Insegnamento a.a. 2023-2024

The management consulting profession has today acquired a well-known reputation among the service industries. Consultants offer their professional advice to client organizations by leveraging their knowhow in the fields of management. Consultants often assist clients in the change process, and in some cases act as key characters in the implementation phase. Today, more than in the past, consultancy has become a viable professional development alternative, typically offered to young students from graduate or undergraduate degrees.

The main Learning Tracks of the Course are the following:

- A. The management consulting industry

- B. Required skills to act as professionally effective management consultants

- C. How consultants deliver their services: the process side of the profession

- D. How's organizational life in management consulting firms

The following table reports the detailed class schedule for 2023 Spring semester: each session belongs to one of the above described learning tracks. 

Understanding if Management Consulting is the right industry for your personal development

• Face-to-face lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Exercises (exercises, database, software etc.)
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Group assignments
• Interactive class activities on campus/online (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

Team work consulting projects

Attendees are required to team-up in groups of 6-8. See class detailed schedule for deadline to submit your team composition. Submit one copy via online questionnaire (see on BBoard) with:

-       member first and last names and Bocconi ID number

-       member email

-       team name

-       preference n. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of research / consulting themes (see below).

This course assumes that students will freely team-up, choosing their preferred teammates. Instructors WILL NOT assign students to teams, neither interfere with issues regarding team composition and team management. Instructors will limit their work to evaluating output (the “product” of a real-life consulting team) and students will do the job of finding partners. This is adopted as an “ethical rule” of the course, to avoid any conflict of interest on the Faculty side, being those that give grades to team output and also interfering in team composition (input of the process). Team composition is due no later than (TBA) class.

Attendees are required to actively participate to the following projects within the course:

-       form groups of 6-8 people to participate to two sessions of the Consulting Simulation (see schedule). Each team will work on the given case study and it will present analysis and results. Class attendance for the Consulting Simulation is indispensable. The grade will be given at a group-basis and it will account for the 10% of the total individual grade;

-       form groups of 6-8 people to participate to an Internet Web based research / consulting project, acting as consultants and serving a demanding client. Groups will have to select one of the proposed research topics (for further instructions, see schedule database on-line and following paragraph). Consulting projects will take place off-line class hours and will be presented to instructors on dedicated sessions in the ending part of the course. Groups are requested to submit a file copy of their Power Point presentation + Word document as well as proofs of the Internet sites visited and references consulted. The grade will be given at a group-basis and it will account for the 30% of the total individual grade.

Summary of evaluation criteria for attending students

Attending students with required attendance records, will receive an individual evaluation at the end of the course (May 2022) composed as follows:

-       Consulting Simulation (team work activity) = 10%

-       Consulting Project (team work activity) = 30%

-       Final exam (individual) = 60%

-       Class participation +1/30 (individual) to max 5 students

A “pass course” is issued ONLY in case each one of the above grades is >= 18/30. 

NON-attending students:

-       P. McKenna and D. Maister, First among equals: how to manage a group of professionals, The Free Press, NY, 2005.

-       L. Greiner, I. Poulfelt, Management consulting today and tomorrow, South Western College, 2009 (or later editions).

TEXTBOOKS AND SUGGESTED READINGS 

Attending students, that will regularly access on-line resources, will prepare 

-       Reading packet available only to attending students that have access to the Bocconi BB Services. The reading packet will include all required readings and cases and it will be made available during the course (please check the BB regularly). A schedule showing reading material and session correspondence will be provided. All readings provided will complement class lectures: not necessarily the full details of the readings will be covered during class lectures. Likewise, class lecture needs the associated online readings to complete the learning.

-       Additional reading material like power point slides and mini cases will also be available through the Bocconi BB services and they will be published AFTER their use in class.

NON-attending students:

-       P. McKenna and D. Maister, First among equals: how to manage a group of professionals, The Free Press, NY, 2005.

-       L. Greiner, I. Poulfelt, Management consulting today and tomorrow, South Western College, 2009 (or later editions).