The 3rd semester MBA students taking the Consulting II class have a variety of classes with different experts from the consulting world in classroom. In their first session, the MBA students learned about business process mapping. In the second session, they had the partner and founder of consulting firm Avantalion in classroom. The Partner, Bijan Khashabian, and his consultant, Jessica Dihlmann, are both alumni of Hochschule Pforzheim.
The day started with a refresher on project management and the eight 3rd semester students taking the elective were split into two competing teams. The students then spent the day breaking down a project RFP from a potential client and had to map it in a project management plan, timeline and work breakdown structure. The 3rd semester students were able to draw from their past project management course in the 2nd semester which proved to be very useful.
After lots of great teamwork and some stressful situations, both groups managed to pull off some great work which they presented to the ‘CEO and CFO” of the company in a mock presentation. Team B won the competition due to an excellent mapping of the timeline and processes on an easy-to-read Excel sheet. There were many lessons learned and the students left having learnt a lot in the day-long case study.

Text: Rupert Rivera III, Class 2020