• It is logical.
• It contains analysis.
• It has a recommendation.
• It may even contain some good ideas.

But decent does not necessarily win.

OverAfter more than 20 years of coaching very successful case-solving teams, I have seenfound that the difference is rarely about having the fanciest idea. Winning teams are usually better at turning their thinking into a solution that is:

clear, structured,insightful, supported, realistic, feasible, implementable, measurable, and implementablepersuasive.

That requires a process.

Why This Matters

Case competitions are not judged on the number of frameworks you use or the amount of information you can put on a slide. Judges are ultimately asking a much simpler question: "Would I trust this team to make this decision?"

Your solution needs to give them a reason to say yes. A strong case solution should make the logic easy to follow:

• Here is the problem.
• Here is what is causing it.
• Here is what matters most.
• Here are the alternatives.
• Here is our recommendation.
• Here is why it is the best option.
• Here is how the organisation can make it happen.
• Here is how we will know whether it worked.

The more clearly you can connect these pieces, the more credible your solution becomes.

The Eight Characteristics of a Winning Solution

A winning solution should be:demonstrate eight characteristics.

• Clear:

  Clear: The judges understandshould understand:

  • What is the problem,problem?

  • What are you recommending?

  • Why did you select this recommendation?

If the recommendation,judges andhave whyto youwork selectedto it.figure out your answer, your solution is already losing impact.

• Insightful:Insightful: YouStrong teams do more than repeat information from the case. You
  • They explain what the information means.means.

Data becomes valuable when you turn it into an insight that changes how you understand the problem or what you should do about it.

• Supported:Supported: Your recommendation isshould be supported byby: analysis,
  evidence,
  • and

    Analysis

    logic.
  • Realistic:

    Evidence

  • Logic

  • Relevant assumptions

  • Financial or operational support where appropriate

A good idea without support is simply an opinion.

• Realistic: Your recommendation should make sense for the organisation. Consider:

  • Its size

  • Its financial position

  • Its capabilities

  • Its market

  • Its customers

  • Its competitive position

  • Its constraints

A theoretically brilliant idea that the organisation cannot realistically pursue is not a winning recommendation.

• Feasible: The organisation couldmust actually pursue your solution.
• Feasible: The organisation has,have or can reasonably acquire,be able to acquire the capabilities and resources required. Ask:

  • Do they have the people?

  • Implementable: You

    Do they have the money?

  • Do they have the technology?

  • Do they have the capabilities?

  • Do they have the time?

  • Can they overcome the constraints?

Feasibility turns an attractive idea into a possible one.

• Implementable: A recommendation is incomplete if you cannot explain how it will happen. Your implementation should provide enough detail to demonstrate that the team has thought beyond the recommendation itself. Consider:

  • What happens first?

  • Who is responsible?

  • What resources are required?

  • What are the major milestones?

  • What risks need to be managed?

• Measurable: Organisations need to know whether their decisions are working. Identify meaningful measures of success. These might include:

  • Revenue

  • Profit

  • Market share

  • Customer acquisition

  • Customer retention

  • Cost reduction

  • Operational performance

  • Employee measures

  • Strategic milestones

The specific metrics will depend on the case. The principle remains the same: If you cannot tell whether the recommendation is working, you cannot effectively manage it.

• Persuasively Communicated: Even an excellent solution can fail if the team cannot communicate it effectively. The judges need to understand:

  • What you are recommending

  • Why it matters

  • Why they should believe you

  • Why the organisation can makeexecute it

Your communication therefore becomes part of the solution.

The Winning Solution Test

Before you finalise your case, step back from the details and ask four questions:

Can the judges understand it?

• Is the problem clear?
• Is the recommendation happen.obvious?
• Measurable:Is Youthe explainlogic howeasy to follow?

Can the judges believe it?

• Do you have sufficient evidence?
• Are your assumptions reasonable?
• Does your analysis support your conclusions?

Can the organisation willexecute knowit?

• Is the recommendation realistic and feasible?
• Have you considered resources, capabilities, timing, and risks?

Can the organisation measure it?

• Have you identified meaningful indicators of success?
• Can management determine whether itthe hasrecommendation succeeded.is delivering the expected results?
• Persuasively
communicated:

If Thethe teamanswer communicatesis no to any of these questions, the solution withis confidence,not energy,finished.

The Difference Between Good and credibility.Winning

• A good team might say: "We recommend expanding into Market X because the market is growing rapidly."

YourThe goaldifference is not simplynecessarily the idea. It is the quality of the thinking surrounding the idea.

Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

Good ideas don't win cases. Well-developed decisions do.

The winning solution is not necessarily the most creative. It is the solution that best connects:

Problem → Insight → Alternatives → Recommendation → Rationale → Implementation → Measurement

That connection is what creates credibility.

A Practical Coaching Test

When coaching a team, I often find it useful to answerask them to explain their recommendation without showing me the case.slides. YourGive goalthem 30 seconds. Ask: "What is your recommendation, and why is it the best option?" If the answer is complicated, unclear, or filled with disconnected ideas, the problem is probably not the presentation. The thinking may not yet be finished. Once the thinking is clear, the presentation becomes much easier to makebuild.

Key Takeaways

By the end of this chapter, remember:

• A good solution is not automatically a winning solution.

• Winning solutions are clear, insightful, supported, realistic, feasible, implementable, measurable, and persuasive.

• The fanciest idea does not necessarily win.

• Judges need to understand both what you recommend and why it is the best choice.

• A recommendation is incomplete without implementation.

• A recommendation is stronger when success can be measured.

• Communication is part of the solution—not something added afterwards.

The Bottom Line

Make the judges think:

“"That is the problem. That is the best solution. And I can see how they would actually make it happen.”"

The Winning Solution Test

Before you finalise your presentation, ask:

• Can the judges understand it?

• Can the judges believe it?

• Can the organisation execute it?

• Can the organisation measure it?

If the answer is NO to any of these questions, your solution is not finished.

---

Chapter 2: Coachability: The Foundation of Your Mad Skills

Central Question

How do you turn feedback and mistakes into competitive advantage?

Video: Feedback as Fuel: The Coachability Mindset That Built 180+ Podium Teams

Case-solving competitions are designed to expose weaknesses.

• You will make mistakes.
• Your analysis will sometimes be wrong.
• Your recommendation will sometimes have holes.
• A judge will ask the question you hoped nobody would ask.
• A coach will tell you that the argument you spent two hours building won’tdoes not work.

That is not a failure of the process. THATThat ISis THEthe PROCESS.process.

One of the most important characteristics of successful case-solving competitors is coachability.coachability.

Coachability meansis beingthe willingness to recognise that your current approach may not be the best and then do something about it. A coachable competitor is willing to:

• be

  Be wrong;wrong

• hear

  Hear uncomfortable feedback;feedback

• consider

  Consider another perspective;perspective

• change

  Change yourtheir approach;approach

• test

  Test the new approach;approach

• reflect

  Reflect on what happened;happened

  and
try
• again.

  Try again

This creates a powerful learning cycle:

PRACTICE à→ GET FEEDBACK à→ APPLY THE FEEDBACK à→ REFLECT à→ PRACTICE AGAIN

The objective isn’tis not to avoid mistakes. The objective is to recover from them faster and learn from them better.

Why Coachability Matters

Case competitions create an unusual learning environment.

• You have limited time.
• The information is incomplete.
• The problem is unfamiliar.
• Your teammates may disagree with you.
• Your assumptions may be challenged.
• The judges may take your solution in a direction you did not anticipate.
• You therefore cannot rely on knowing everything in advance.
• You need the ability to adapt.

The strongest teams are not necessarily the teams that make the fewest mistakes. They are often the teams that recognise mistakes quickly, learn from them, and adjust.

Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

Feedback is fuel.

Do not collect feedback simply to hear it. Use it. There is little value in receiving the same feedback five times if nothing changes. When someone tells you that your recommendation is unclear, don't simply write down: "Make recommendation clearer." Ask:

• Why was it unclear?

• What did the listener misunderstand?

• Where did the logic break down?

• What could I do differently?

• How can I test whether the revised version works?

Feedback becomes valuable when it changes behaviour.

The Four Ps

 of Effective Case Teams

Coachability becomes mucheven more useful when it becomesis operational.combined with strong team habits. My foundation for effective case teams is the Four Ps:

1. Preparation - Come prepared to contribute. This means:

• Preparation

  • Read and understand the case.

  • Come prepared

    Complete the preparation required.

  • Develop your own initial thinking.

  • Understand the tools and concepts you may need.

  • Be ready to contribute.

  explain
  • Doand defend your individualideas.
    thinking before the team discussion whenever possible.

  Whenever possible: Pre-resolve solo, then collide ideas. 

Individual

thinking before

team discussion can prevent the first idea raised in the room from becoming the team's automatic answer. The goal is not to eliminate collaboration. It is to make collaboration better.

2. Participation

-
• EveryEvery team member should contribute.
• A team of four with three silent members is not functioning as a four-person team.
• Different perspectives are one of the reasons teams exist. Participation means:

  • Contributing ideas

  • Asking questions

  • Challenging assumptions

  • Building on other people's thinking

  • Listening to different perspectives

  • Helping the team move forward

Participation

• does not mean everyone must speak equally on every issue. It means everyone has a responsibility to contribute to the team's thinking.

  3. Presence

  -
  • Be fully present.
  • Case solving requires attention. You cannot contribute your best thinking if you are distracted, disengaged, or mentally somewhere else.
  Presence means being engaged with:

  • The case

  • Promptness

    Your teammates

    • Deadlines matter.

      The discussion

  • The clock

  • The evolving solution

  It also means listening. Sometimes the best contribution you can make is recognising the important point someone else has just raised and helping the team develop it.

  4. Promptness - Deadlines matter. In competition, being late can affect the entire team. If one person is late to practice, misses a preparation deadline, or fails to deliver their portion of the work, everyone else may have to compensate. Promptness is therefore not simply about punctuality.

  It demonstrates respect for:

  • Your teammates

  • Your coach

  • The process

  • The competition

  • The limited time available: Respect the clock.

  Coachability in Action

  Imagine your team delivers a practice presentation. The coach says: "Your recommendation is good, but I don't understand why it is better than your second alternative." There are two possible responses.

  Response One

  • "We explained that on Slide 12."
  • This is defensive.

  The team is trying to prove that it already did the work.

  Response Two

  • "That's helpful. If you didn't see the difference, we probably haven't made the trade-off clear enough. Let's rethink how we compare the alternatives." 

  This is coachable. The second response does not mean the coach is automatically right. It means the team is willing to investigate the feedback rather than immediately defend itself.

  Challenge the Feedback Don't Dismiss It

  Coachability does not mean blindly accepting everything someone tells you. Good coaches can disagree with you. Judges can misunderstand your argument. Teammates can provide feedback that is not useful. Coachability means being willing to consider the feedback. Ask: "What can we learn from this?"

  • Sometimes the answer is: "The feedback is correct. We need to change."
  • Sometimes it is: "The feedback reveals a communication problem, even though our underlying analysis is correct."
  • And sometimes it is: "We considered the issue carefully and still disagree."

  All three can be legitimate outcomes. The important part is that you thought about it rather than dismissed it.

  Build a Recovery Mindset

  Case competitions will produce moments where things go wrong.

  • You forget a number.
  • A slide does not advance.
  • A judge asks an unexpected question.
  • A teammate loses their train of thought.
  • Your financial model produces an unexpected result.
  • Your recommendation is challenged.

  The response that matters is not: "We made a mistake." The more useful question is: "What do we do next?" This is a recovery mindset. Strong teams learn to:

  Recognize → Recover → Reflect → Improve

  The ability to recover under pressure is itself a competitive skill.

  The Coachability Test

  After every practice session or competition, ask:

  • What went well? Identify behaviours worth repeating.
  • What did not go well? Be specific.
  • What feedback did we receive? Separate observations from emotions.
  • What will we change? Identify concrete behaviours.
  • How will we test the change? Put the improvement into the next practice.
  • Did the change work? If not, adjust again.

  This turns practice into a learning system rather than simply repeated performance.

  Key Takeaways

  By the end of this chapter, remember:

  • Mistakes are an inevitable part of case solving.

  • Feedback only creates value when you act on it.

  • Coachability means being willing to reconsider your approach.

  • Strong teams recover from mistakes rather than becoming paralysed by them.

  • Preparation creates the foundation for contribution.

  • Participation ensures the team benefits from multiple perspectives.

  • Presence keeps the team engaged.

  • Promptness demonstrates respect for the team and the clock.

  • Individual thinking before team discussion can improve the quality of collaboration.

  • You do not have to blindly accept feedback—you do need to seriously consider it.

  The Bottom Line

  The goal isn't to avoid mistakes. The goal is to recover from them faster and learn from them better.

  Practice. Get Feedback. Apply It. Reflect. Practice Again.