HBS is in a great position to collect large amounts of data every time we run an in-class simulation.  Like the Shad Project, 900 datapoints collected across the sections offers room for great analysis (and pretty charts).  I’d love to post some of the outcomes of this simulation here, but I’m not sure if it would compromise future instances of the game.  Needless to say, the supply chain I was on performed in a “textbook” abysmal fashion.

HBS has a capstone course called “The Manager as Integrator” (TMI).  It’s a business-level simulation where you compete against other teams and (hopefully) incorporate principles from all the first year courses.  I’m really looking forward to it… games are amazing ways of communicating “sticky” concepts.

You’d never know that by this past week, though.  I guess that’s the result of a lot of Type-A overachievers given the chance to fill out a scantron. Monday was FRC (Accounting).  It wasn’t bad at all, and I was pretty excited about my grade until I realized that the curve at HBS doesn’t leave much room for error.  Here’s the distribution chart they handed out:

FRC Midterm Distribution

There wasn’t any type of “do not distribute” disclaimer, so I think I’m OK posting that.  Anyway, I only missed a few, but I fell right at the top of the bell curve.  Which translates into around 5 / 10 points (or 50%) when you normalize it.  Ouch.  I guess that’s the beauty (and downfall) of curving.  I wish they had made it a bit more challenging… I’m one of those type of people who will probably miss 2-3 problems regardless.  Nothing conceptual, but my mind isn’t always in the details.

Wednesday was LEAD, and it was a standard “case” exam… the only non-multiple-choice exam of the week.  It was challenging, but mostly because it counted for 0% of our final grade (practice, I guess?)  The incentive structure wasn’t strong enough to keep me from being distracted throughout the exam.  I wandered over to Google Reader and read through various economics blogs for about one hour of the allotted three.  Oops.

Tomorrow is TOM (Ops Mgmt), and it’s the only truly challenging exam of the bunch.  Everyone’s a bit worried about it (and studying for hours).  But, seriously?  Why?  Like most of HBS, even the multiple-choice-exams have less to do with cramming facts and more to do with being awake and sharp while the exam is going on.  (Thinking about that… there’s probably a huge market here for nootropics.)

So, without further ado, here are the classes every RC takes:

1. LEAD: Leadership and Organizational Behavior
2. TOM: Technology and Operations Management
3. FRC: Financial Reporting and Control (aka. Accounting)
4. MKT: Marketing
5. FIN1: Finance I

At some point I’ll have to go through and discuss each of the courses in some depth, but for now I’ll leave you with that ranking (with #1 being my favorite and #5 being my least favorite).  One important point to note: I’ve found that my enjoyment of a course is directly related to how good the professor is.  As interactive and self-guided as the HBS case experience is, a steady and experienced professor is an absolute necessity.  My LEAD and TOM professors are phenomenal, and it shows through in the classes… the discussions are dynamic, thoughts move quickly, and new insights and experiences spring from my classmates without effort.

FIN1 Books & Cases *

Some of the other courses… are less so spectacular.  I had lunch with a Professor last week and he expressed his amazement at how strongly HBS encourages teaching (over research).  This was in direct contrast to his experience at a few other leading business schools, and I can definitely agree with his observation.  At the same time, even with the strong incentives HBS sets forth, there are still professors that need a bit more experience.  Guiding a case method discussion really requires a lot of very difficult skills.  When it works, it’s a marvelous experience.  When it doesn’t, frustration abounds on all parts.

*[So far, FIN1 is the only class with actual books (which we've seldom used).  All learning is via cases.]

Anyway, not going to go into much detail right now, even though there’s so much to talk about!  Let me just show a picture I took a couple hours ago while walking to a meeting…

Cloudy Day on the Charles

It’s kind of beautiful in it’s own way.  This was right before the sun started to shine… the first 5 minutes of sunlight in the last 4 days!  Anyway, another picture of what are sure to be many, many pictures of the Charles on this blog.

Also wanted to throw up two pictures of a major class project that has been consuming a bit of time lately.  We’re designing an “assembly line” for a manufacturing facility… namely, the construction of some circuit boards within Shad.  The circuit boards are fairly basic — 5 or so stripped wires, two resistors, a capacitor, an IC chip, a couple LEDs, and a buzzer… just enough to provide a few minutes of manufacturing time and output a testable product.  Still, it’s a fascinating exercise.  It’s a great way to experience first-hand all the difficulties (operating and financial decisions) that go into creating a steady-state manufacturing facility.  More to come.  For now, here’s a couple photos of the raw materials:

Shad Raw Materials #1

Shad Raw Materials #2

1. FRC: Financial Reporting and Control (ie. Accounting)
2. TOM: Technology and Operations Management
3. LEAD: Leadership and Organizational Behavior

LEAD is unique for tomorrow (we’re following up on a special activity from Friday), but for most days you have one case study per class.  The FRC case tomorrow is on Depreciation at Delta and the TOM case is about one of Toshiba’s plants:

FRC and TOM Cases

(You can click on the image for a larger version.)  Cases vary significantly in length, but they average about 7 pages of text and 7 pages of exhibits.  Exhibits are typically quantitative reports, diagrams, financial statements, and even sometimes (as shown here) plant layouts and photos of operations:

Exhibits from a Case Study

There are also supplemental documents / readings of various sorts that are found on the “course platform” on-line… videos of operations in TOM, 10k statements for FRC, and financial models for FIN.

The cases essentially boil down into real-life business stories, written with the narrative flow of a novel.  The protagonist is introduced at the beginning, followed by a bit of background on the industry and market, then the case may state the decision to be made or the problem to be solved… but often it’s just a description of the situation and you have to figure out what the core issue is.  It’s rare to have a single “correct” answer to the case.  What?  No right answers?  It’s not really about learning what worked for Toshiba at a particular factory in a particular place at a particular time… what would that really teach you?  You’re never going to be in that exact same situation again.  I think the learning comes more from weighing the pros / cons of the fundamental principles and practicing the analysis process.

We typically prepare 13-15 cases per week.  That’s a lot of business scenarios!  All of the cases are based on real situations, and all the professors at HBS are expected to develop a few a year.  The development process is pretty involved — lots of interviews with the industry participants, etc.  As such, while we do have some “classic” cases, many of them are based on business issues that have occured within the last few years.

Basically, it’s all about learning via “stories” with limited information.  I think it’s pretty effective, and seems to be particularly enhanced by the debate and discussion that occurs in the classroom (which I’ll have to describe in greater detail later).  It’s also very different than what most people are used to.  It’s not an “Answer Problems #1-30″ type assignment.  I’ve read cases through 2-3 times before and still though “Huh?”!  You can spend hours preparing arguments, reading for nuances, etc… and still not have anything insightful to add to the discussion during class.  It’s a tricky business, this case process…