NTU Case Solving Bootcamp 3/4 Sep 2016
We, at Conjunct, have recently launched Conjunct Academy, a series of leadership training programmes and opportunities to provide a pathway to developing high-impact socially-conscious leaders of the future. We believe that leaders need to be equipped with an array of skills like collaboration, influencing skills, socio-emotional intelligence, macro-level understanding of any situation and understanding of structures & frameworks. Our training brings together all of these skill-sets. Our pedagogy is built on a framework of blended-learning. Industry experts have developed our curriculum. We embed experiential learning, incorporate real-life scenarios and create opportunities to allow participants to hone the skills learnt as well as apply them to enhance their understanding of the concepts.
We ran our very first future leaders case-solving boot camp at NTU on the 3rd and 4th September 2016. The boot camp was attended by 100 students from different academic streams at NTU. Our intensive 2-day workshop (9 am to 5:30 pm) trained students in:
1. How to systematically approach a case
2. How to perform rigorous analysis
3. How to effectively communicate a recommendation & seek buy-in
All the skills taught are related to examples and real-life scenarios from the social sector. Even the case studies that the students independently work on are focused on the social sector.
Day 1
We saw the students going through intensive training on problem-solving frameworks, hypothesis testing and ways to present recommendations. The training was run by, Dr Mehul M. Khimasia, Vice President, Corporate & Investment Banking COO/ Strategy, Deutsche Bank and Liew Ee Chan, Senior Financial Analyst, Procter & Gamble. Liew Ee Chan also volunteers as the VP, training for Conjunct Consulting. The training included industry-tested and efficient frameworks taught with easy to grasp and real-world examples.
Towards the end of the day, the participants were broken into 20 teams of 5 each and handed a case study for them to work on. Mentors were assigned to the teams to help them think through the case, to share industry perspectives and to guide the students in their thinking. All of our mentors were industry professionals with anywhere between 5-20 years of experience in finance, consulting, government, etc.
Day 2
Day 2 was dedicated to the students preparing and presenting their case analysis to a panel of judges. Each team of 5 students were given 20 mins to make their presentations and another 10 mins of Q&A by the panellists. It was a great opportunity for the students as they got to work and interact with students from other academic streams along-side learning from the experience of their mentor. Day 2 ended with a networking dinner where the students got to interact with the senior team of Conjunct Consulting, with the complete team of mentors, senior staff at NTU and also with their fellow students.
Some of the feedback we received at the end of the boot camp shows that:
- 98% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that the concepts and skills presented are useful and relevant.
- 90% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that they learnt useful skills which will help with their job applications.
- Over 96% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that the trainers had good knowledge and practical understanding of the subject matter.
- Overall, the average score for whether they would recommend this workshop was 4.1/5.
While the students definitely benefitted and were able to gain a lot from the boot camp, some of our mentors too had a great time.
I found my experience as a mentor in the NTU boot camp quite valuable for several reasons. First-to help students learn & practice real-world problem-solving skills and inspire them to new heights. Secondly, it was a good refresher for me and renewed my own skill sets. Lastly-it was fun!
– Connie Finch, Global Controller, Viki.com
It was a fantastic learning experience for us too: they say you learn best when you teach….the students really challenged us to present ideas – that we took for granted – in a simple, clear, easy to understand way.
– Mehul Khimasia, Vice President at Deutsche bank
If you would like to know more about the case-solving boot camp, would like to be a mentor with us or would like to run a boot camp in your school/university, drop us a line at info@conjunctconsulting.org
