‘Problem Based Learning’ – How to learn management concepts One needs to learn the ‘science’ of management in a situation that allows them to practice the ‘art’ of management. Management at best is a combination of art and science. Some would argue that it’s more of an art than science, and an equal number could argue the other way around. Unlike many of the pure sciences, management typically does not have one ‘right’ answer. Sometimes the same problem can be solved in many ways based on the assumptions about facts that are unknown and expectations of the future. There are several examples just from the technology industry in the past four decades. A little research will show the difference in opinion when it came to the ‘personal computer’ between Microsoft and IBM, which revolutionized computing as we know today. The same smartness shown by Microsoft, however, did not translate to all the markets and the hesitation in betting on the ‘smartphone’ led Microsoft to the position it is in today in the smartphone market. In management decision making, while a lot of it can be boiled down to some sort of ‘science’ (with a framework or two thrown in) a lot of it is also an ‘art’ of decision making. Relevance of Problem Based Learning Let us understand this through an example from the field of marketing. Any primer in marketing would talk about the 1960s concept of the 4Ps of marketing in a very cold, matter of fact theoretical vein. The traditional way to learn that would be to remember them by heart and then hope that in the future you will be able to apply that when the situation comes. However, the learning here is very superficial without understanding the ‘application’ nuances of this fundamental concept. Whereas, ‘problem based learning’ could teach the same concept by presenting a ‘problem’ in the same industry where the mid-career professional is working, in a way that can be ‘applied’. A typical problem for the technology industry could be the ‘problem’ of launching a ‘testing’ service for an IT services firm. The student here has to debate what the ‘product’ really is and how the consumer sees the value from the ‘product’, at what ‘price’ does this service make it relevant for the consumer, how does he/she ‘promote’ the product and where (place) does he/she provide the product. This assignment could involve discussion with peers, validation with a faculty coach, and review by an industry professional and then finally presenting it to a group of peers for critical review. This process could involve several iterations and possibilities and take weeks to come up with. Learnt this way the concept is likely to be internalized for life versus memorizing the theory and waiting for an opportunity to apply it when the situation presents itself. Approach to Problem Based Learning Problem Based Learning was experimented few years back in some US schools including Stanford and Ohio State. Recently, Sunstone Business School in India has launched a 100% Problem Based Curriculum for working professionals where it makes more sense. In order to get the best of the ‘problem based learning’ approach, the following must happen: 1. The ‘problems’ have to be as close to reality as possible and go beyond the traditional short ‘case study’ approach. They must also be from the same industry that the participants are from, so that there is contextual familiarity. E.g., Sunstone students work on problems related to companies like Infosys, Airtel, Microsoft, Flipkart because their background is engineering centric. 2. The assignment must be worked in peer groups that are similar in background and are more ‘equals’ and take time over weeks to get to a solution that has gone through several debates, iterations before being agreed to by the group. 3. The facilitation process must be done by someone that is more of a ‘coach’ than a ‘teacher’. This person must have lived that professional life where similar problems arose, and then were either solved elegantly or there were learnings from incorrect solutions. The traditional PhD in marketing with no real corporate experience will fall severely short in helping the student learn the concept because of lack of exposure to the ‘problem’ itself. Technology plays an important part in this form of learning as it has become easier for real industry professionals to integrate in the learning process. This integration brings a lot of perspective in learning and makes it real. Future of learning So if one is interested in learning to be a good ‘manager’, how does he or she train for it? The traditional method in which pure sciences is learnt, where there is only one version of the truth, is one of ‘learning’ and then ‘applying’ the learning. That method certainly does not work for the ‘art’ side of management. One needs to learn the ‘science’ of management in a situation that allows them to practice the ‘art’ of management. This especially gets more important when the student is a mid-career professional and has had exposure to situations where the decisions are made but may be unaware of the theories that could help him or her make that decision. The concept of ‘being’->’applying’->’learning’ then become even more important.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 03:36:00 +0000
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