Contributed by Russ Coff
The BaFa BaFa exercise accomplishes this beautifully. This exercise was originally developed for the U.S. Navy to train personnel on how to interact when being exposed to new cultures (see the extended history in this Simulation & Gaming article). The web site describes it as useful in diversity training. That’s true but it is also useful for strategy courses where cultural differences are relevant. The exercise requires about 2 – 3 hours to run so it is more useful for evening or executive courses where you have larger blocks of time. Here is an overview of how the exercise unfolds:Often in M&A, there is a concern that the buyer has overbid – especially when there is competition for the target and the risk of winner’s curse is heightened. 
In essence, if firms bid based on their “unbiased estimates” of the target’s value, the bids may be normally distributed around the true value and the winner is especially likely to have overbid (cursed). The task then, is to shade one’s bid to avoid overbidding. A standard exercise to demonstrate this phenomenon is to have the students bid on a jar of coins (which I describe as a restaurant chain). This is of special interest in a strategy course since the risk of being cursed is driven by the variance around the valuation (not the mean). Variance, it turns out, is driven by aspects of the target that are hard to value. These include strategic resources, human capital, complementarities, cross business synergies (e.g., layers of coins to reflect different target business units), or any other source of uncertainty. As such, even if the winner’s curse is covered in another course, these elements will be specific to a strategy course. Here are materials needed to run the exercise:
This is an old video depicting the process for a $20M investment in the laserdisk division. It has two uses in class. First it illustrates some limits of “core competence” (as the term is usually used) as a guiding principle for analyzing whether business units will add value — the clip describes 3M’s competence, with a straight face, as “two dimensional products.” Second, the video might be described as depicting an exercise decision for a real option that was acquired earlier. One can explore the role of core competence and other organizational factors in making such exercise decisions.
3M, of course, is extremely sophisticated in it’s management of core competencies — maintaining deep expertise in a well-defined set of technologies. The only one with the wool pulled over their eyes was the filmmaker who really did believe that 3M’s core competence was 2 dimensional products…
Contributed by Russ Coff
The attached PowerPoint file contains a list of what to prepare before class (slide 1) and the slides for class, including discussion and wrap up slides. It is best to go over the directions in detail in class as, unfortunately, students often do not read the directions very carefully; the verbal overview also gets them thinking about setting up a divisional vs. a functional structure for the task. It really is worth stressing the fact that they need to set up a structure. Choose an external quality control group at the beginning of class — Purposefully pick students who are quick and pay attention to detail for this task, as it will have to be completed in a short period of time.Overall, what tends to happen is that both groups improve from trial 1 to trial 2, however the functional group improves by a much greater amount and generally has fewer QC errors (i.e. words used repeatedly). Continue reading
Contributed by Russ Coff
Contributed by Russ Coff
Contributed by Russ Coff
The Alaska Gold Mine case is my (Mason’s) favorite starter case for undergraduate, MBA, and executive MBA strategy courses. 
Reprinted here with permission of author Jeffrey Barach along with my PointPoint slides I use to administer the case.
Click to get the:
The video below provides a lot of good fodder to reference back to when doing the exercise. Start the class session by showing the video before doing anything else. Continue reading
The mid course evaluation or any other feedback from students (such as the culture artifact hunt) can be used as a jumping off point for an exercise on organizational change. All you need to do is take their suggestions to a logical conclusion and tell them that you are changing the assignments and/or grading structure. This, of course, is small potatoes compared to real strategic change. However, even if you pick fairly moderate changes, students will typically protest. Then you can discuss the influence tactics used to thwart the proposed change. It can be great fun to play with their heads (but be sure to let them know it was only an exercise)! You might think it unwise to intentionally anger your students as part of an exercise. However, this is a lesson they won’t forget and, if you debrief carefully, they will see why the lesson is so important. Here is an example of the types of changes I announce:
Contributed by Russ Coff
Contributed by Paul Friga
Contributed by Sharon Livesey
Contributed by Sharon Livesey
Contributed by Joan Allatta
Contributed by Joan Allatta
Contributed by Andrew Inkpen
Contributed by Tim Madden
Contributed by Joan Allatta
Contributed by Joan Allatta
Contributed by Joan Allatta
Carpenter Strategy Toolbox 