General Information
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Description
In this course students will be able to gain a pragmatic understanding of diverse and innovative consulting approaches and to apply core consulting skills to various real-life problems. The nature, scope of consulting and the role of consultants are quickly evolving to meet the clients’ changing needs in this digital age (e.g., ‘Traditional strategy projects’ now only accounts for 25~40% of projects, even for some of the major global ‘strategic consulting’ firms). The course will expose students to the most recent key consulting trends, approaches, paths and topics including large scale transformations (e.g.., digital, AI, agile) and client capability building.
While we will cover the key building blocks and concepts of consulting, as a Practicum course, this course is meant to be a practical, application course where the specific skills of consulting are developed in more depth. Give consulting is essentially an apprenticeship model, one of the best ways to learn consulting is to experience a live consulting project. Thus, the cornerstone of this course is that students will have achance to work on a team project to consult a real-life client on an important topic for the company. In doing so, students will have a chance to interact with the clients and present the team’s recommendations to the client executives. For the Fall term of 2024, the live client project will be with Equitable Bank(EQB), a leading challenger bank in Canada. Given the bank’s innovative approaches and customer orientation, we will have a great project topic to work on. In this project you will have a chance to interact with the key client executives (including interviews) and present your final recommendations to a panel of clients including the CEO and the Group Head of Personal Banking.
The course is organized around the phases of a typical consulting engagement (problem definition and structuring, data gathering and analysis, collaborative and integrative team-problem-solving, recommendations development and presentation). Students will have a chance to go through these steps using a combination of lectures, discussions, breakout exercises, real-life team project as well as interactive discussions with guest lecturers. Through this mix of delivery methods, the course is designed to provide students with a practical understanding of the consulting process, problem-solving, and communication skills that will help to bring clarity and structure to a business predicament and identify appropriate solutions. The course will also cover important aspects such as teamwork, feedback/coaching, effective communication, client relationship building and understanding the perspective of clients.
This course is meant to be a practical, application focused complement to the RSM2052 Management Consulting course where the foundational skills of consulting are covered in more depth. (However, RSM2052 is not a pre-requisite to take this course.)
Target Audience
The course is intended both for students interested in management consulting as a career, as well as those students interested in corporate problem-solving, project and team management and integrative thinking more generally. The learning objectives of the course include:
- Gain a pragmatic understanding of various consulting approaches & topics, especially in the context of data and digital technology advancement.
- Hone advanced problem-solving skills, including interactive problem solving.
- Build team-work capabilities including providing and receiving feedback.
- Build effective communications skills (both written and verbal presentation skills)
- Develop a clear understanding of the value and expectations for impactful consulting projects and consultants.
Format
In Fall 2024, this course will be offered as a full semester course with 8 classes (3-hour class) meeting once per week but over a 9-week period (i.e., Over the 9 weeks, we will have eight 3-hour weekly classes, and for one week there will be no in-person class to allow for additional time to work on the team project).
Evaluation and Grade Breakdown
| Component | Weight |
|---|---|
| Class Participation | 20% |
| Team Project Assignments (including team presentation) | 40% |
| Individual Assignments (including final paper, no final exam) | 40% |