Are you signed up for a case competition, ready to showcase your skills and get a quick resume-building experience?
Maybe you’ve been a part of a team that for some reason failed to even make the first cut because of inexperience or a lack of cohesion. Or maybe this is your first exposure to case competitions, and you are debating whether they are worth the effort.
Whatever the case may be, this article will outline the secrets to winning a strategy case competition and why winning does not need to be complex.
While most of what follows will seem intuitive, the key rests in the order in which the steps are completed. Skipping any of these steps will severely limit a team’s potential, but adhering to them will result in a winning performance.
1. Find the right people
The most important part of winning a case competition is getting the right people on your team.
Before the case competition even begins, you should have people in mind you want to work with. Write out a vision of your ideal team, outlining strengths and weaknesses of potential team members and how they can be combined for best results. For example, if a case is related to business, it is likely to involve questions about finance and accounting, strategy, and marketing. Thus, it is useful to find people that have skill sets in those areas. You might choose a finance major, a marketing major, and a sociology major.
Of course, it may be sufficient to find someone with interest in the topic rather than experience. A case competition is a great opportunity for them to dig into a topic, so someone with passion has the potential to produce similar results to someone with experience. The most important characteristics to look for are grit and willpower. Someone with less experience who has dogged determination can outperform someone with expertise but no grit.
A second consideration is the year of participants. It is wise to have a combination of upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) and underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores). A team needs experienced members who can lead team discussions and double check work. You will want to keep in mind that some case competitions have limitations on the years of team members – some might even limit the competition to freshmen only! Be sure to check in with competition administration to ensure you are picking the right people for your team.
2. Use the right process
When running a team in preparation for a case competition, time is limited, and efficiency is necessary. Thus, once you have a team chosen and organized, you should establish team processes that lead to the best results. For example, you may want to define roles early on, such as team lead, notetaker, and source validation. Then when something needs to be done in the future, it is clear who will do it.
Another process to define is idea generation – how will the team discuss the problem, come up with potential solutions, and dive deep into the process? I recommend looking up common team management tools and methods, keeping in mind that no team is the same. The key is to have team “buy-in” for the processes you decide on. No one should be creating rules for someone else. Instead, the team should be setting rules and standards for conduct that each member agrees to from the beginning.
3. Find the right content
Now that the process is underway, the next step is finding appropriate content. The team should focus first on the overall vision. What is the exact question we are answering? What is the logical flow of our presentation? What kinds of sources are reliable?
Once the vision is clear, make a detailed outline for the final deliverable. If the deliverable is a presentation, the team should focus on writing the “lead line” for each slide and drawing a sketch of what the slide will include. While each slide should be assigned to one team member from the start, it is important to have another team member provide feedback and check for typos.
4. Give the right presentation
It goes without saying that in preparation for the in-person presentation, the team should practice. In fact, you should over practice. Get to the point where you know the presentation well enough to give it without looking at the slides. However, you should obviously point to your slides on occasion to help the audience follow along.
When deciding who should present which slide, you should consider two options. First, assign each slide to the person that had ownership of that slide. This is best if the slides are relatively separate in content and tone. Second, assign each member a group of slides and have them present once during the presentation. This allows team members to practice a discrete segment of the presentation, and fixes the problem of choppiness that comes from having each slide presented by someone different.
Conclusion
I have participated in many case competitions with varying success. Each competition improved my team-building skills, attention to detail, and general business acumen.
Ultimately, if you do not win a case competition, it is not the end of the world. The skills gained are invaluable. Learn from the feedback provided and from the final presentations of the winning teams. Ask questions and have positive interactions with those involved. If all you gain from participating in a strategy case competition are friendships, leadership skills, and enthusiasm for solving problems, then it will have been worth your time.
Wes Brooks is an incoming Summer Business Analyst at Cicero Group and an undergraduate studying economics, management, and strategy. He is a serial entrepreneur, works in venture capital, and enjoys singing a capella and piano improvisation.
Image: DALL-E 3