Course syllabus
Course-PM
TEK700 Practical leadership and entrepreneurship, LP2, HT26 (7.5 hp)
The course is provided by the Division of Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the Department of Technology Management and Economics at Chalmers, in collaboration with Drivhuset Göteborg.
last update on 2026-10-27:
- Added Anton Green as one of the leaders of literature seminars.
- Edited the slots of the literature seminars (4 slots, 45 minutes each, instead of 3 slots).
Contact details
- Examiner and course responsible: Anmar Kamalaldin, anmar.kamalaldin@chalmers.se, Division of Entrepreneurship and Strategy. Responsible for all examination, development of course plans, and overall course structure.
- Workshop leaders: Anette Fogelqvist, anette.fogelqvist@drivhuset.se, and Sara Hult, sara.hult@drivhuset.se, from Drivhuset Göteborg. Responsible for workshops and coaching student projects.
- Literature seminars leaders: Anton Green, anton.green@chalmers.se, and Anmar Kamalaldin, anmar.kamalaldin@chalmers.se.
Welcome to TEK700!
In this course, you will work in teams to tackle real challenges from real companies. You will explore ideas, interact with stakeholders, test solutions and learn by doing. Through seven action-based reflections, you will reflect on concrete experiences from your own actions, turning what you do into deeper insights about yourself, others and the world around you. Along the way, you will discover what entrepreneurship and leadership mean in practice – and what you are capable of achieving together as a team.
Overview
The "Practical Leadership and Entrepreneurship" course is project-based, grounded in experience-based learning. It integrates theory and practice through a live case project where students develop real development proposals for a company. The project is supported by workshops that introduce and apply the LOOPA method, developed by Drivhuset and Chalmers researchers. The Loopa Method provides the entrepreneurial development- and value creating framework for the live case project process. Students work in teams, collaborating with external companies and their target groups to independently driving the process forward. The result, a developed and validated concept, is presented to a panel of invited guests. The course aims to provide students with hands-on entrepreneurial experience and foster their ability to work autonomously. Emphasis is placed on continuous reflection, using thought models and theories from leadership and entrepreneurship research to help students analyze their experiences and enhance their understanding of entrepreneurial processes and their own capabilities.
The course uses continuous individual micro-reflections and oral literature checks to support and assess learning throughout the course, and the team project work is examined through the final pitch and project hand-in.
Purpose
The purpose of the course is for students to gain knowledge and practical experience of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial processes. This is done both through practice and through lectures, self-study and self-reflection. Students will run a team-based entrepreneurial process based on real external company projects. Students should reflect on their own role in different relationships and the importance of communicating effectively with potential users and stakeholders in entrepreneurial processes.
Students will develop business ideas (based on need/problem) through repeated interaction with external companies, potential customers and their own teams.
Learning outcomes
After completion of the course, the student should be able to:
- show basic theoretical knowledge of entrepreneurship
- describe and problematize what it means to work entrepreneurially
- demonstrate good ability to independently, together with others, plan, implement, lead, evaluate and develop entrepreneurial processes aimed at developing ideas into concrete values for a target audience
- retrieve, analyze and cater for the perspective of different social actors on business ideas
- demonstrate insights on conditions for entrepreneurial behavior in organizations and in society
- Iteratively present, review, evaluate and update business ideas
- work for a team that works well under the conditions of entrepreneurial processes
- communicate with group members and stakeholders on professional basis in both speech and writing
- collectively and individually reflect on their approach to cooperation and management of uncertainty as well as their entrepreneurial development potential
- relate entrepreneurship to sustainable development and ethics.
Schedule
Link to the schedule in TimeEdit (last update on 2026-10-28: time and locations have been changed for the three literature seminars on the 12th, 19th, and 26th of November).
You are scheduled on Block schedule C+. We have four hours of Workshop class on Monday afternoons at 13.15-17.00. Most often these will have to do with providing you with practical tools that you should use in your work with the case companies. They will follow the LOOPA method, and you will most often meet Anette Fogelqvist and Sara Hult from Drivhuset Göteborg on these workshop Mondays.
On Thursdays study period week 2-4 you will have three compulsory literature seminars covering theories related to leadership and entrepreneurship. These seminars will provide you with information useful for your reflections, abstract conceptualizations and development process. Each literature seminar will be 1 hour long in smaller groups of around 10-12 students.
On Friday afternoons, you have non-supervised work. You can use this time to work with e.g. project work or prepare next week’s literature seminar. This schedule slot also contains the project guidance (tutorial) meeting that you will have with the teachers from Drivhuset. This time can also be suitable for potential meetings with your case companies. In general your case companies will be available for answering your questions and will be open for scheduling meetings (when it suits them) throughout the course. You will be responsible for reaching out to them during the first week of the course and also for a mid-trio project meeting which is mandatory to have, this involves the student team, the case company and the teachers from Drivhuset. Because of the timing in the schedule, you might want to work out another time during the week, when it is more convenient for you as a group, and the case company can meet.
Workload
Scheduled time: approximately 5-9h/week. Total time allocated for this course: 20h per week and person.
Thus you will work most of the time outside scheduled time, both individually and in teams, with your project, preparing for seminars and doing individual reflection. The workload is evenly spread out during the entire course. You must work continuously with reading, reflecting and exposing yourself to experiential learning, interacting with the case company and their targets groups.
Zoom
The weekly project team guidance (tutorial) is on Zoom. Students book their time slots in the course calendar and get the zoom-link. All other calendar events in the course are on campus.
Structure
The course is experience-based. This means that i) the student team themselves actively leads their project, ii) the course has an explicit focus on the student's abilities and ways of working, iii) the learning activities aim to mimic a real project as much as possible and involve real problems in the outside world. The first-hand experiences referred to here are those that the students gain by carrying out a major project with a focus on idea generation and business development.
In order to make systematic use of the experiences generated through the project, the course uses Action-Based Reflective Assessment (ABRA). Rather than asking students to reflect only at the end of the course, ABRA connects reflection closely to concrete actions and experiences as they occur. Weekly throughout the course, students therefore carry out a series of designed actions in their team, with external stakeholders and in the development of their solution, and then write short micro-reflections on these experiences.
The course also includes three compulsory literature seminars, each run as a one-hour oral examination in small groups of 10–12 students, who are expected to prepare by studying the assigned literature in advance.
An overview of the course is shown in the table below.
|
Week |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Weekend |
|
W1 (45) |
Intro |
W (hand-in) |
|
M&G |
Case |
R1 (hand-in) |
|
W2 (46) |
WS1 |
|
|
LS1 (attend) |
Case |
R2 (hand-in) |
|
W3 (47) |
WS2 |
|
|
LS2 (attend) |
Case |
R3 (hand-in) |
|
W4 (48) |
WS3 |
|
|
LS3 (attend) |
Case |
R4 (hand-in) |
|
W5 (49) |
WS4 |
|
|
WS5 |
Case |
R5 (hand-in) |
|
W6 (50) |
WS6 |
|
|
Guidance Case |
Case |
R6 (hand-in) |
|
W7 (51) |
Pitch (attend) |
PR (hand-in) Make-up LS (attend if you missed/failed LS1-3) |
R7 (hand-in) |
|
||
|
Bold red is compulsory attendance / hand-in, thus impacts examination & grading M&G = Meet & Greet; W = Wishes for project; LS = Literature Seminar; Case = Work with case and case company interaction; R = Individual mandatory reflection; WS = Workshop with Loopa tools; PR = Project Hand-in |
||||||
Project - Work with a real case company
The course is organized around a project that is carried out in "entrepreneurial teams", with 4-6 participants in each team. The team is created though matching individual students based on their submitted "wish list". The course is done in collaboration with external companies, and the goal of the project work is to generate, develop, validate and present sustainable solutions to the companies’ real challenges. The process is based on the business development method LOOPA (see below figure), which was developed by Drivhuset in collaboration with Chalmers. The idea generation is based on the students' own abilities and resources, the teams create hypotheses regarding what new value they can create based on their capacity and means available, and for whom (customers and target groups).
The work progresses with the teams reaching out to actual stakeholders and potential customers to test their hypotheses, gain an understanding of their intended customer segment and thereby develop their hypotheses. This is done according to an iterative approach, so that the business hypotheses are gradually developed into validated ideas. The result is presented in front of an invited audience of external guests.
Figure: The LOOPA method
Examination
The course is examined through A) micro-reflections in LoopMe, B) Literature seminars (oral examination), C) Project final pitch and hand-in (see below table). The individual graded assessments build on the experiences, challenges and outcomes of the group-based project work, ensuring that both individual and group performance contribute to the final grade.
Table: Overview of examination
|
Assessment type |
Time |
Level |
Examination |
|
A) Written micro-reflections in LoopMe |
Week 2-7 |
Individual |
U, 3, 4, 5 |
|
B) Oral literature seminars in a room |
Week 2-4 |
Individual |
U, 3, 4 |
|
C1) Pitch on event day |
Week 7 |
Group |
U/G |
|
C2) Project hand in on Canvas |
Week 7 |
Group |
U/G |
Table: Grading regime
|
Grade 3 (requirement to pass) |
Grade 4 (in addition to grade 3) |
Grade 5 (in addition to grade 3+4) |
|
· Attendance at final pitch session · Passing project hand-in · Attendance at all three literature seminars · At least two of three oral literature seminars passed · All mandatory micro-reflections in LoopMe completed · Reflections are based on concrete own personal experiences from the project work · Reflections go beyond mere description and identify relevant learning and/or implications for future action |
· All three oral literature seminars passed · 6 of 7 micro-reflections submitted on time (you can be late on one), thus illustrating that learning occurred longitudinally in an experiential process · 4 of 7 micro-reflections cover Past “What happened?”, Now “What does it mean to YOU on a deeper level?” and Future “How does it affect you going forward?" · Each reflection is between 8 and 15 sentences long |
· Relevant course literature is meaningfully integrated into 4 of 7 reflections to interpret personal experiences, used as an analytical tool, rather than merely mentioned or summarised · Reflections show longitudinal learning, where earlier experiences and insights influence later actions, decisions or interpretations · Reflections demonstrate deeper sense-making, for example by questioning assumptions, considering alternative interpretations, comparing experiences, or critically examining how well theory explains what occurred |
A) Reflections in LoopMe
Written reflection is carried out through the web application LoopMe. Throughout the course, you will complete a series of short individual micro-reflections connected to concrete actions and experiences in the project. The purpose is to help you reflect while experiences are still fresh, to move beyond simply describing what happened, and to consider what the experience means for your learning and future actions.
LoopMe also enables an ongoing dialogue between students and teachers through comments and follow-up questions. Your reflections are collected over time and together form a longitudinal record of your learning and development, which is used as part of the individual assessment in the course. Reflections may also include tags, a feeling rating and supporting material such as a photo or other artefact.
Register at LoopMe.se using the invitation code provided at the course introduction and later available on Canvas. All mandatory reflections and their deadlines will be presented in LoopMe.
B) Literature seminars
We have three mandatory literature seminars (study weeks 2-4), which also function as oral examination of the literature. The format is a structured oral literature seminar with around 15 students at a time. Each session takes 45 minutes. The questions are of a relatively basic nature, asking about concepts mentioned in the literature. To pass this knowledge check you need to show that you are familiar with the literature and can explain basic concepts. The purpose is to check that you have read the literature. Presence on all three, and passing at least two of the three literature seminars, is a requirement for passing the course. For those not meeting these requirements, there will be a “make-up” session scheduled in study week 7. Literature covered is as follows:
- Literature seminar 1 on 12 November – Mandatory: Chapters 1-4 of the main course book. (Optional but useful: introduction chapter)
- Literature seminar 2 on 19 November – Mandatory: Chapters 5-7 of the main course book. (Optional but useful: conclusion chapter)
- Literature seminar 3 on 26 November – Mandatory: three additional articles, see literature list below
After reading individually, you should meet with your project group to jointly discuss and prepare for the literature seminar in advance (up to you as a group to organize). You will be allocated a slot for each literature seminar, together with your group. If you need to swap time, contact someone who has a different slot and change your time. Notify your examiner if you swap, and with whom, at least two days in advance. This is how each literature seminar will be partitioned on the four-hour schedule shown in TimeEdit (you thus only need to attend ONE of these slots each week):
- Slot 1 – 08:00-08:45
- Slot 2 – 09:00-09:45
- Slot 3 – 10:00-10:45
- Slot 4 – 11:00-11:45
Please plan to arrive a few minutes before the scheduled start time. The seminar will begin promptly, and to avoid disrupting the ongoing discussion, students will not be admitted once the seminar has started.
Course literature (for literature seminars + can support your reflections):
Course book:
- Furr, N., & Dyer, J. (2014). The Innovator’s Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. (Available as an e-book via Chalmers Library)
Three additional articles:
- Bansal, T., & Birkinshaw, J. (2025). Why you need systems thinking now. Harvard business review, 103, 124-133..pdf
- Surie, G., & Ashley, A. (2008). Integrating pragmatism and ethics in entrepreneurial leadership for sustainable value creation. Journal of Business Ethics, 81(1), 235–246..pdf
- York, J., & York, J. (2019). The Limits to Lean Startup for Opportunity Identification and New Venture Creation. Archives of Business Administration and Management, 2(2), 1-8..pdf
C) Project assignment
The project is examined in two ways, the first is a pitch in front of an invited panel and audience and the second is a project Hand-in containing a Business Model Canvas (BMC), a short explanatory text, a Minimum Viable Concept (MVC), and a description of teams idea development process. In the Project hand-in the team must above all demonstrate what data, information has been collected and argue for their business idea based on this data.
This final Project Hand-in can also, in part, be used in communication with the case companies. The teams will provide the companies with a Leave Behind, containing: 1, a presentation of the idea, the proposal. 2: The next step for realization. 3: Possibly other ideas that the team have not been able to explore within the scope of the course.
Examination and Artificial Intelligence
All examinations aim to ensure the student's competences, knowledge, and abilities. Therefore, it is important that it is precisely the students' and not the Artificial Intelligence that is tested. You may use AI as an advisory tool, we actually recommend you to do this, but you may not copy text from AI directly. In reflecting upon the tasks, a clear connection is required between your specific experience generated in this course, and for example the course literature. This connection must be clearly visible and have unique features. Non personal/generally written reflections, where your own or the group's specific challenges and experiences are not apparent, may be the grounds for a failing grade (see the grading regime table above).
Also your teachers may use generative AI to analyze all your reflections. The purpose is to follow the class’s collective learning journey and analyze what and how you learn along the way. A GDPR-compliant AI system running on servers located in Sweden will be used for this purpose.
Table: A full overview over learning weeks (with reservation for changes in schedule)
| LW 1 (45) |
|
| LW 2 (46) |
|
| LW 3 (47) |
|
| LW 4 (48) |
|
| LW 5 (49) |
|
| LW 6 (50) |
|
|
LW 7 (51) |
|
| LW 8 (52) | You are done! |