Discussion: View Thread

At the University of Missouri - Rolla, we have a capstone course basically identical to OU's offering (relative to Busenitz's description). Students also go through business plan development, acquisition of real-life financing from the local bank, actual operations, and exit. One past team's product is being sold at http://www.rollapoly.com/index.html

Due to time constraints, what I refer to in class as their 'Business Plan' is completed within the first 5 weeks. For the first 3+ weeks, students are provided with a basic textbook on Business Plans, additional sample business plans, and they're off. In the 4th week, I review the Business Plans and provide extensive comments on what claims they need to include, as well as point out those claims lacking in logic or evidence. Advice is also given on the logic of the outline (i.e. order of headings) as well as the ease by which their terminology is understood.

During the rest of the semester, they proceed with operations. I ask them to document their decision-making, the actual processes, and the outcomes. By the end of the semester, they furnish to me what I refer to as the 'Final Document.' Whereas their 'Business Plan' defines the problem they propose to solve as well as a basic outline of their proposed solution, the 'Final Document' provides a much more detailed account of their chosen problem and chosen solution. (The two terms in quotes are simply the terms I use in class. Certainly, the 'Business Plan' could also be termed a Business Proposal.)

Each team submits both of these documents as a part of the team-based portion of each students' course grade. Insofar that Business Plans do not follow some basic template, particular care should be given to the design of the grading scheme (as a matter of both incentive and evaluation). As usual, trade-offs exist between the comprehensiveness of the upfront grading scheme and the degree to which students accept the instructor's ongoing judgment.


Regards,
Chihmao.
(hsiehc@umr.edu if I can add anything further)


-----------------------------
Chihmao Hsieh
Assistant Professor
107H Fulton Hall
School of Management and Information Systems
University of Missouri at Rolla
Rolla, MO 65401



-----Original Message-----
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv on behalf of Busenitz, Lowell W.
Sent: Mon 9/11/2006 9:29 AM
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] Business Plans with Underclassmen?

The Entrepreneurship major at the University of Oklahoma does have a
dedicated business plan course. It is the capstone course for the major
that they take in the last semester of their senior year. Earlier
courses in the major deal with the development of new ideas, feasibility
studies, market research and finance issues. These earlier courses are
prerequisites for the full business plan course and help prepare them
for writing a full business plan.
http://price.ou.edu/academics/entrep.aspx



As a part of the core courses for a business major (before students get
into their specific majors), University Oklahoma students have the
option of taking the Integrated Business Core (IBC). This block of 12
hours all taken in a single semester includes the principles of
management, marketing, legal studies and a practicum course. The
practicum involves the development of a new business idea, starting the
business and then closing it down again by the end of the semester. A
mini-business plan is prepared and presented to local bankers since they
get involved with the financing. All the proceeds from these IBC
businesses are given to the students' favorite charity at the end of the
semester along with a substantial block of donated student labor.



I hope that this helps.



Lowell Busenitz

University of Oklahoma

Busenitz@ou.edu





________________________________

From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv
[mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Neck, Heidi
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 11:57 AM
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] Business Plans with Underclassmen?



Babson College has a required class for first year undergraduates called
Foundations of Management & Entrepreneurship (FME). It's a two semester
course where student teams spend the fall semester developing a plan for
a new venture and are then required to start and run the business in the
spring semester. Each business is funded up to $3,000 to start. Though
formal business plan writing is reserved for our upper level electives,
the first years are required to think through some of the same questions
and develop a "mini" business plan during the fall semester. As you can
imagine, we have several discussions with students during the spring
semester why the venture isn't performing exactly according to plan!



The ventures are profitable and the students are required to pay back
the original loan. All profits are donated to charity and each student
is required to donate personal time to the charity as well. To date our
students have contributed $250,000+ to local and national organizations.




Please don't hesitate to contact me if you need additional information
regarding this course.



Heidi Neck





______________________________________

Heidi M. Neck, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Entrepreneurship Division

Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship

Babson College

Babson Park, MA 02457

781.239.5577 (office)

781.239.4178 (fax)

________________________________

From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv
[mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Lohrke, Franz T.
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 6:07 PM
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: [ENTREP] Business Plans with Underclassmen?



Hello All:

I'm curious to find out how many of you have had experience writing
business plans with underclassman. I know a couple of schools have these
types of programs...for example, Baylor University has a freshman New
Venture Challenge and the University of Dayton provides rather sizable
seed money to businesses led by sophomores...and I was wondering how
these types of experiences have worked out at these and other schools.

For example, have you had students write full blown business plans
(20+ pages) or have they been more like proposals (5-10 pages)?

Do you devote an entire course to developing these plans during a
Freshman/Sophomore class, part of a semester, or do students learn how
to do this primarily outside of class?

We can either have a discussion on the Net or you can reply to me
directly (ftlohrke@samford.edu) and I can summarize comments.

Thanks for any insights you can provide.

Have a good weekend.

Franz T. Lohrke

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Franz T. Lohrke
Associate Professor of Management and
Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator
School of Business
Samford University
800 Lakeshore Drive
Birmingham, AL 35229
Office: (205) 726-2373
Fax: (205) 726-2464
http://faculty.samford.edu/~ftlohrke
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


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Ventures HO!

At London Business School, we have inserted an opportunity assessment
course in front of the biz plan course. The result is a salutary
improvement in the quality of the biz plans being written, and overall
increased e'ship enrollment. The framework for the course is outlined in
my trade book (a top five business best-seller in the UK), The New
Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before
Writing a Business Plan. Chapter 1 is available for download (free) at
my website, www.london.edu/faculty/jwmullins. The chapter also makes a
useful reading for the front end of a business plan course, as it
provides a clear and useful framework for assessing an opportunity.
Best,
John

Marcos Hashimoto wrote:

> At the undergraduation course we have entrepreneurship as an elective
> at the last term and the students conceive a business idea, build
> their teams and develop a whole 25 pages BP during the whole semester.
> I incentivate them to write their BP for real businesses. About 70% of
> them come to the course with this specific intention. For 30% of them,
> the BP is written for academic purposes only. I provide them with
> specific bibliography, including some BP models and some classes are
> dedicated to specific advice on their projects. By the end of the
> semester, they prepare a 15 min presentation followed by a 20 min Q&A,
> to a group of judges composed by professors. The grading criteria has
> three components: 30% for written BP, 30% for the presentation and 40%
> for the idea (innovativeness, potentiality and feasibility).
> At the MBAs the mechanism is very similar, but the advisory sessions
> use to take office hours according to each team (4 to 5 members)
> specific needs/doubts. They also have the whole semester to complete
> the assignment. The BP is their final course project so there's no
> limit of size, although businesses should be of US$ 300.000 size
> minimum. The judges committee is composed of professors, investors and
> consultants. The best project's team is prepared to compete at Moot
> Corp Latin America for a chance to go to Texas (Global Moot Corp).
> Additionally, we have an Entrepreneurship 360 hrs graduate course
> (three semesters). Final project is also a BP but the curriculum is
> designed to help them to write their BP (individually or in groups)
> during the course. The teachers are encouraged to customize their
> programs for the overall projects under development. It is just like
> an education with consultancy. For this reason, classes are small (20
> to 25 students) with a total of 5 projects maximum in each class. All
> projects are suposed to become real after the term and judges
> committee is composed by investors only. 50% of the graduated projects
> go to real world with or without funding (some go to partnered startup
> incubators)
> In all cases we have three categories of plans: New venture (start
> ups), social projects and intrapreneurial projects. This is a way to
> accomodate all kind of student needs as not all the students intend to
> follow a regular startup entrepreneurial career. As the advisor, I
> take the responsibility to allow the group to go for the final
> presentation or not. Those which I believe are not matured yet on
> time, is postponed. Not rarely some groups decide the change the whole
> business during the term. It has terrible implications and generate
> much stress within the group because of the target dates. Because of
> that, lately I have introduced a new session prior to the hard data
> collection work which included a cross groups business model validation.
> Please feel free to ask for additional informations
> Marcos Hashimoto
> Ibmec Sao Paulo
> Brazil
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Lohrke, Franz T. <mailto:ftlohrke@SAMFORD.EDU>
> *To:* ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU <mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
> *Sent:* Friday, September 08, 2006 7:06 PM
> *Subject:* [ENTREP] Business Plans with Underclassmen?
>
> Hello All:
>
> I’m curious to find out how many of you have had experience
> writing business plans with underclassman. I know a couple of
> schools have these types of programs...for example, Baylor
> University has a freshman New Venture Challenge and the University
> of Dayton provides rather sizable seed money to businesses led by
> sophomores...and I was wondering how these types of experiences
> have worked out at these and other schools.
>
> For example, have you had students write full blown business plans
> (20+ pages) or have they been more like proposals (5-10 pages)?
>
> Do you devote an entire course to developing these plans during a
> Freshman/Sophomore class, part of a semester, or do students learn
> how to do this primarily outside of class?
>
> We can either have a discussion on the Net or you can reply to me
> directly (ftlohrke@samford.edu) and I can summarize comments.
>
> Thanks for any insights you can provide.
>
> Have a good weekend.
>
> Franz T. Lohrke
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Franz T. Lohrke
> Associate Professor of Management and
> Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator
> School of Business
> Samford University
> 800 Lakeshore Drive
> Birmingham, AL 35229
> Office: (205) 726-2373
> Fax: (205) 726-2464
> http://faculty.samford.edu/~ftlohrke
> <http://faculty.samford.edu/%7Eftlohrke>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
> ************************************** This message is from ENTREP
> which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy
> of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files.
> Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the
> list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also
> lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your
> subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here:
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> have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch
> jbunch@benedictine.edu. Ventures HO!
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System
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Ventures HO!

I believe that business plans are a pedagogical tool, and once in a while also serve as a kind of business card, but should not be taught as literal, linear processes (as Norris points out). For this reason, I've started to teach contingency planning: (Honig, B.2004; Entrepreneurship education: Toward a model of contingency-based business planning. Academy of Management Learning and Education 3(3) 258-273),

I encourage students to think things through, but only as far as necessary to validate the concept. They may need to do multiple marketing plans - and no organizational plan - or vice versa. In general, while I recognize that plans are helpful for teaching and organizing ones ideas, they are as likely to close off opportunity as help facilitate the process. I start them off reading the Monk and the Riddle (Komsiar, 2000,HBS press).

Norris suggests that we should teach people to think like entrepreneurs. I'm not sure if that's entirely possible, it may be, but I'm certain we do a disservice by teaching people that creating and following a plan is of the utmost importance (witness, business planning competitions everywhere) and expecting them to figure out that the plan itself is not going to be very useful in starting an actual new business.

Benson Honig

Benson Honig Ph.D.
Betty and Peter Sims Professor of Entrepreneurship,
Director, NeXt
Wilfrid Laurier School of Business and Economics
Waterloo Ontario Canada N2L3C5
Tel: 519-884-0710 ext.2909
fax: 519-884-0201
Cell: 905-518-1716
email: bhonig@wlu.ca


>>> Norris Krueger <norris.krueger@GMAIL.COM> 09/21/06 4:01 PM >>>
John- I was about to plug you! We get all caught up in business plans,
especially formal ones - before we really look at the "ingredients" (does
the technology/idea really work? What is the industry context? is there at
least one living human being who will buy it?) I'll post somethingf more
once I'm done with a ton of reviewing, but another thing to remember is that
planning always trumps the plan itself. In a nonlinear, noisy, fuzzy,
discontinuously changing world... it's worth getting a handle on the venture
concept first, if only to dispel ANY thoughts that this is a linear
process. If entrepreneurship teaching is about teaching folks to think like
expert entrepreneurs - this is a great way to get them started. Idaho is
betting on this!

Entrepreneurially yours,
Norris



On 9/21/06, John Mullins <JMullins@london.edu> wrote:
>
> At London Business School, we have inserted an opportunity assessment
> course in front of the biz plan course. The result is a salutary
> improvement in the quality of the biz plans being written, and overall
> increased e'ship enrollment. The framework for the course is outlined in
> my trade book (a top five business best-seller in the UK), The New
> Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before
> Writing a Business Plan. Chapter 1 is available for download (free) at
> my website, www.london.edu/faculty/jwmullins. The chapter also makes a
> useful reading for the front end of a business plan course, as it
> provides a clear and useful framework for assessing an opportunity.
> Best,
> John
>
--

Norris Krueger, Jr., Ph.D.
Teams / Entrepreneurship Northwest
(208) 440-3747
http://mg.boisestate.edu/teams_krueger
"I criticize by creation, not by finding fault" -Cicero

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Ventures HO!

**************************************
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Ventures HO!

Thanks Benson for outlining your views and pointing to your paper. I agree with your more flexible approach to business planning and have a recent empirical study that suggests that different types of business planning should be employed depending on the dynamism of the environment ("Uncovering the Value of Planning in New Venture Creation - a Process- and Contingency Perspective", forthcoming JBV).
Analogous to some recent contributions in cognitive decision theory, I think we should question the reliance on comprehensive normative models as the main standard for judging (business) planning rationality. Instead, planning processes sh/could be considered rational when they maximize the likelihood of goal achievement --

Has anyone else made any experience with using a more flexible approach in bp-teaching? Or additional research that points this way?

Cheers,
Marc

________________________________________________________
Prof. Dr. Marc Gruber
Chair of Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization (ENTC)
College of Management of Technology
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Odyssea 2.02, Station 5
CH-1015 Lausanne
marc.gruber@epfl.ch
www.entc.epfl.ch






-----Original Message-----
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Benson Honig
Sent: Freitag, 22. September 2006 14:02
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] Business Plans with Underclassmen?

I believe that business plans are a pedagogical tool, and once in a while also serve as a kind of business card, but should not be taught as literal, linear processes (as Norris points out). For this reason, I've started to teach contingency planning: (Honig, B.2004; Entrepreneurship education: Toward a model of contingency-based business planning. Academy of Management Learning and Education 3(3) 258-273),

I encourage students to think things through, but only as far as necessary to validate the concept. They may need to do multiple marketing plans - and no organizational plan - or vice versa. In general, while I recognize that plans are helpful for teaching and organizing ones ideas, they are as likely to close off opportunity as help facilitate the process. I start them off reading the Monk and the Riddle (Komsiar, 2000,HBS press).

Norris suggests that we should teach people to think like entrepreneurs. I'm not sure if that's entirely possible, it may be, but I'm certain we do a disservice by teaching people that creating and following a plan is of the utmost importance (witness, business planning competitions everywhere) and expecting them to figure out that the plan itself is not going to be very useful in starting an actual new business.

Benson Honig

Benson Honig Ph.D.
Betty and Peter Sims Professor of Entrepreneurship, Director, NeXt Wilfrid Laurier School of Business and Economics Waterloo Ontario Canada N2L3C5
Tel: 519-884-0710 ext.2909
fax: 519-884-0201
Cell: 905-518-1716
email: bhonig@wlu.ca


>>> Norris Krueger <norris.krueger@GMAIL.COM> 09/21/06 4:01 PM >>>
John- I was about to plug you! We get all caught up in business plans, especially formal ones - before we really look at the "ingredients" (does the technology/idea really work? What is the industry context? is there at least one living human being who will buy it?) I'll post somethingf more once I'm done with a ton of reviewing, but another thing to remember is that planning always trumps the plan itself. In a nonlinear, noisy, fuzzy, discontinuously changing world... it's worth getting a handle on the venture concept first, if only to dispel ANY thoughts that this is a linear process. If entrepreneurship teaching is about teaching folks to think like expert entrepreneurs - this is a great way to get them started. Idaho is betting on this!

Entrepreneurially yours,
Norris



On 9/21/06, John Mullins <JMullins@london.edu> wrote:
>
> At London Business School, we have inserted an opportunity assessment
> course in front of the biz plan course. The result is a salutary
> improvement in the quality of the biz plans being written, and overall
> increased e'ship enrollment. The framework for the course is outlined
> in my trade book (a top five business best-seller in the UK), The New
> Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before
> Writing a Business Plan. Chapter 1 is available for download (free) at
> my website, www.london.edu/faculty/jwmullins. The chapter also makes a
> useful reading for the front end of a business plan course, as it
> provides a clear and useful framework for assessing an opportunity.
> Best,
> John
>
--

Norris Krueger, Jr., Ph.D.
Teams / Entrepreneurship Northwest
(208) 440-3747
http://mg.boisestate.edu/teams_krueger
"I criticize by creation, not by finding fault" -Cicero

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Ventures HO!

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Ventures HO!

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Ventures HO!