Business Reality
Cases end with an answer. Managers decide before there is one.
By the time a case study reaches a classroom the information is complete and the outcome is known. Real decisions are made with half the facts, under time pressure, knowing that any choice makes somebody unhappy. This session shows students how that is actually done.
The information a case gives you is the information a manager wishes they had.
Students learn to analyse a situation where the relevant facts have been gathered, cleaned and put in front of them. Managers decide when a third of the facts are missing, another third are contested, and waiting for better information is itself a decision with a cost.
What separates a good manager is rarely intelligence applied to a complete picture. It is judgement about which missing information actually matters, and the willingness to commit before it is comfortable.
How a decision actually gets made
31 topics across 6 areas. Six things a case study leaves out.
What Is Actually KnownFar less than a case implies.6
- What data exists
- How reliable it is
- What is opinion presented as fact
- What nobody has measured
- What it would cost to find out
- Whether it is worth finding out
The Cost of WaitingDelay is a decision, and it is rarely free.5
- What changes while you deliberate
- What a competitor does meanwhile
- What the team does without direction
- When more information genuinely helps
- When it is procrastination with a spreadsheet
Trade-offs, Named HonestlyEvery real option is worse in some way.5
A decision presented as having no downside usually means the downside has not been found yet.
- What each option costs
- Who it disadvantages
- What it forecloses
- What it is reversible from
- What it commits you to
Who Is Affected, and Who DecidesOrganisations are people with different incentives.6
- Which function bears the cost
- Which one gets the benefit
- Who has to implement it
- Who must agree
- Who only needs to be told
- How disagreement is resolved
Reversible or NotThe single most useful question.4
A reversible decision made quickly beats an irreversible one made slowly. Managers who treat both the same are slow on one and reckless on the other.
- Can we undo this?
- What would undoing it cost?
- Is this a door we can walk back through?
- Should this be a pilot instead?
When It Goes WrongWhich it will, repeatedly.5
- How you know early
- What you say, and to whom
- How you change course without losing credibility
- What you keep from it
- Why hiding it costs more than the decision did
Questions students get to ask
- What was the hardest decision you have made?
- What did you not know at the time?
- How long did you take, and was that right?
- Who disagreed with you?
- What did you get wrong?
- How did you find out it was wrong?
- What would you do differently?
What students practise
- Naming what they do not know
- Deciding whether it is worth finding out
- Stating the trade-off rather than hiding it
- Choosing under time pressure
- Defending the choice to somebody it disadvantages
How the session runs
A practising manager brings a real decision they made — with only the information they had at the time — and stops before revealing the outcome. Students decide, and defend it. The manager then says what they actually did, what happened, and what they would now do differently. The gap between the two discussions is the session.
What your students leave with
- An understanding of how decisions are made without complete information
- The habit of naming a trade-off rather than hiding it
- The reversible-or-not question, applied
- A sense of who has to agree and who only has to be told
- A realistic view of how often managers are wrong
- Practice deciding under time pressure and defending it
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Cases end with an answer. Managers have to start without one.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.