FHWS Gebäude Ignaz-Schön-Straße 11 in Schweinfurt

Strategic Thinking in EDIPS²: Edutainment for Designing Integrated Product-Service System - Prüfungsnummer 9958368

(Strategic Thinking for Designing Integrated PSS) for FANG at the THWS

„Strategic thinking rarely occurs spontaneously“ - Michael Porter

The scope and need of product-service-system (PSS) design, especially in today's world, is very different from traditional product- or even service-oriented design. Any person can become a designer, and as such, that person must think strategically into the future to realize an effective PSS design. According to the quote from Michael Porter (see above), this strategic thinking must be trained in advance. Therefore, a business game provides an educational simulation to introduce the PSS designer to the philosophy of PSS and shift their mindset to strategic thinking. This business game called EDIPS2 (Edutainment for Designing Integrated Product-Service Systems) has been basically developed and presented by the Shimomura Laboratory at TMU (Tokyo Metropolitan University) and specially in the Dept. of System Design.

Why is this course important for you?
To help you think strategically, this business game gives you the advantage of effective and enjoyable learning in a simulated business environment. You will understand the structure of the game and the types of strategic thinking options being considered. The effectiveness of this game is demonstrated through its use in several workshops. You can see a short video of EDIPS2 with the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbV9i9sWSAI. However, this business game is available as a board game (off-line) in face-2-face sessions only.

How is this course organized?
The course is organized as a seminar-based class according to the blended learning concept. The overall concept of this course consist of the following three-stages:

  • Stage 1: Introduction and guided self-learning phase,
  • Stage 2: Workshop and teaching phase for further content transfer &
  • Stage 3: Self-reflection phase of your personal learning as well as peer assessment.

Performance assessment for this course is based on a presentation of your learning outcomes, your self-reflection, and peer assessment (see Stage 3 above).

What general conditions do you need to consider?
All relevant learning content as well as the game manual and several video instructions will be uploaded in an e-learning course. After registration and at a certain point in time, the enrolled students receive a first contact with introduction and information about the course and the further organization. Then the first counseling appointments could be arranged.

In order to be able to guarantee personal support, the number of participants per course is limited to 14 persons.

It is initially possible to offer the course regularly, once or twice in a semester.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Panshef
Last updated: 10.08.2023