Photo courtesy of StarPilot Productions LLC
Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise (BSSE), based on the teachings of Clayton Christensen, is one of the most popular courses at Harvard Business School. Our team was thrilled to work with Professor Christensen to develop an online version of his course, Disruptive Strategy, as the first offering from HBX.
Since launching in June 2014, organizational teams from more than 25 companies have taken the course and used it to help solve their most difficult strategic challenges.
Initially, Willy Shih and Chet Huber, who teach BSSE with Professor Christensen and helped develop Disruptive Strategy, wondered whether HBX could replicate the live, interactive HBS classroom experience in an online platform.
"I have been amazed at how well it seems to work," said Huber. "While I’m not sure anything can beat a live discussion, the combination of mini-lectures, video cases, and interactive sessions do a great job—and have some unique advantages. Tailoring the material to a firm’s unique situation, and engaging each student individually is something I wish I could do with 90 students in a classroom."
Shih added: "The thing that shocked me on Disruptive Strategy was the idea that the product had the potential to be better than the classroom product. It’s a comprehensive, scalable way to simultaneously bring our BSSE material to life for an entire organization, mapped across their unique competitive situation."
For John Woodson, Assistant Director of Disruptive Strategy, the response from early participants has been a huge motivator.
"I heard from a recent participant that Disruptive Strategy was one of the top three executive education programs he has ever been a part of," Woodson said. "The impact the course is having on organizations like athenahealth and Intuit has been rewarding to see."
The range of companies that were able to benefit from the program in the first year shows the potential for HBX to reach a wider audience and allow more organizations to put Professor Christensen's theories into practice.
“I put [my content] on the HBX platform because if I don’t do that, then every year at maximum 900 people will be exposed to the theories," Christensen said. "And many more people need to have access.”
Here are some of the highlights from the first year of HBX Courses:
