Master

Introduction

Hello Professor Welsh, can you please introduce yourself?

Case Coaching Series

Can you please tell us what this series is about?

The videos are about the coach and the team working together. I think we're much more successful when the coaches and the team members all trust one another about where they're going and the idea that practises are primarily about building trust building teamwork and assisting the team members in developing knowledge skills that will help them in the resolution helping them in the presentation phases and competitions pieces.

As I always tell my team, I think those are teams that are going to put together a competitive case and leave it in the judge's hands. And if they can leave it in the judge's hands at that point, we really have no control, so I'm satisfied with my teams. I think you're going to be successful if you arrive at a competition as a team, including not only the team members but the coach or the coaches that are associated with this.

The Process of Coaching a Team

Can you explain what is the process of coaching a team?

The approach I've taken with teams over the last 15 or so years, because again, a lot of the coaching has been focused in those last 15 years, when I think about it there's a lot of trial and error that's happened, a tonne of failures but at the same time we've had a tonne of success accompanied by a tonne of learning.

I believe that case coaches should kind of understand the approach that I've taken and maybe be able to aid them a little bit because I know that I have learnt from many other coaches and that many of those have provided me with really useful expertise. In my opinion, it's also important to let kids see what the coach does and some of the thinking that goes on when you're engaged in that type of practice. If my students watch it, I think they'll begin to understand why I always tell them at the beginning of the process that I don't really care about the content; instead, I care that you show up and present me with something, and I can ask you questions about the content if you'd like. However, when we get to the debrief, we don't discuss the content at all. Then, as I believe teams move through this process of maturing from a group of individuals into a well-tuned team, ready for pretty much anything that the case competition organisers are ready to throw at them in terms of a case, I think teams get educated about not only how to approach the case but also how to go and find the knowledge and all of those pieces that they need to find.

Tackling a Case

Can you talk about the process of tackling a case? Elaborate on different time periods such as 3 hours, 5 hours+ , 24 hours cases.

First, make sure you have enough time to read the case. Reading times can vary from 10 minutes to 40 minutes depending on the competition cases. It's a bit difficult for the remaining components of a three hour case competition to fit in after a 40 minute read . Then I ask my teams to brainstorm, write down their ideas and how they'll get the money, just to kick things off and bring those ideas together in a tangible format. Therefore, you should write down your thoughts. That usually happens more when we have a shorter time frame, it just helps them organize a bit more. With some of our teams, we have particular questions that we ask them to answer during this brainstorming.

Then, in a fast-paced situation, you have to decide what to do next; but, in a longer case, you have some time to consider your options. At this point, the team really begins to divide. So I usually have one person doing the analysis, one person making the recommendations, and since this task doesn't take very long, they also tend to be my opener and closer and make sure that the teams stays on track. Then another person doing the implementation. There may be certain selection criteria that go with it, but the implementation is the most important because it's how you accomplished your solution that makes your judges decide if you have a great solution.
Then, of course, you need finances. Another mentor once told me that "a plan without finances was just a pipe dream".a Therefore, having such financial statements is crucial.

The reason you save all this information is so you can then go back and double-check to make sure the items are there or the brainstorming questions have been answered. Also, I think it's helpful, and I frequently suggest using post-it notes because you can move them around and start building the general outline of the story. We do this in much longer cases because there are fewer restrictions on the resources you can use in the three-hour case competitions, which makes them a bit more difficult. As a result, longer cases tend to be a bit more organized.Then going into the different moments, I think the teams eventually realize, and I hope that realization comes pretty quickly is that there's no time to practice doing something right because it takes three hours, so you have to learn to get by without practice while you build your confidence. A lot of our teams at our school are coming to competitions like JDC West for their first competition, and I think that's a really good thing because it builds them and develops them over the three hours. I think that's what makes those longer periods successful for us because they come from being okay because of the self-confidence and not the practice confidence.

One more, I believe the other issue is that recently Covid has allowed a lot of internet access during these types of tournaments. Once we get back in person, we'll see how it goes. But again, Internet management is an important aspect of this. My usual guideline is to avoid using the internet until absolutely necessary, because once you've read the case, which will take you about two and a half hours, it won't leave you much time to loose.

After that, the process doesn't change much except that after the brainstorming everyone can leave and do a bit of research before coming back and deciding which direction they're going to take. I believe the next category is five hours or more, not as long as 24 hours or more. The important thing here is that you have time to do research. Most of these contests are open to whatever resources you can use. There's often time to practice, but I've still had many teams over the years that waited until the last minute. Again, it boils down to "yes, we have our deck of slides as we head into our presentation. We're trying to figure out what we're going to say with it.

Then, in terms of 24+ hours, taking breaks is crucial. A few years ago, I entered some students in a 36-hour tournament, and I don't think they took a single break.