The Strategic Consulting Experience: Providing Experiential Learning Opportunities within an MBA Program Page 40 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 43, 2016 ABSTRACT This paper details one business school’s experiences in devel- oping and offering an experiential learning course for MBA students nearing the completion of their programs of study. The course was designed to provide students with opportunities to work with external clients to assist them with strategic issues facing their organizations. While the benefits of the course are numerous, the primary benefit to the student is practical experi- ence in solving real-world problems using skills acquired through their MBA program. In addition, the clients receive (at no cost to them) consulting services from students who bring fresh and innovative perspectives to their organizations. A re- sultant benefit to the School is an enhanced image within the external business community due to the positive interaction between students, faculty, and clients. This paper provides readers with a wealth of information on course structure, as well as a full description of issues that must be addressed to ensure a positive learning experience for students and a benefi- cial consulting product for the clients. INTRODUCTION The Citadel School of Business is an AACSB International -accredited School of Business that houses one of the largest academic programs within The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. The Citadel has approximately 2,200 under- graduate students in the South Carolina Corps of Cadets and another 1,000 students in The Citadel Graduate College. Ap- proximately 30 percent of those 3,200 total students are under- graduate majors within the business school or participate in the School’s “flex MBA” program. The MBA program typically has a total enrollment between 220 and 280 students taking courses in the evening or in an online environment. The MBA program is well-established within the community with a num- ber of distinguished community members holding Citadel MBA degrees. The program also benefits from strong relationships with area employers with numerous students sponsored by the leading employers of the region. Like other universities attempting to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage over their peers (Nash & Green, 2000), The Citadel School of Business has recognized the need to pre- pare graduates to enter into an ever changing professional envi- ronment and become leaders of their respective industries. The challenge, as discussed in “From periphery to core: The increas- ing relevance of experiential learning in undergraduate business education” ( Hodge, Proudford, & Holt, 2014) lies within the pressure of major universities to not only emphasize the im- portance of research-based teachings, but also to produce gradu- ates with applicable skills capable of leading and managing organizations. This pressure is to close the knowing-gap, de- fined as, “the critical difference between what a student knows and what he or she can actually do.” ( Hodge, Proudford, & Holt, 2014). A widely accepted solution is to encourage stu- dents to participate in experiential courses and imbedded pro- jects to prepare them to be the leaders and decision makers once they enter into the work force (Hodge, Proudford, & Holt, 2014). Experiential projects also help students assess potential career paths and learn specific skills they will need when they start their career (Sprague and Percy, 2014). While the value of experiential learning is widely supported by the research, it is important to recognize that not all experi- ential learning projects are created equal. A truly successful experiential learning experience should benefit both the student group as well as the client organization. The student should leave the collaboration with added industry knowledge, confi- dence to execute the skills and strategies they’ve been taught, as well contacts within the industry that they can network with in the future. The client should leave the collaboration with appli- cable strategies and next steps, but should also leave the experi- ence with a positive feeling towards the university and a sense of community engagement from having shared their personal skills and experiences with a new generation of business profes- sionals. In order to achieve the above, build upon strong communi- ty relationships, and enhance The Citadel brand as a quality institution with outstanding students, a course entitled “Strategic Consulting Experience” was developed. The course has been offered for approximately seven years and resulted in over 200 MBA students providing consulting services for over 50 clients. The course was designed to provide students with opportunities to work with external clients to assist them with strategic issues facing their organizations. While the benefits of the course are numerous, the primary benefit to the student is practical experience in solving real-world problems using skills acquired through their MBA program. In addition, the clients receive, at no cost to them, consulting services from students who may bring fresh and innovative perspectives to their organ- izations. A resultant benefit to The Citadel School of Business is an enhanced image within the external business community due to the positive interaction between students, faculty, and clients. The Strategic Consulting Experience: Providing Experiential Learning Opportunities within an MBA Program Ronald F. Green The Citadel ron.green@citadel.edu Sara Williams Indiana State University sara.williams@indstate.edu Page 41 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 43, 2016 COURSE STRUCTURE The course is offered over the entire 15 week semester. While each project is tailored to the specific needs of each cli- ent, each consulting team uses this time to study its client's or- ganization and environment, gather and analyze relevant docu- ments and data, and make recommendations to management. Project outcomes are communicated to management through oral presentations and a written final report. The size of a con- sulting team may vary with the complexity of the project and the size of the class, but typically is limited to 3 or 4 students. To maintain consistency with expectations for classroom-based courses, each student is expected to work on the project 8-10 hours per week for the entire semester. This includes visits to the client's facility, on- and off-site gathering and analysis of data, presentations and report preparation, and the team's own planning meetings and project management. Projects are chosen that can provide students with meaning- ful real-world experience and make a significant contribution to client organizations. Students are selected for consulting pro- jects based on competence, interest, and suitability to undertake the work involved. Students work in teams, cooperating among themselves to exploit their collective skills, experience and ef- fectiveness. Business graduate faculty supervise and assist the consulting teams. Students are encouraged to make use of all resources available through the university, community, and fed- eral, state and local government agencies. The design and ad- ministration of the consulting projects reflects the belief that groups of senior graduate business students have the compe- tence, maturity and integrity to undertake significant work in the community, can take responsibility for the conduct of the work, and can attain the standards of excellence of The Citadel and the graduate business program. The projects also reflect the belief that cooperation and teamwork provide a better vehicle for significant accomplishment in a complex environment than does individual competitive effort. PROJECT REQUIRMENTS Each graduate student project team is expected to:  Negotiate with the client organization an understand- ing of the objectives, nature, scope and anticipated outcomes of the project.  Draft, for the instructor's signature, a letter of engage- ment describing the nature, scope and limitations of services to be performed, the responsibilities of the parties, target dates and milestones, and reports and/or other items deliverable to the client. Identify any costs to be billed to the client and provide detailed estimates of the amounts involved.  Develop a plan for accomplishing the project's objec- tives for the instructor's approval.  Assign responsibilities to individual members of the team and monitor progress toward accomplishing pro- ject objectives.  Conduct studies, gather data, perform analyses, exam- ine alternatives, and make decisions necessary to meet the project objectives.  Maintain working papers documenting the work per- formed and providing a basis for the team's recommen- dations and reports.  Provide informal progress reports to the instructor on a weekly basis and notify the instructor of appointments to meet with senior personnel in the client organiza- tion.  Keep the principal client contact informed about pro- gress and brief him or her before all formal presenta- tions.  Make a preliminary oral presentation to the client mid- way through the project. This presentation is intended to report progress, identify obstacles and propose solu- tions, and if necessary, suggest modifications to the objectives and/or scope of the project.  Make a final oral presentation to the client summariz- ing project outcomes and explaining and justifying recommendations. This presentation will be attended by the instructor and any other faculty who are in- volved with the project.  Prepare a final written report for submission to the client by the School of Business Administration. MANAGING CLIENT INTERACTION AND EXPECTATIONS With respect to developing external project-based courses, likely the most daunting aspect is dealing with client expecta- tions. In order to maximize the benefit received by all involved with an experiential learning project, it is important to select clients who understand the nature of experiential learning and are willing to open their organizations to students who may need time to “find their way.” Empowering students to learn while doing requires faculty who are willing to “facilitate” ra- ther than “direct” and clients who appreciate the learning pro- cess. This is normally accomplished by having pre-course meetings between the faculty and clients and providing the cli- ent with hand-outs that fully describe the process. It is also important to establish clear expectations by encouraging exten- sive student-client dialogue during the engagement letter devel- opment process. Still, it is important to realize that regardless of faculty efforts at identifying satisfactory clients and projects, faculty should be aware of client characteristics that are less than desirable. Possible “difficult client” characteristics:  Not a single person - Your client is actually an entire committee and, unfortunately, getting the entire committee on the same page seems impossi- ble.  Unrealistic Expectations – For whatever reason, your client’s expectations surpass your capabili- ties.  Know it all – Your client feels such passion for their business that they already feel as though they are masters in their field and are unreceptive to suggestions involving anything outside of their comfort zone.  Clueless but desperate – They don’t have any idea what they need, but they know that their business needs help  Impatient – They want results immediately and have little concern for your own calendar/schedule  Don’t value your input – Even though they agreed to work with your group, a client may feel that Page 42 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 43, 2016 students are not going to be able to provide any valuable insight and may not respect the group’s time or recommendations. This type of “difficult client” looks at their role in this collaboration as more of a community service project, allowing your students to learn to work with clients, with- out expecting anything of value in return. Regardless of the type of “difficult client” your group might face, communication is the key to overcoming group/ client conflicts. Communication needs to happen on three lev- els, starting with written documentation. As stated earlier in this paper, an engagement letter needs to be created, approved by the supervising instructor, and then signed by the client. This document will be created after the group has met with the client and their instructor. It is important that an initial meeting takes place where expectations are set and this document serves as a reminder to all parties what those expectations are. This will outline expectations of the study, specify deliverables and dates, and include the class schedule. It is important for the class schedule to be included so that clients understand that it isn’t just their timetable that needs to be considered. If meet- ings are postponed or extensions are requested, it could run the timetable outside of the confines of the class schedule and the client needs to understand that although the group is flexible with dates, this is still part of a class and the university has deadlines to consider. Along with the written documentation, communication needs to take place and continue between the student group and the client. A minimum of three meetings should take place be- tween the two parties. The first meeting should have the goal of learning about the client, understanding their needs, and communicating the value you have as a group. At this meeting, expectations should be set and recorded in the engagement let- ter. A second meeting should take place further into the project to check in with the client, collect any additional client infor- mation that might be needed, and continue to build a relation- ship with the client. A side goal of each meeting should be to establish a relationship with the client and create more of a col- laboration feeling instead of a vendor/client dynamic. Creating a positive and professional relationship will not only help in terms of opening up the flow of communication, but will also be beneficial to any members of the group that might want to use the client as a resource in the future. A third meeting should take place towards the end of the project, just prior to the final report, to make sure they have created an output that will be most valuable to the client. While additional meetings and calls between the two groups could be beneficial, and are certainly not forbidden, you must make sure to recognize that too many meetings/calls may start to drain on the client’s time and create a sense of burden when dealing with your group (Sprague & Hu, 2015). Balance needs to be maintained between good com- munication and respect for the client’s time, which is why three meetings is the recommendation. The final level of communication that needs to take place is between the client and the instructor. At the pre-course meeting between the potential client and instructor, the discussion needs to focus on the needs of the client as well as the limitations of the class. While emphasizing the benefit of having a group of this caliber provide consultation services, an acknowledgment also needs to be made that this is still an experiential learning exercise and that certain limitations might exist. At the conclu- sion of this initial meeting, the instructor should also let it be known that although the students are empowered to work inde- pendently, course faculty will be facilitating the project and available to discuss any concerns that might arise. CONCLUSIONS, LESSONS LEARNED, AND POSITIVE EXPERIENCES While the previous section takes on a negative tone in de- scribing characteristics of difficult clients, it should not be con- cluded that this represents more than a small minority of the clients who participate in the course. The authors’ experiences in dealing with clients indicate that the vast majority of clients are extremely supportive of student needs and course objec- tives. Feedback in a variety of forms is collected from clients at the completion of the projects and the most common response is “I hope they all are receiving A’s.” One client has reported that a decision-tool to guide expansion efforts was used for several years after the project. Another reported that the student team’s recommendations were accepted in total and resulted in the de- velopment of a new residency program that was very success- ful. Yet another client reported that his organization had ac- cepted and implemented the student team’s recommendations to discontinue an initiative they felt to be flawed but that had al- ready incurred significant “sunk costs.” It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to effectively monitor the strategic and economic impact of student consulting projects due to the nature of the recommendations and the long timeframes that they often include. However, with AACSB International’s increasing emphasis on impact relative to ac- creditation standards, the authors are attempting to develop bet- ter reporting mechanisms to detail project outcomes. It should also be noted that the course described in this paper is used as a capstone experience for a limited number of graduating MBA students who apply for this option as opposed to a traditional lecture oriented capstone. Proposals are being considered to modify the course to allow for larger numbers of students to be included so that it may become the required capstone for all graduating MBA students. Finally, please note that this paper provides necessary, but not sufficient information for those wishing to develop similar experiential opportunities for students in their MBA programs. Copies of course syllabi, student and client handouts, and other useful course documents will be provided by the authors upon request. REFERENCES Hodge, Laurin, Proudford, Karen, & Holt Jr, Harry (2014). From periphery to core: The increasing relevance of experi- ential learning in undergraduate business education. Re- search in Higher Education Journal, 26, Number 2. Nash, John F. & Green, Ronald F. (2000). A capstone course for the MBA program. Proceedings of the American Socie- ty of Business and Behavioral Sciences Annual Confer- ence,7, 8-14. Las Vegas, NV. Sprague, Mary & Hu, Olivia (2015), Assessing the value to client organizations of student practicum projects. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 21 (2), 263-280. Sprague, Mary & Percy, R. C. (2014). The immediate and long- term impact of practicum experiences on students. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 20 (1), 91–111.