Engineering education development : a business modelling approach

Purpose–The purpose of this article is to promote an innovative approach to education development projectsby the application of business modelling tools and methods. Design/methodology/approach–The proposed method is based on tools and methods from the businessmodelling area, such as stakeholder mapping, SWOT analysis, business modelling canvas and scenarioanalysis. The applicability of the approach is illustrated by a case study conducted on an engineeringprogramme, where qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through interviews, surveys andworkshops. Findings–Utilising business modelling tools for development projects in higher education gives severalbenefits: (1) knowledge-informed decision making; the methods require good understanding of the currentsituation as well as possible strategies to be applied, that is data gathering is necessary before decision making;(2) structured decision making by applying a step-by-step approach for the development project; (3) includingdifferent stakeholder’s perspectives in order to gain a holistic understanding and avoid sub optimisation. Originality/value–The approach promotes innovation and action driven development rather than abureaucratic and metric based improvement process. Tools and models from the business area have previouslybeen applied for educational development. However, a holistic business modelling approach for educationaldevelopment has not yet been applied