ABSTRACT
The “kiddie corps” team at Microsoft worked long and hard (Newsweek, February 24, 2003) to come up with a new software product called three degrees. Tammy Savage and her team realized that Microsoft was not meeting the needs of the 13 to 24 set and came up with some ideas. Selling these to the top brass was not easy. Bill Gates was not that interested, but finally another top manager gave them his support. The team brought a set of college students together and asked them to work on a business plan-not because they were interested in the plan, but because they were interested in how they used technology as they worked together. After a week they understood a lot more. Thus began the development and production of three degrees. The team got a new space and many new members. They looked around to find out how products had been developed before, borrowed lots of ideas from others, and built on what they learned. They worked through many technical glitches and internal disagreements. Yet in the end, they brought the product to market.
