Thursday, May 18, 2006

Feedback? Please.

I'm finished, right? I have my MBA. The grades are in. I achieved the GPA I was targeting. New job. New location. Everything is peachy, right? No, everything is not alright. And let me tell you why, I have not yet received any feedback on the cleverest group project I've ever been a part of. When I say clever, I mean, wow, I wish I would have thought of that clever and just so you know, I didn't think of it. I usually am not the one with the clever idea. I'm the one that takes the clever idea and teases it out, asks the tough questions, and finds a way to fit everything together. I'm also pretty witty (and humble), as evidenced by my paper on the death of globalization vis-a-vis Rod Stewart, but hey, I'm not here to sing my own praises. I'm here looking for feedback on an idea that wasn't mine, but that still has my name somewhat associated with it.

The class: Game Theory with Adam Brandenburger (the brilliant strategist that co-wrote Co-opetition).

The assignment (55% of our grade): group project defining a situation and how to use game theory to solve it.

Our specific project: a paper on how game theory is used in group projects (I'm giggling right now as I write this. I mean, is that clever or what??)

Our base approach: Usage of a decision tree to show that when a group project is assigned, it should never be completed.

Our solution: Usage of added value to calculate the willingness to pay and opportunity costs of each participant in the project.

I won't bore you with all of the details, but I must say, that was an entertaining project. We're not going to bore the professor with nuclear arms races or what should Google do next. Nope. We're going to talk about how group projects suck, nobody likes doing them, and how they eventually are completed.

Yes, there is a small part of me that will miss this.

1 comment:

Mo said...

That is an awesome project! Never would want to have the "less group projects" idea take hold though. My grades would have suffered immensely.