Making the Most of Your MBA Project

This article is sponsored by IMD Business School.

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MBA projects are an excellent opportunity to transform theory into practice. Find out how they can help you shape your classroom knowledge into real-world solutions.

Sharpen your entrepreneurial skills with a startup project

Startup projects can be a particularly effective way for MBA students to learn about the finer subtleties of setting up their own businesses.

Martha Maznevski, MBA program director at IMD Business School, says that the special focus on startups on the school’s MBA projects allows students to explore the more practical areas of founding a business.  “We look at decision-making and all the pragmatics that revolve around entrepreneurial skills for start-ups. Right from how you find the business idea and how you develop it into a viable plan, to how you can get the financing and funding in order. We also focus on what to do when things go wrong, as they are bound to.”

Another aspect of entrepreneurship that perhaps doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves is the emotional side of setting up your own enterprise.  Maznevski believes that it is important to focus on the joy and the fun as well as the potential frustrations of being your own boss, and to understand all the reasons why people enjoy starting up a business.

“We find that many students get really excited by the idea of entrepreneurship and a large portion of them who didn’t think they were going to start their own business decide they’re going to at some point in their career. They work on a business plan and on their entrepreneurial skills during the year and keep the idea in mind. A few years after graduation, they move in that direction,” says Maznevski.

The international business trip that MBA students experience as part of their course can also prove to be a good place to sharpen their entrepreneurial skills.

“On IMD’s discovery expedition, where we travel with students abroad, we work a lot with entrepreneurs and start-ups. We also have a stream on innovation, looking at how to implement innovation at different companies and we look at different business ecosystems as well. All these things come together to give not just an inspirational feel of entrepreneurship but also a pragmatic feel of it. Students learn to work on their entrepreneurial skills with the tools provided,” says Maznevski.

Understand the subtleties of leadership training and development

Leadership training and development that takes place in the classroom is one thing, but applying it to live MBA projects requires a whole new understanding of the subject.

Maznevski believes that there are basically two aspects of leadership: formal and informal.  “In formal roles, MBA students work in a variety of roles. On the informal side, it’s not just about their jobs but about how they can work in a job to have a strong influence on the people they work with.”

In light of this, Maznevski believes that there is a lot more to leadership training and development than meets the eye. For example, many MBA students may have prior experience working in developing countries but they aren’t used to working together as part of a larger group.

“At IMD, when we take our students to South Africa on the discovery expedition, the business issues are fairly straightforward. It’s when they start to work on implementation that the issues become difficult. So what they’re learning about is really leadership training and development: to think outside the box to find solutions for the business problems, and influence people to really try these solutions.”

Maznevski believes that these are things you cannot learn in a classroom. “That’s why MBA projects are so important to an MBA program. I think we need MBAs, but we need MBAs who understand what’s going on in a complex environment. It’s about making decisions and anticipating the impact better, knowing what questions to ask and how to find out the information in order to anticipate the outcomes better.”

Offer the right solutions in international business consulting

Being successful in the field of international business consulting hinges on an intimate understanding of a company’s needs.

MBA projects that focus on consulting can allow students to really use their skills to find good – and viable – solutions. However, Maznevski emphasizes the need for a high level of analysis, along with the ability to ask the right questions. “One of the two projects we offer earlier in the year is a growth project. Students learn about scoping, about analyzing the industry, about how to present the findings in ways that they really listen to the company for what the underlying issues are. Sometimes the questions that the companies state are not the ones they’re really asking, so we go through explicit consulting methods,” she says.

A less common MBA project that IMD offers is focused on implementing change in international business consulting. Maznevski believes that an understanding of how to effect change is an important part of any MBA candidate’s consulting repertoire.

“In South Africa, the students understand what’s going on in local environments distance, and after that they do a consulting project where they’re implementing change in a multi-national company. So they go into a company and they work with international politics. For example, there are situations where the person who is sponsoring the project has a personal agenda that’s slightly different from that of other people who need to implement the project. All of these are the subtleties of consulting,” says Maznevski.

However, Maznevski goes on to add that one of the most important things as far as MBA projects and international business consulting is concerned is the dialogue between faculty and students. “You can’t just throw them out there and have them learn,” Maznevski says. “The way that this learning turns into the kind of knowledge, skills and competencies that they can use after graduation comes only from really good conversation and facilitation. That’s why we have professors and support staff involved in every project.”

This article is sponsored by IMD Business School.