1. +
Case Book Launch and Problem
Solving Workshops
J-P Martins
Associate Director Consulting Careers
October 2010
MBA Consulting
Curriculum 2010-11:
Early Feedback

2. +
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?

3. +
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

4. +
Quantitative survey data

5. +
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%)

6. +
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%)

7. +
Comments

8. +
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

9. +
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

10. +
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

11. +
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

12. +
Detailed comments on ½ day
Problem Solving Workshop

13. +
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…

14. +
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

15. +
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

16. +
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

17. +
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

18. +
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…

19. +
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

20. +
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