Algorithmic Business Thinking Sprint

Advanced technologies have the power to transform the way we do business and the value we can offer clients. These tools also have a lot to teach us about the way we can tackle challenges across all business functions.

In the Algorithmic Business Thinking Sprint (ABTS) a new on-demand, asynchronous learning experience from MIT Sloan Executive Education, Faculty Director Paul McDonagh-Smith introduces the concept of Algorithmic Business Thinking—a framework for understanding the key principles of algorithms, code, and data and a methodology for applying those principles across role and departments, from products and service to business functions like finance, sales, and marketing. The ABT framework marks a radical rethinking of how technology, people, and processes combine to create and deliver value.

Inspired by Agile product development sprints, this self-directed course is an opportunity to apply this cutting-edge concept directly to a challenge you are facing in your own organization. You’ll engage in four core components of the sprint cycle—goal setting, relays, review, and retrospective—and use them to understand and apply the cornerstones of computer science as a transformational problem-solving technique. The reading materials, videos by faculty and industry experts, podcasts, and sprint workbook supplied will walk you through each of these cornerstones—decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction and algorithms—enabling you to you crack the code on your business challenge in record time.

Sprints are six-hour courses you can complete any time over a 30-day period. This on-demand learning “box set” can be completed as an individual or as a team and spread out over a month to fit in with your personal and professional life. Our first Business Sprint offering is focused on Algorithmic Business Thinking, a framework developed here at MIT by Paul McDonagh-Smith.

You may be familiar with sprints as a term used in Agile product development, defined as a set duration of time during which specific work must be completed and made ready for review. With these new on-demand courses from MIT Sloan Executive Education, we are inviting you to think of your business sprint in a similarly, as a set time period in which to work, experiment, solve a challenge, and share your results.

When you participate in a business sprint, whether individually or in a team, you may also recognize research and development patterns from product development domains. We are translating these concepts into a business context where we can employ key elements of a sprint cycle to help solve complex business challenges and turn them into opportunities. 

Your business sprint will begin by defining a sprint goal—the business challenge or opportunity you will break down, work on, and then reassemble in the four stages of our sprint relay. During these relays you will be provided with course content in the form of written content, videos, and podcasts that present the specific course frameworks and share examples of how these frameworks have been applied to solve real-world business challenges.

After you have completed the four stages in your course workbook, you'll submit your sprint review, which will capture the insights and the progress that you've made. As a final step, we'll provide you with a sprint retrospective in the form of an audio podcast that captures and reinforces the key inputs and outputs of an MIT Sloan business sprint. 

Sign up as soon as you would like to begin the course; the 30-day access window will start once payment is received. You will be sent log in information and further directions. Please do not enroll in and pay for your Sprint until you are ready to begin the course.

Business Sprints are completely asynchronous, and you will have access to the on-demand course work once you have enrolled and submitted payment for the course. Please allow up 20 minutes for processing before accessing. You should enroll when you are ready to start the 30-day access period.

If you have already completed the ABT program, this Sprint provides an opportunity for you and your colleagues to learn how to apply ABT principles to key challenges and opportunities you currently face in your organization.