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 in various forms including in-class discussion, client interviews and presentation in front of clients.
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 RSM 2052 Management Consulting Course where the foundational skills of consulting are covered in more depth. However, RMS2052 is not a pre-requisite to take this course. (Students who have either taken or not taken RSM2052 Management Consulting course may enroll in 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
For the academic year of 2025-2026, this course will be offered as a full semester course in the Fall term with 2-hour weekly classes over 12 weeks. However, note that in order to accommodate the time required for all of project teams’ final presentations with the ‘client’ executives who will attend class to listen to the presentation, ask questions and provide feedback, the class for this final presentation will be a double class (i.e., 4 hours instead of 2 hours). There will be no class on one of the weeks before the final presentation to compensate for the double class and also allow the teams to work on the team project. (The exact dates will be confirmed regarding these two classes in the syllabus but tentatively, the presentation (i.e., the 4-hour class) will likely be on Nov 26th).)
Evaluation and Grade Breakdown
| Component | Weight |
|---|---|
| Class Participation | 20% |
| Team project assignments including team presentation | 40% |
| Individual assignments including final paper assignment (No final exam) | 40% |