The case of ‘Case based teaching’

Almost all of the course outline out here proudly display ‘case based learning’ as a part of pedagogy. It was a feel good factor in the beginning but not now. No doubt, it plays a critical task, i.e. to instil real life problem solving aptitude in students. The complexity involved in real business problems, the uncertainty involved with every decision and the trade-offs. Professors expect students to sit in groups and discuss the case in detail, brainstorm, come up with alternatives and evaluate each alternative against short-term vs. long-term impact on the decision problem and business. But is it really happening?

All that I wrote is too good to be true. There are many reasons for that, some systematic and some random. I can’t discuss about random reasons out here, but what I want to discuss is the systematic ones. The IIMs are known for their hectic study schedules and numerous courses compressed into 2 years. I think they have just managed to compress it in two years, I say this on the basis of experience that people have had while student exchange. All the students who have gone for student exchange have one thing to say, the study there is balanced, i.e. you get sufficient time to study on your own, any topic of your interest. And if not, you at least get time to discuss the cases in detail.

The scenario is different here, if you have 2-3 cases on an average to solve every day, coupled with the regular lectures, projects and quizzes, what justice one can do with the case analysis. If you are fortunate enough to have good team members, willing to work, the maximum you can do (showing your management skills) is distribute the case amongst group members and somehow able to finish each of the case in time. No wonder professors here say “Students do individual assignments in groups and Group assignments individually”. On the contrary if you have an unfortunate group, well I need not write the usual method people adopt to do cases and assignments.

The idea is not to remove the case analysis completely, but the idea is to give students sufficient time to prepare each of the cases. I think we have adopted all of the ‘good practices’ from other B-Schools altogether, without even thinking that the time available is limited. Like you say in operations, if all the machines are individually efficient it doesn’t mean the process as a whole is efficient. The problem is amplified by the fact that groups formed here work as more of groups and not as a team (I hope you know the difference). So at the end of the day the objective of case analysis is not achieved.

I think I should end this on the same note as other cases end, the problem is out there, the situational analysis is almost done but like all other cases the ‘case of case based teaching’ is still there. The good part (or bad?) is that there are no exhibits in this case.