Growing any enterprise requires getting people to do more and do it better. To assist professionals with that goal, Stanford University will offer a new online course, Scaling Excellence for Innovation, this month. “The course is built around the premise that scaling is a crucial skill for building vibrant and enduring organizations whether they are startups or established corporations,” says faculty director Hayagreeva Rao. A free webinar to preview the virtual course will be available Thursday, February 21, from 9 – 10 a.m. PT/ Noon – 1 p.m. ET.

During the webinar, Rao will host a conversation with Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Lilly of Greylock Partners, who is the former CEO of Mozilla. He is co-inventor of seven U.S. patents and oversees Greylock Partners’ investments in Dropbox, Instagram, and Tripit. A Stanford University alumnus, Lilly sits on the boards of the Open Source Applications Foundation and Participatory Culture Foundation, and is a consulting assistant professor at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, also known as the d.school.

Scaling Excellence for Innovation is the latest in a series of classes offered as part of the Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Online Certificate Program, which launched in September 2012. Other courses include Marketing Innovation; Leading Innovation; Creating Demand: Driving Growth Using Traditional, Social, and Viral Marketing; and Empathize and Prototype: A Hands-On Dive into the Key Tools of Design Thinking.

Professionals around the world are able to access Stanford faculty and Silicon Valley experts as they learn essential skills and effective strategies for working in and managing innovative organizations. An engaging digital experience has been developed by the Stanford Center for Professional Development at the School of Engineering and the Graduate School of Business to deliver the course content.

Registration is open for the first five courses. Tuition is $995 for each course. Additional courses will continue to be introduced throughout 2013.

Participants may enroll in just a single course or earn the professional certificate from Stanford by completing any 8 of 12 courses. Courses are taught by Stanford faculty, drawing on instructors from the Graduate School of Business, the School of Engineering, and the d.school, as well as Silicon Valley industry leaders, using highly interactive and occasionally unconventional methods. The program is led by faculty directors Robert Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering at the School of Engineering, and Rao, professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the Graduate School of Business. The new class is based on core ideas in a forthcoming 2014 book, Scaling-Up Excellence: Getting to More without Settling for Less, by Sutton and Rao.

Entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs, as well as professionals from startups, Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit teams, and the public sector, will find the program to be practical and impactful. Given the level of material, participants must be fluent in written and spoken English. Participants will develop the skills to become catalysts for change as they learn how to foster innovation throughout their organizations. Whether this is someone’s first class in innovation or a chance to cultivate a deeper understanding and practice of innovation, participants will learn how to use innovative thinking for personal and professional success.

Enroll in the February 21 webinar on Scaling Excellence for Innovation here.

Details about the online certificate program can be found at create.stanford.edu. For more information, contact Kristin Brennan at 650.741.1630, or brennank@stanford.edu.