1. 1st year – the ToolBox
First year at the KaosPilots in Aarhus is focused on methods, theory and practical project work related to our 3 core areas - Project design (project development and management), Business design (business development and management) and Process design (process management and leadership).

2. 2nd year – Process management and International Project management
Second year at the KaosPilots is focused on process design and process management (incl. the design and facilitation of processes for external customers). In the spring the team will have a 3-months Outpost, implementing a project for an external customer.

3. 3rd year – Project and Business Design
Third year at the KaosPilots is focused on Business Design (entrepreneurship and building the business plan), individual world practicum and the individual project leading to the final exam.
Vocational focus

The KaosPilot Education:

During the three years that the educational program lasts the students gain nuanced knowledge and practical experience of the schools’ three core disciplines: creative project, process and business design. The three disciplines form the basis of the school’s academic platform.

1. Project design
The massive rate of change that challenges most organisations seems to be accelerating rather than being a momentary condition. This means tha nearly every task is new in its own way, and demands its own approach. Therefore project is increasingly chosen as organisational model in business life and in society in general. You will be trained in the following disciplines

project management
project economy
intrapreneurship
event design
2. Process design

In a society increasingly based on knowledge industries each organisations’s value and raison d'etre depend strongly on the capability to master internal processes and with this the capability to utilize the employees’ knowledge and competences towards achieving concrete results. Therefore the students have to develop an academic understanding of the human processes that drive a project forwards. this can be the way in which knowledge is disseminated, and not least how quickly and effectively this is done; or in the way in which decisions are taken and communicated, or how conflicts and personal challenges are tackled.

Hence, you will be trained in the following disciplines:
learning processes
creative processes
personal leadership
teambuilding
process consultation
3. Business design

Project and process design cannot, however, stand alone; the 21st century is, in the opinion of the school, the century of the entrepreneur and the social innovator. It is therefore vital for the school that the students are not only trained to be able to read the cultural, social and economic trends in society, but also that they use this knowledge to identify new, promising and socially responsible business concepts. Hence - business design.

In business design, you will be trained in the following disciplines:

entrepreneurship
business economy
social awareness and sustainability
arts and business
corporate identity and branding
PR and marketing
Values & focus areas

1. Values
The school's staff and management use the six values to screen every important decision and initiative the school is associated with. Of course not all six core values can be met in every single one of the hundreds of decisions that are made at the school on a daily basis. But they provide inspiration and add purpose to what we do at many levels - not least on an educational level. For more information about our values please click here.

2. Focus areas
On content side the school has chosen a new focus for the development of the curriculum. Within that scope we have chosen to focus on three main areas:

sustainability
cultural diversity
social innovation
Learning Zone has as a main priority to develop these three areas within the KaosPilot curriculum. The new focus will be reflected in the lecturers students will meet, the books they will have to read and the projects they will do. And not least it will be reflected in the dialogues both students and staff will have this coming term. Read a detailed description about the focus areas in our worldview paper or go to the plan of action.

Learning tools

Other than the values, the education is also supported by a series of learning tools that set the framework for the programme.

1. Praxis-oriented learning
One of the main principles of the KaosPilot education is that all theory is tested in practice. This means that the students from day one are thrown into real projects for real clients with real consequences and that all bigger project assignments are solved for and in cooperation with an external client who benefits from the work.

As part of the practical experience, outposts and world internships are a central element of the learning platform.

2. The pedagogical compass
The pedagogical compass is a filter for all teaching practices, whether it’s a 45-minute lesson or a three-year course. The compass is about balancing the theoretical learning with the practical projects; individual learning with team challenges; educational content with the learning/pedagogical forms; and local problems with global issues.

3. Competence and qualification diamond
Knowing something is not always enough if you wish to navigate within the current job market, which is why we at The KaosPilots work with a 'competence and qualification diamond'. The diamond expands on the knowledge competence with other elements: purpose, relations, change and action as skills that must also be worked on throughout the education.

4. Win-win-win and the fifth position
Basically, win-win-win is about social responsibility and how any business between two parties is not just about what is gained by the two parties, but also about how the deal/collaboration/ project/solution benefits a third party, eg. society or the environment. The win-win-win principle was supplemented in 2005 by the Norwegian conflict researcher, Johan Galtungs’ “fifth position model” that illustrates five ways to solve conflicts. This model became a tipping point for the school’s self-understanding and is now used together with the win-win-win principle to train the students’ social responsibility and challenge their creativity.

5. Proactive work method
The Frontrunners already worked with solutions-oriented and forward-looking work methods that, instead of criticizing and saying no, impossible, sought simple solutions to expensive and complex problems. This approach was inherited by The KaosPilots, but it was only in 1993 that The KaosPilots gave the term, proactive thinking, to this approach to working with problems and challenges. It has since become a permanent part of the general problem-solving and project leadership approach, often supplemented by a series of visualization techniques.

6. Head, heart and hand and the Team Triangle
Another of the school’s work methods is that head, heart and hand must be involved in the learning. The idea follows the path of Iris Surburg’s Team Triangle that divides a team into three archetype: the action-oriented, the feelings-oriented and the analysis/rationality-oriented.
The triangle is used, among other things, to analyze the students’ strengths and weaknesses, since strengths can be blocked if weaknesses are not consciously worked with. It also serves as an analysis tool to help students respect their colleagues’ different action and reaction patterns.

7. Personal leadership
A central aspect of the education is Dee Hock’s leadership model, that treats leadership as a question of personal leadership. By personal leadership the individual’s duty is not just to back up his/her colleagues and equals, but also - mostly - his/her boss so that the common goals, as they have been defined, can be reached. That is to say, the individual is obliged to take responsibility for development to occur instead of waiting for things to happen.

8. P roject model
Dee Hock is also the man who supplied input toward The KaosPilots’ project model. The project sets the framework for all the main challenges one can face when starting on a project. The model can generally be described with the following elements: ide, need, purpose, values/attitudes, concept, teamstructure, action and time plan

9. Great expectations
Last but not least, the students are met with great expectations creating tension that pulls out the elastic bang. That is why the students will have been through a workshop – you have to be really talented to get in