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Welcome to 2026. When I was teaching, the new year marked the start of 4 months of heavy travel as I travelled with my case-solving teams. There was a pattern in this travel that started in Canada, moved to the US, and finished in Europe. Why have I started wi...

In the last episode, I talked about the missing piece in education: real confidence isn’t built through exposure, it’s built through uncomfortable experience. This week, let’s get practical. How do we design practice environments that don’t just teach skills,...

Closing Reflections: Winning the Room Is About More Than Presenting "Great case competitors don't simply deliver recommendations. They create confidence in those recommendations." Over the course of this section, we have shifted our focus from developing gre...

Full List of Masterclass Videos https://www.youtube.com/@MadSkillsMasterclass Introduction 1:53 Ignite Your Mad Skills From Case Flops to Podium Domination That’s not failure. That’s your wake-up call. I’m Cam Welsh, Emeritus Professor at Haskayne Scho...

PART II: Thinking Skills Video: Where Do We Even Start: The Steps to Solve a Case Video: How to Read a Case the Right Way: Stop Wasting Time and Start Seeing What Matters Video: How to Do Smart Case Research Pre-Competition, During the Case & Using AI Effec...

How to Use This Manual The Discover Your Mad Skills Masterclass is built around a simple idea: Great case solvers do more than analyse the obvious. They learn to see what others miss. The first manual introduced a systematic approach to solving business cas...

"Time doesn't create clarity. Strategic choices do." Over the past few weeks, I've been working with a team preparing for the Sydney International Business Competition. It's a demanding competition. Teams tackle two cases: A 6-hour case culminating in a...

A few weeks ago, Anna Mykheieva made some great points about the use of personas, and it got me thinking about how teams use this tool in case-solving competitions. When I watch teams work through cases, I see personas used frequently. The problem? Most pers...

The real value of case competitions is not the case. It's the person you become through the process. In a recent conversation with a former case team member for an upcoming episode of Unbarred Conversations Season 2 (coming this fall), Chloe and I talked abou...

The biggest reward I get as a case-solving coach isn’t when a student finally cracks a complex profitability case or delivers a flawless recommendation. It’s when I watch them transform. When the nervous, hesitant version of themselves is replaced by someone w...

In recent weeks, my professional feeds have been filled with thoughtful conversations about the need for meaningful change in post-secondary education. Rob Lawless recently posed a provocative question about whether the University of Pennsylvania should offer ...

The best teams deliver a unified, high-energy, emotionally connected performance. Most teams don’t. Here’s exactly why and how to build consistency from minute one in the resolution room. One of the clearest, most frustrating patterns I’ve observed after 20...

Too many teams deliver a great solution but leave the real impact in the resolution room. Here’s what actually separates podium teams from the rest. One of the most consistent patterns I see after 20+ years of coaching case-solving competition teams and debri...

Over the years of coaching teams for case-solving competitions, if you asked any of my team members what the number one piece of advice I gave them, it would likely be this: "Don't boil the ocean." Too often, ambitious and talented teams try to do everything....

Two of the best skills you pick up from case competitions aren't solving the actual case. They're public speaking and networking. Back in 2019, my team and I were in Rotterdam, Netherlands, competing at Erasmus University. After the opening ceremonies, we sto...

March 18, 2026 Sebastian Tsang recently dropped a raw, eye-opening post on LinkedIn that should hit hard: for students, despite rocking a perfect 4.0 GPA and grinding hard, no parties, all focus, he got zero internship interviews for two straight year...

March 4, 2026 After 20+ years coaching and mentoring over 300 case teams at the University of Calgary and the Haskayne School of Business (plus dozens more through events like How to Change the World, Innovatank's WXP, and classroom advising), I still...

February 18, 2026 If we want AI-resilient graduates, we can’t just talk about disruption. We have to train for it. Back on February 7th, I had the privilege of judging the preliminary round of the Digital Innovation Challenge hosted by the Haskayne Scho...

This past week, I had the privilege of mentoring and judging WXP Europe. This virtual competition brings together MBA students from top universities across North America and Europe to tackle a messy, real-world problem. I’ve been involved with this co...

Part VI: Winning the Room A strong solution is not enough. Judges must be able to understand it, believe it, remember it, and imagine the organisation acting on it. Winning the room is not about theatrical performance or polished slides alone. It is about hel...