Case Study methodology workshop from IESE

It was really nice to listen to a Marketing Professor from IESE, Barcelona, Spain (2017 Global rank #10) speak and engage the aydience about the Case Study Method and go through a live case study session at The Taj Westend in Bangalore yesterday 20 October 2018 at 4 PM. It was an invited audience, as I got the invite I too attended the session.

IESE Barcelona Spain

The case was about the expansion strategy of an organisation which was going through tough times. The protagonist was an employee who had joined the organisation and was facing tough times as the organisation was getting ready to wind up.  

The students, about 12 of them, had already read the case which was emailed to them. They had their own notings and comments made on the case sheets. Professor was giving the session to potential aspirants to IESE. 

At the start the Professor
1. asked the students broadly what the case was about, the issue behind the case. His strategy was to first get the participants come up with their comments about the case and then issues of the case they find needs urgent attention which needs to be sorted out. The first 30 minutes, the Prof tried to get different facets and perspectives of the case from the participants. He noted all these points on the two white boards kept at the front on both sides of the audience facing them.
2. Then he tried putting issues which he felt were important and elicited their responses.. 

3. When someone gave a slightly interesting twist to the case, he latched onto it and got more clarity and brought in the different perspectives to the discussion.  Next what he brought in was the solution. 

4. The Professor then asked the participants what they thought would be possible solutions and listed them on the board for all to see. 

5. Since the case was written by the same Professor, towards the end of the case, he spoke of how he interacted with the three promoters of the company and told what each of them felt about the organisation and it's future. 

Harvard Business School, Boston

The discussion went on for about 45 minutes when almost all participants took part in it. At the beginning, not all were with the Professor at the same frequency and bandwidth but towards the end, they were all in unison with the different strategies they needed to take to solve the problem.

The data of the organisation which was noted in the appendices to the case, was also used in the case to get the students to know how to arrive at the facts of the case from the data given. The most interesting point for the students the Prof made was regarding the fact that there are no final right and wrong answers to the case. Once the student gets to know the different aspects and perspectives of the case, it is up to them to make the final decision which they feel right. Even though he tried to play a video case, because of some hitches with his laptop, it was not possible. 

Once these students go into the wide world of global business and are faced with such instances of decision making, these out-of-the-box thinking, discussions and classroom training helps them a lot. 

A seminar hall lecture in session at Alliance U

If a student has read the case well, completed some peer discussions, he/she can bring one or two perspectives of the case. Imagine in a class of 60 or 70, imagine the richness of the discussions !! Each of the five IESE classes in a year are 70 strong. A friend of mine on an executive program in Harvard Business School, the leaders of employing the case study pedagogy in business schools, used to say how each of the top executives in her 40 strong class used to bring three to four perspectives of each case, from their vast experience, and how in the classroom discussion it used to be just ideas and ideas and deep interesting discussions in the Harvard classrooms.

Thus it is imperative, binding, mandatory and inescapable that students read the case well and prepare their personal notes before they start the discussion for an enriching, reinforced learning experience !!

Modeled on the lines of Harvard Business School, IESE on an average gets the students to go through almost 400 cases in their 19 month program at Barcelona. In between the 3 month internship after the first year which they get to do in other top bschools of the world adds value to the students' exposure.

This exposure and further discussion with the Professor over tea on further nuances of the case like bringing in discussions about sustainability, global climate change impact on the business, prospects of global manufacturing in China etc has just reinforced my thoughts that case study method is the best way to teach some advanced topics in Management. Overall the case discussion was high quality and the learning from the case study was high quality.

India has excellent student resources but somewhere in our development and rich culture of ten thousand years, we missed the industrial and technology bus and are languishing now in low levels of industrial and societal development. China too faced a similar situation prior to 1979 before it opened its economy to the outside world. Lets be positive that our youngsters are ready and willing to  take humanity to greater levels of growth and development in the coming years. My basic aim is to see the case study pedagogy spread more extensively and effectively in Alliance University School of Business at Bangalore to help raise it to the same league of IESE and otheer top Bschools of the world in the next couple of years.

George