Effective Change in Orgs

Catalog description

Innovating is at the core of successful enterprises today whether in congregations, or start-ups, or nonprofit agencies. It requires diligence, discipline and the credible projections of future trends and competitive forces. It requires imagination, focus and human resources. It also requires shared tools, practices and habits of mind. This course will introduce students to the tools and practices of innovation, deep congregational insight, and design thinking in churches. This is a learn-by-doing lab. Students will work collaboratively to understand and then solve challenges of today's congregational systems. The goal of this course is to equip students with skills and practices that drive administration and management in pastoral organizations, business and social innovation. These practices enable one to meaningfully contribute to congregation-centered problem solving; they emphasize empathy, flattened hierarchies and networked decision making with large and small churches. Students will be introduced to research methods, ethnographic interviewing/observation, analysis and synthesis, reflective thinking, persona and scenario creation, ideation processes, rapid prototyping, collaboration, concept testing, iterative design and narrative communication.