+

Case Book Launch and Problem Solving Workshops

J-P Martins Associate Director Consulting Careers October 2010

MBA Consulting Curriculum 2010-11: Early Feedback

+Contents

  Summary

  Quantitative survey results   For two new consulting events – BCG Case Book Launch and Booz

& Co ½ day Problem Solving Workshop

  Collected and processed within two working days of the events

  Using Survey Monkey and Career Central’s email facility

  Comments attached to quantitative survey questions

  Detailed comments on ½ day Problem Solving Workshop   What should we do more of?

  What should we do less of?

+Summary

  Both events were excellently received   100% of respondents would recommend the ½ day Problem Solving

Workshop

  The Case Book Launch works well as an event, but there remains room for fine tuning

  Communication remains a challenge – some students remain unaware of the Consulting Curriculum and how the events fit together

  The original concept of a 1 day problem solving workshop might have legs if it can be kept ‘fresh’ throughout the day

  Some students still want lots more frameworks and detail – they are missing the point

+Quantitative survey data

+Case Book Launch: 75% would recommend it strongly

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

The format and content of the case book launch event were excellent

The presenters and panellists were inspiring and informative

The event was well organised - logistics and venue were appropriate

I would strongly recommend this event to next year's first year MBA students

3

9

2

9

31

26

29

18

6

5

9

12

Disagree Strongly Disagree Agree Agree Strongly

Response rate: 40/95 (42%)

+Problem Solving Workshop: All would recommend it strongly

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

The format and content of the workshop were excellent

The presenters and facilitators were engaging and informative

The event was well organised - logistics and venue were appropriate

I would strongly recommend this event to next year's first year MBA students

17

9

15

3

46

51

47

59

Disagree Strongly Disagree Agree Agree Strongly

Response rate: 63/108 (58%)

+Comments

+Comments: Case Book Launch

  I thought that the initial presentation could have been a bit more detailed, with consultants speaking more of their experiences. I think Q&A session began too fast. However, afterwards networking was really good, BCG consultants were very approachable and engaged

  Case book launch is a good occasion to meet with consultants, however, in my opinion there was not enough "content" to have a long speech and Q&A session about it

  The event was a bit short, I would have preferred more comprehensive Q&A session

  I would say informative, not inspiring [2 comments]

  Most useful speaking to them afterwards, asking particular questions. Panel format was less useful

  At the beginning for me it was somewhat unclear what was the role of the people on the panel and I did not really know what to expect. I think for the next event it would be good to provide some better roadmap before starting the event

  The panellists can be more inspiring and prepared

  The time of presentation was a little bit short

  Only one senior consultant who left immediately

Format and Content Presenter and Panellists

+Comments: Case Book Launch (contd.)

  I felt the event was fine; the biggest problem was that it was scheduled at the same time as the first sundowners of the year

  Too few consultants for such a big audience

  It was a good opportunity to meet consultants from BCG, but perhaps the book launch could have been dove-tailed with something a little bit more concrete (e.g. run through a case from the book, etc), otherwise there were quite a few people that left just after getting the books. I stayed to talk, but it could just as easily have been any chat session with classmates that were former consultants

  Case book could cover frameworks and their different applications in more detail; Very few cases in case book

  I already almost finished reading the case book and I think it is a truly valuable resource. Thanks for preparing it!

General Case Book Itself

+Comments: Problem Solving Workshop

  Excellent introduction into case interviews, the mock interview on stage was a great way for us to understand how it might work in a real interview

  Great to have consultants to give feedback, and to see how others approach it

  I particularly liked that first case analysis was a discussion of various possible alternatives and only the second one was more interview-like. I thought that this was valuable to show that discussion can go in a few directions, which are all suitable

  I found it very useful as an introduction to case interviews

  Great workshop -- enjoyed it a lot

  Very helpful in giving a primer to case interviews

  I would have been better if we were all seated

  Facilitator was excellent, but I think the presenter could be a bit more engaging, there was some dead air every now and then

  Sid was awesome!

  Our facilitator (Sid) seemed too much involved with his own ideas, and came across somewhat self-sufficient

  Our group facilitator (Lauren) was great

  Our facilitator was excellent

  It felt like a real interview situation, where it deviated the facilitator would explicitly tell us about it

Format and Content Presenters and Facilitators

+Comments: Problem Solving Workshop (contd.)

  Having one consultant per group (with a decent group size) was very helpful

  Also good to have the coffee break to socialise with consultants

  One of the most useful event so far

  Extremely extremely helpful session

  A must to if you want to demistify the Case interviews

  Great event; strongly recommend it

  I would rather have such an event even earlier in the term

Organisation, logistics and venue General

+Detailed comments on ½ day Problem Solving Workshop

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do more of?

  None [6 comments]

  It was excellent! [4 comments]

  Think it was perfect [2 comments]

  It was perfect - the most useful Career Services sponsored prep

  It was great!

  I think it was absolutely fine. Great event!

  No Comment - All well organized

  I believe the content of the workshop was well balanced

  I thought that the content and delivery was what they should have been

  I think everything was OK, I'm not sure how things could have been better. For someone with little knowledge of the field, it was very instructive, without being too difficult

  Was good for the amount of time allotted. Not much more to add. The example case interviews were very helpful

  Let's invite more people from LBS to do this. This was a great event

Nothing, I really liked it…

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do more of? (contd.)

  More cases [3 comments]

  Case Practice in groups [2 comments]

  Time for case discussion [2 comments]

  Another case [2 comments]

  More practising with the consultants [2 comments]

  More interactive case sessions - maybe time does not allow this

  Break out sessions with Booz faciliators

  More discussion of what comprises a good interview

  Elaborate more on structure

  Will welcome more sessions like this!

  Possibly a demonstration by the guy running each group's case

  After doing the second case, we could have done a follow-up case; a shorter one, so that we could apply our learnings

  We had only two cases, three would have been better, I do not know how it could be fit (in terms of time), but it will be very good

  Make slides from the day available over email / Portal (if Portal - advise where they've been posted); Expand on frameworks recommended. These were touched upon only briefly in slides

  More examples of the consultants acting out good and bad case interviews

  More feedback

  More time to interact with facilitator

  It might have been nice to have had all 9 consultants give us a quick insight into how they were hired and their memories of practicing cases

…but I wanted more

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do more of? (contd.)

  Introducing types of cases and common approaches

  To briefly briefly all types of question in case interview

  Discuss the different case interview frameworks

  I think there could be a workflow of Booz shown in PPT. Like bible

  Presentation of the company

  Talked a bit more on the consulting industry

  Start at 8h30

  I would have appreciated a more balanced team on each table (i.e. at least one person with consulting background who's familiar with the practice)

  Divide attendees to groups of six beforehand to avoid seating confusion

  For some reason the audience wasn't very forthcoming with questions & comments when prompted by the speaker. I'm concerned the Booz folks might have been a little put off by this. A possible solution would be to assign one person from each table to report out at the end of each session

I still don’t get this whole case thing Improved logistics

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do more of? (contd.)

  It would be useful to have also an interview simulation 1-to-1

  If it´s possible, run one to one interviews

  Would be interesting to have a practice at fit questions (do we do them for Crack a Case?), and help with the screening questionnaire that McKinsey for instance has

  Our facilitator probably could have reined us in more actively so that we could have finished the case. We were left hanging

Where does this sit in the consulting curriculum? Improved facilitation

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do more of? (contd.)

  This is a new format for me, and I think it was excellently facilitated. I think it would have been helpful to manage expectations and encourage us to come prepared to engage and participate. I think some might have been caught off-guard

  Maybe a few internal case sessions in a group before going to a real firm?

  Required a pre-study of the LBS case book?

  Can ask students to do some preparation before the workshop

  Personally I would've like to have some time between the case book launch and this event so we could have time to go through some basic frameworks to enable an even more meaty discussion

More preparation

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do less of?

  Nothing/none [16 comments]

  Don’t know [2 comments]

  Everything was very well balanced

  Nothing - all was useful

  It is good indeed

  It was just right, no complaints at all

  The content was well balanced

  I think all was OK

  I felt the event was well thought through, so I wouldn't want to take anything out of it

  I was satisfied with the event, I can't say about less, only more time to discuss the case, which was very interesting

  All things done were appropriate I would not eliminate none of them

  No comment - All well organized

  I think it worked really well

  It was a really useful event for me

  The event was just great

  I think it was suitably done

  I think that the content was really good

  V. Good

  I think that pretty much all of the content covered is essential

  Is good

Nothing, I really liked it…

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do less of? (contd.)

  To me one demonstration case interview is enough

  Cases "to show"

  Less of the first case as it is not too representative of what would happen in an actual interview

  On-stage case interview demonstration -- nice, but I don't think we learned much

  Less directions from the instructors

  The case reviews following 2 cases are only marginally useful

  It was a bit too long (over 4 hours)

  Questions to the floor; didn't feel much was learned from this - instead, seemed people used this as an opportunity to score points with the recruiters than give interesting responses

  Possibly less discussion in the entire class forum

  Presentations

  Introductions

  RE lower than expected turnout: It is possible that the length of the session was a turn-off to some students. Although I thought the time was well-spent, it might be possible to cut an hour or so out of the program by shortening the time allotted to work cases. Also, the two example case interviews that were role-played by BA folks could have been cut a little shorter

..but we could have had less

+½ day Problem Solving Workshop: What could we do less of? (contd.)

  Excellent session. Only problem is that the facilitators were real Booz representatives that are also going to interview us in January. They might form an opinion on us already based on a poor performance since this was our first time at cracking a case

  I suggest bringing facilitators that are not going to interview the students for the company

  The case we used in first practice should be replaced by realistic question which has less information

Concern over possible evaluation Choice of cases