Sustainability Case Competition: From Idea to Project

Abstract

Lisa Brown, assistant to the director at the Swotting School of Business, has been tasked with planning a new Sustainability Case Competition. Although she has organized previous events, this one is different. It is larger, higher profile, and in part academic. Brown would be able to draw on her experience from organizing events such as the Sustainability Symposium in 2017, but this time she needed a proper plan to get it done. In a meeting with Michael Wilson, director of the Swotting School of Business, the two brainstormed to bounce ideas off each other. It would be those ideas that eventually needed to be transformed into a project plan to assess the feasibility of the proposal. Hence, Brown needed to specify in more detail the potential project, prepare her analysis, and develop a recommendation prior to a meeting with Wilson the following week. This case invites students to take on the role of Brown, develop the proposed project, conduct an analysis, and prepare recommendations as to whether it is feasible to meet a certain deadline.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this case study, students should be able to:

Use brainstorming and mind-mapping techniques to capture early stage ideas of a project.

Transform a mind map into an initial work breakdown structure (WBS).

Estimate durations for completing activities. Identify predecessors for activities. Draw an activity-on-node network (AON).

Iteratively refine a WBS and AON to become manageable.

Calculate earliest start/earliest finish, latest start/latest finish, and slack for each activity in a project.

Identify the critical path or paths of a project.

In addition, there is a secondary learning outcome related to the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME). Discussing the case, students will also have developed an appreciation for the PRME and will better understand their own institution's commitment to these principles. Students will gain knowledge about what activities are conducted at their institution to support the PRME.

Introduction

It was December 4, 2017, and Lisa Brown, assistant to the director at the Swotting School of Business, returned to her desk after meeting with her boss, Michael Wilson. She was not sure if she just had volunteered for, or if she had been tasked with, planning a student event to raise awareness around sustainable practices at Swotting University and its local community. The event was to plan what would be known as the Sustainability Case Competition.

Reflecting on what had happened, Brown really did not mind if it was one way or the other, since sustainability was close to her heart and organizing the event would be a major opportunity to plan something that she fully supported ideologically. This project, however, would be much larger than previous ones she had been involved with, and she would be responsible for organizing it. Thus, Brown was thankful for having had the opportunity to quickly brainstorm with Wilson. The brainstorming session had helped her identify the main tasks that needed to be completed.

Sitting at her desk, Brown thought further about all those tasks, how much time they would take to complete, and what other resources she might have to draw on, so the Sustainability Case Competition could take place on March 9, 2018the date Wilson and Brown had in mind for the event.

Wilson wanted to meet again the following week to know whether Brown considered it feasible to turn the idea of the case competition into a real project. Thus, prior to the meeting with Wilson, Brown needed to further specify the potential project, prepare her analysis, and develop a recommendation as to whether or not to go ahead with the project.

Swotting School of Business and the Principles for Responsible Management Education

Swotting School of Business was a small business school located in Western Canada. Being a specialpurpose teaching university, the school mostly focused on providing applied undergraduate education. Its four-year bachelor of business administration degree program had the largest enrolment at the university, with about 900 students. In addition, the school also offered a variety of diploma and certificate programs, with a total enrolment of about 1,800 students, mostly serving the educational needs of the local region.

In 2013, Swotting School of Business became a signatory of the United Nations' Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The PRME were "developed in 2007 by an international task force of sixty deans, university presidents and official representatives of leading business schools and academic institutions" (United Nations, 2007). Committed to supporting the PRME, Swotting School of Business pledged, amongst other things, to "develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy" (United Nations, 2007). The school further pledged to "facilitate and support dialog and debate among educators, students, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organisations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability" (United Nations, 2007).

In previous years, as part of its commitment to the PRME, Swotting School of Business had organized various activities to develop its students into responsible leaders and to engage them in dialog and debate around sustainability topics. For example, in 2016 and 2017 the school organized PRME essay competitions, allowing students to elaborate on sustainable practices and how they could be implemented at Swotting or in the local community, contributing to socially responsible and sustainable development of the region. In 2017, Swotting School of Business added a Sustainability Symposium to further foster a dialog between the local community, businesses, students, and educators. The event featured student work, First Nations initiatives, and other sustainable business practices. "Sustainable Mornings" were introduced as a place for the Swotting community to exchange ideas about how the university could become more sustainable.

In reviewing previous years' activities, and in particular the essay competitions, Brown and Wilson realized that they had not gained as much traction as originally anticipated. Student participation had not been impressive and it was therefore necessary to discuss whether to continue with the essay competition for a third year or to try something different, something new and exciting. That was when Brown had the idea to make participation in future PRME events less onerous. If the time commitment for students could be reduced to a day or two, Brown envisioned, more students would probably participate, making future events more successful.

In the meeting with Wilson, Brown put forward the idea of providing groups of students with a particular sustainability problem (hereafter also called the "case") that they could solve within a defined amount of time, competing with each other for an attractive prize that would incentivize enough students to participate. The idea for the Sustainability Case Competition was born.

Brown quickly realized that this event was going to be much larger than any of the previous ones she organized. She would not just be in a supportive role but would actually be accountable for planning the whole event from its idea to its execution.

The Sustainability Case Competition

As Brown and Wilson brainstormed, a variety of things that needed to be organized surfaced. Obviously, a case would need to be developed and, at first glance, this seemed to be the most time-consuming activity. Wilson pointed out developing the case could be broken down into a number of activities. First a theme or topic needed to be agreed on, which would probably take about five days. Thereafter, a draft case needed to be written, which would take at least ten days to complete. The draft case would then need to be tested and updated, which would take about another five days for each stage. In addition, a rule book would need to be developed and the case would need to be printed. Wilson estimated that developing the rule book would not take more than ten days and, to be on the safe side, Brown should allow up to five days for any print services required.

Developing the rule book could technically start at the same time as the case was drafted, whereas writing the draft, testing, and updating the case would have to be done in sequential order. Clearly, both the rule book and updating of the case would have to be completed before they could be sent to printing.

Brown said that she should perhaps team up with a faculty member to develop the case and the rule book as she would not be qualified to do so. Wilson suggested asking a faculty member with both case writing experience and an interest in sustainability to join her in organizing the event and in developing the case.

Would Brown need to team up with others at the university, too? The communications and marketing department seemed to be a potential partner for organizing the event. Not only had they event planning experience, but they would be an invaluable resource to promote the event, from creating websites and online registrations to Tweeting about the event to the entire Swotting community. It was envisioned that the communications and marketing department would perform most activities that were related to promoting the event.

Having a date for the competition in mind, Brown needed to secure rooms for the event once that date was confirmed. Agreeing on this would only take a day when Brown met with Wilson the following week. Finding available rooms, placing bookings, and receiving confirmations from the central scheduling unit would take no more than two days to complete.

Perhaps more important than finding rooms, however, was to make sure that the objectives of the event would be met. So Brown asked a few questions and understood that the main reason to organize the event was the desire to increase awareness of sustainability among students and perhaps also the local community. Wilson also saw the case competition as an opportunity to further promote the PRME at the university. And, last but not least, the event should stimulate an interdisciplinary discourse about sustainability issues across the whole university, and hence be open to non-business students too.

Brown, seeing the scope of the competition growing as they were brainstorming, asked about the available budget. Clearly there would be a cost attached both to securing the venue and to catering. To incentivize students to participate or to recognize the winning team, Brown needed to know how much was allocated to the project. Wilson asked what kind of incentives she was thinking about. Some early ideas included: prize money, tuition waivers, gift cards, or perhaps interviews with some potential local employers from the region. The latter would have an additional benefit of fostering a dialog with businesses, which could become a secondary goal of the whole case competition as it touches on the PRME goals. In the end, Wilson said that Brown could evaluate various incentives once the topic was defined for the case, and that she should not spend more than two days on this task; then it could take up to 15 days to obtain any prizes, which clearly needed to be finalized before the competition day.

As the idea of the case competition took shape, Brown and Wilson were concerned about how to attract students to participate in the event other than through incentives. Promotion via posters appeared to be a given at first, but at Swotting School of Business most students would not pay attention to these. Students could be better targeted by using the school website, social media channels (such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn), andprobably most effectivelythrough class visits. Brown and Wilson agreed that most promotional activities could be performed by staff in the communications and marketing department. They would probably need about five days to develop social media content, ten days to set up a website for the event, and another ten days to set up the online registration system. Regarding class visits, the faculty member working with Brown would need up to ten days to promote the event. While social media content and the website could be developed as soon as the draft case was produced and the competition date was confirmed, class visits should not start before the date was confirmed and the rule book was completed in order to be able to answer any student questions about details, such as how their contribution would be judged, what support materials they could use, and so on.

As part of the promotional activities, Brown also suggested booking a photographer to capture the event. This could be done right after the venue was secured and would take no more than two days to complete.

Thinking about the actual case competition day, Brown suggested engaging a panel of judges to adjudicate at the event. Together Brown and Wilson came up with various possible judges, representing different stakeholders of the wider Swotting community, including faculty, alumni, and external representatives from, for example, the municipality, local First Nations, or businesses. It would take Brown about two days to produce a list of potential panel members and she could do so once the draft case was finished, so as to select relevant people and provide some context for the competition when contacting potential panelists. Inviting potential panelists, including awaiting their responses, would take Brown another 15 days to complete.

Once panelists and participants were confirmed, Brown would need another day for placing a catering order. This activity should be completed no later than a week before the event.

Finally, Wilson asked Brown to give some consideration to closing the project. Once the competition was over, Brown should send thank-you notes, post a story on the school's own social media channels, and make notes for improvements. These activities did not have to take place in any particular order and would take about a day each to complete. In addition, Brown estimated that she needed five additional days to update the budget with actual costs, as invoices would come in after the event was completed. Two days would be necessary for closing the project and housekeeping items, starting after all other tasks were completed, which would suffice to bring the project to a close. Wilson would not require a full closure report or audit.

While Brown and Wilson carried on brainstorming, it was clear to them that the list of activities that needed to be done was going to be long, and that it was far from complete after the first round of planning. The results of the brainstorming session are summarized in Figure 1. Further details of the project would need to be identified during the ongoing planning process. Having been able to capture the main ideas, however, would be sufficient to guide Brown in her task to make a recommendation of whether or not it was feasible to run the case competition on March 9, 2018.

Figure 1. Mind Map Summarizing the Brainstorming Session for Planning the Sustainability Case Competition

Fa Brown Staff Thank-you notes Conmounications and Marketing Budget follow up Faculty Organizing team Sustainability login Make notes for improvements Archive ties etc project closure Define theme Write case First Nation's Exlemar Develop case Test case Business Alumm Secure panel Create me book Sustainability Case actante suilamabely iveness Competition objectives FAME activity Worddisaplinary Linkedin Class visits Even Student fecratmen Secury venus Promotion Registration Over food Book photographal Incentives/prizes 6 prize money Social modu Post-ever Tullion waiver Web site Local news Gift card interview with amplayers