Fundamentals of Management and Organizations

This course will guide you through the basic concepts, tools and practices in management. It is designed for students from diverse backgrounds as a crash-course to understand the most fundamental aspects of management in organizations. In this course we will see how management began as a discipline, what are the building blocks of management in organizations (processes and projects), and how to analyze external environment and internal capabilities. All that with a focus on how to properly apply the tools and concepts to manage yourself and your work.

• Introduction and Fundamentals of Management
• In this module, you will be introduced to the fundamental concepts in management and organizations. You will go through the basic insights of this field, from the pioneering work developed by Taylor in the early 20th century to the modern approach that organizations use to manage processes and tasks.
• Managing Projects and Management in Knowledge Intensive Economies
• In this module we will go over the basic concepts in project management and how to think about productivity in a knowledge intensive economy. We will see the difference between managing projects and processes and how proper problem identification is the key to succesful project management in organizations.
• Organizational Forms and Functions
• In this module we will go over some fundamental concepts about organizational forms and functions. All organizations can be understood by analyzing how they structure their operations, what are the different functions they use to organize their work and how their environment influences their structure.
• Organizational Design: How to Structure Effective Management Systems
• In this module we will understand the fundamentals of environmental analysis and how to understand the relationship between the external environment and organizational structure and design.
• New Organizational Forms: The Business Model Approach
• In this module we will go over the business model concept and how it can help managers see the bigger picture when analyzing organizations, innovative products and new ventures