Anatomy of Case Discussions

As in any MBA program in the United States, we at Hult IBS are also made to "learn by case method" and bombarded with case discussions after discussions day in and day out . Surprisingly the cases which we discuss are pretty much common across the various B-schools in the United States. I was speaking to my friend in Darden School of Business in Virginia and I told him I am doing an assignment on Nordstrom. Turned out that they had done the Nordstrom case as well and a host of other cases which we had done too . All the cases were written by the case writers of the holy temple of Business education - Harvard Business School. So what differentiates the various B schools if the course work/cases is more or less the same ?

Undoubtly it is the quality of the case discussions which we have in the classrooms. What case perspective can a bunch of one year experienced folks bring to table ? It has to be a right mix of the experiences, educational background and cultural diversity. In that respect , Hult I believe has scored over others and the diversity of discussions we are having in the classroom is mind-blowing. Most case scenarios are United States based (afterall it is the defacto home of Business education) but then many of us bring our own perspectives about the way things get done in our home country and sometimes we do have some animated and heated discussions.

Of course this diversity brings it's own cons. Sometimes people don't follow the flow of the discussions but instead hark back to a point spoken at the start of the case hour, thereby taking the whole classroom back to square one . Here is where the professor or the facilitator comes into picture. A good facilitator makes sure that we don't divert off-track but rather stick to what is being discussed while at the same time not actually negating the point which is taking us off track. (It is a different matter that this off-track guy will be losing out on the Class Participation credit ) . Also the insights of the professor also make a huge difference to the learning process and some of the classes are really inspiring and make us to "think about" the broader perspective.

And so the professors, the cases and the discussions are making me "think about" things thereby increasing my "frame of reference" , the key to being a global manager in the flat world.

"Depends" and MBA

My MBA coursework has now gone into the 5th Gear now and every single day seems to be bringing out different facets of the way business is done in the various parts of the world. The perspectives of the people in the case discussions are so varied that at the end of the 80 min discussion, you are left with more questions than the answers the case was supposed to provide. (Anyway a case analysis is never meant to reach a conclusion ) .

So what happens at the end of the discussion when the various perspectives just dont seem to fit into the 80 minutes scheme of things ? Hmm........You use the term "Depends" . Aah well the answer to the case questions "depends" on how you look at things. I believe the focus should be on Financial restructuring . However any decision needs to taken "Depending" on how important the other functions of the company are !! . If the question is "Do you want to expand the product line by offering a new innovative design ?? " , the answer is "It depends on whether you want to increase the market share or you want to keep a sustained but slow and steady growth ... blah blah... blah blaha............"

So in effect what the dean said on the day one of the MBA orientation was quite true. MBA increases "your frame of reference" allowing you to think in different directions. The "depends" usage is just a extension of "your frame of reference", with the MBA managers purportedly having more ambigious scenarios to think about in order to bring out the best possible solution. More on my "depends" MBA as the story unfolds.............. ciao till then.