Required Courses

Note: This course starts with a multi-day, on-campus Residency in late Aug./early Sept. Please refer to the Important Dates section of the Curriculum & Courses page for upcoming Residency dates .

Knowledge-driven organizations increasingly dominate the economy. What are their attributes? What vision and strategy guides their development? How are they designed? What are the jobs necessary for this new workplace? This course has been designed to give students a grounding that will be important for their future working career. It will focus on how the global economy and all its subsequent ramifications has evolved from a predominantly industrial base to one based on knowledge.

The Foundations course will begin by giving students a historical perspective as to how the "knowledge" economy specifically came about. We will be using historical and economic data and models which offer a clear understanding as to how the global economy and organizations evolved into their current state-where value is produced by knowledge and ideas significantly more than the earlier industrial processes and operations. 

The course will then present detailed and comprehensive treatments of how societies, organizations and individual lives have been changed due to this great shift in the factors of production. The course will also focus on how networks, communities and practices work and have evolved to focus more on knowledge production and transfer than on the more industrial factors of production such as land, labor and capital. In addition, the course will examine the critical role of intangibles such as culture, trust and missions in the workings of organizations in this new era. Insights from anthropology, psychology and sociology as well as economics will be incorporated into the course curriculum.

A complex and comprehensive case study on NASA and their knowledge operations will be one of the key learning tools for this course as it proceeds.

This course is an introduction to AI, geared specifically at knowledge managers and leaders and project managers in knowledge-driven organizations. As such, the target audience are transators of AI in organizations, rather than the AI practitioners themselves. The course will cover the basic applications of AI, how they work, when they are appropriate, and include the issues of bias and access. Class content will be taught around case studies from prototypically knowledge-driven organizations such as Googe, Stitchfix, and Amazon.

This course is about leading boundary-spanning coalitions. An old African proverb tells us that, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." While this advice is especially relevant in our interconnected 21st-century world, we have learned that working together is not always easy to do well.

“Collaboration at Scale: Leading Boundary-Spanning Coalitions” takes the study of collaboration into an even wider realm by examining the potential and complexity of large-scale, cross-organizational collaboration, and how to lead it.

The concept of scalability is common in the business world and this course demonstrates what it takes to make collaboration scalable and suitable for a variety of challenging contexts larger than a single organization. Inherent in the concept of scalability are the notions of "appropriate scale" and also "at scale." Both of these notions raise valid questions that we will address in this course. (Though our interpretations of scale have evolved with the advent of social media, specific technology selection is not the focus of the course.)

Students will learn the characteristics, conditions and dynamics of various large-scale collaborations, as well as how to design and lead them effectively. Course materials will be drawn from the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. Using a balance of practice and theory of networks and large system facilitation, students will demonstrate their mastery of course materials through an assignment in which they diagnose and (re)design a “collaboration at scale.” This could be in the business, scientific, religious, political, or humanitarian domains.

OVERVIEW: Business analytics (BA), in essence, is the discipline of using data analysis – ranging from simple descriptive statistics to advanced, AI-based predictions – to illuminate all quantitative aspects relevant to a specific organization, from its own performance, to the behavior of its customers, and challenges from competitors. This course covers the entire value chain of a BA process, including formulating the question, collecting and managing the relevant data, analyzing said data to answer the question, and finally effectively communicating the results (e.g., data visualization) to stakeholders. While the course teaches some hands-on data analysis/statistics (e.g., database structures, conditional averages, correlations, confidence intervals), the emphasis of the course is on educating users and managers of BA, and as such includes stakeholder engagement and implementation planning.

CONTENT: Following an introduction to the history of BA, weekly lectures and associated assignments (some spreadsheet-based, others in essay format) teach all above elements of the BA value chain one by one. Accompanying readings cover academic foundations and practitioner commentary, from Alan Turing’s work (1912-1952) to latest advances in quantum computing. A short individual presentation and a group white paper allow students to combine and hone the various acquired skills in an end-end application. As an overarching objective, upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to devise and “pitch” an innovate BA process to an organization, including strategic recommendations on its business value and implementation.

LOGISTICS: Required course for IKNS students, open to all Columbia University graduate students; no prerequisites other than beginner’s familiarity with spreadsheet software and simple statistics (e.g., average, error margin). Online course meets once a week (live via zoom) for the duration of the semester.

Note: In addition to regular synchronous online sessions, this course includes a multi-day, on-campus Residency midway through the semester. Please refer to the Important Dates section of the Curriculum & Courses page for upcoming Residency dates .

How do organizational leaders invest in digital technologies and capabilities to catalyze digital transformation? Moreover, how do corporations and institutions create an effective portfolio of digital investments that are aligned — continuously over time — with the organization’s mission and strategy? This course provides an introduction to digital transformation, and the modern (digital) “place” of work, such as intranets, search appliances, analytic dashboards, enterprise social media, mixed reality, and content management. Feeding the digital workplace are “sources of record,” including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), HR systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), IoT sensors, and digital marketing. Finally, we look at likely future scenarios for work and how organizations can prepare for digital transformation and beyond.

Note: This course starts online (synchronous) and concludes with a multi-day, on-campus Residency in December. Please refer to the Important Dates section of the Curriculum & Courses page for upcoming Residency dates.

The IKNS Capstone project is the culmination of the students’ immersion in this executive-level program, and an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the cross-disciplinary curriculum. Working individually and in small teams, students do a consulting project for an organization seeking to initiate or improve its information and knowledge processes, or to expand revenue opportunities from intelligent, knowledge-enabled products. Clients benefit from applied and scholarly research, analysis, and insight from students, who, guided by faculty, bring considerable professional and academic credentials. Students benefit from applying their learning in an environment that is at the same time realistic and supported by IKNS faculty and sponsors, and from getting exposure to a new industry, KM function, and network of practitioners. Capstone projects showcase IKNS student learning, are well-articulated, are moderately complex, and can be conducted virtually (outside of New York, and/or in New York with remote students). Industry and nonprofit “sponsors” are curious, motivated, well-networked professionals who can help the students bring to light the insights and vision of their organization. Student projects might include:

• Improving knowledge-sharing patterns and incentives
• Designing a business analytics competency for decision-making
• Improving or introducing knowledge networks or communities
• Improving or introducing social media and other collaboration processes
• Redefining information architectures, taxonomies and tagging for maximum engagement
• Expanding the repertoire of tacit knowledge sharing approaches
• Introducing knowledge-based products as incremental revenue streams
• Defining a knowledge and information governance model, and expanding the capacity to act
• Defining a KM vision from the ground up, with roadmap, program, and technology evolution

Student teams form just before the third intensive study in August-September. Intensive study involves introductions to research methods, team-collaboration, consulting basics, and project management. Student work entails secondary research, expert or employee interviews, model development joint design of processes, operations, and technology; analysis and improvements to content or technology, new product or practice planning, and client training and presentations. Students strive for not just lofty strategies, but practical action.

The Capstone Project Seminar culminates with an on-campus, intensive component. During this intensive, students will convene in New York City on the Columbia University campus to present their final capstone presentations before their classmates, capstone sponsors, and Columbia University faculty.  Students are required to attend and actively participate in all intensive events.

Prerequisites: Students must have completed at least 24 credits towards their IKNS degree before they take the Capstone course.