course is designed to (i) provide integrative material that emphasizes links between finance, marketing, product design, negotiations, and other themes in the SSF academic curriculum; (ii) link classroom theories and principles to actual practice by reflecting on the academic literature and (iii) highlight the unique characteristics of, and the programs proximity to, the Bay Area economy. All students participating in the SSF are required to register for this Regional Seminar.

• OIDD8950 - Global Business Week

• Elective Teaching Award – Wharton Executive MBA Program, 2012-2015
• Excellence in Teaching Award – Undergraduate Division, 2010
• Teaching Commitment and Curricular Innovation Award – MBA Program, 2010
• Excellence in Teaching Award – The Wharton School, 2007
• Distinguished Fellow – POMS College of Product Innovation and Technology Management, 2006
• Anvil Award – The Wharton School, 2000

• Xootr Scooter – 50 Coolest Products of the 21st Century, Business Week - 07/29/2009
• Nightly Business Report – 30 Most Important Innovations of Past 30 Years, PBS - 02/16/2009
• Practicing What He Preaches, Wharton Alumni Magazine - 11/01/2008
• Nightly Business Report – Interview with Melissa Harmon on Innovation, PBS - 08/08/2008
• Harper’s Index – Energy Saved by Bicycling – October 2006, Harper's - 10/01/2006
• Are Cyclists Destroying the Earth?, The New York Times - 07/22/2006 Description

  Coverage of working paper on longevity and bicycling.

• New York Times Review of Most Noteworthy Ideas of 2005 – Terrapass, The New York Times - 01/01/2006 Description

  Terrapass, a venture founded as an MBA class project is described by the New York Times as one of the most noteworthy ideas of 2005.

Knowledge at Wharton

• Is ChatGPT a Better Entrepreneur Than Most?, Knowledge at Wharton - 9/12/2023
• How Innovation Tournaments Create Gargantuan Wins, Knowledge at Wharton - 6/26/2023
• The Innovation Tournament Handbook: A Conversation with Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich, Knowledge at Wharton - 3/14/2023
• Which Companies Are Winning in China?, Knowledge at Wharton - 1/19/2021
• Pulling Through the Pandemic: Advice for Entrepreneurs, Knowledge at Wharton - 5/26/2020
• How Bike Sharing Is Maturing in China, Knowledge at Wharton - 9/28/2017
• Why Bicycles Are Making a Huge Comeback in China, Knowledge at Wharton - 3/30/2017
• Disrupting the Disruptors: Startup Accelerators Feel Pressure to Evolve, Knowledge at Wharton - 7/28/2016
• How (Not) to Name a Company in the Digital Era, Knowledge at Wharton - 7/13/2016
• How Vision – and Persistence – Built Bangladesh’s GrameenPhone, Knowledge at Wharton - 6/8/2016

Wharton Stories

• AI for Business Invests in Wharton Startup, Félix, Wharton Stories - 07/19/2021
• Lessons Learned from Pivoting in the Face of the Pandemic, Wharton Stories - 10/20/2020
• MBA Startup ‘My Virtual Veterinarian’ Delivers Remote Pet Care, Wharton Stories - 05/26/2020
• How Wharton’s EMBA Program Helped These Classmates Launch Stringr, Wharton Stories - 11/19/2019
• Three Resources These Student Entrepreneurs Used to Accelerate Their Health Care Startup, Wharton Stories - 06/26/2018
• Three Years On: A Look at the Penn Wharton China Center, Wharton Stories - 05/31/2018
• Animal Testing That Is Kind, Not Cruel, Wharton Stories - 02/02/2018
• 2017: The Penn Wharton China Center Year in Review, Wharton Stories - 01/29/2018
• How Neuroflow Is Using Data & Wearables to Fight PTSD, Wharton Stories - 01/04/2018
• ‘Taking the BS out of Bra Shopping’ — and Meeting with (Male) Investors, Wharton Stories - 12/18/2017