IBD Teams United – The 2017 Full Time MBA IBD Program “Big Reveal”
Finally, the wait is over!
The Spring 2017 IBD program Team Leads, faculty, and staff don’t have to stay quiet any longer. The IBD “Big Reveal” event took place on March 2nd when each Team Lead welcomed their respective Team Members with a short two-minute video on their client, their industry, and their overview on what the team has been tasked to solve. Team Leads also included information about their project destination and what they might experience while living and working for three weeks in-country. Finally, Team Leads presented their four new Team Members with a small gift that represented something about their project country or client.
Said one Team Member of the experience, “The IBD reveal day was a lot of fun. (Team) Leads did a great job staying silent until the day of so it remained a mystery, which I loved. The videos were hilarious and all of the gifts were so thoughtful.”
Clapping, hugs and handshakes were exchanged after each IBD team was revealed.
Another incoming IBD Team Member commented that “I loved seeing all of the fun videos and learning about all of the projects! The local country specific gifts for team members made the reveal especially tailored and fun. I was so excited to find out that I’d be spending my summer in Thailand, with a great group of people, working in a new industry. It is sure to be a fun experience and I look forward to being challenged personally and professionally along the way.”
Once the IBD project “Big Reveal” was concluded, it was time to get the newly formed groups working on a team building exercise called the Viking Attack – a longstanding IBD tradition. Building successful team dynamics is one of the main goals of the IBD course; IBD Executive Director Kristi Raube often describes IBD as “teamwork on steroids.” Although there are many courses at Berkeley-Haas in which MBA students work in teams, there isn’t one quite like IBD in which students end up spending three weeks together outside the US working on a consulting engagement. As Kristi Raube put it, “we really emphasize teamwork, as students will need to rely on each other in-country. International work is all about being flexible and being able to handle unpredictable and difficult situations.”
Over the next seven weeks leading up to the departure to their respective project countries, IBD teams will work to gather more insights from their clients, conduct extensive research, and tackle the problems they have been tasked to solve. At the same time, Kristi Raube and the IBD Faculty Mentors will work with the students on IBD course goals like developing consulting skills and techniques, communication and storytelling skills, and understanding cultural dynamics. As Faculty Mentor Judy Hopelain observed at this point in the course, “My teams are excited, revved up, and they know what they are doing.”
Tune in next month when we check back with the IBD teams on their progress, and we learn how ready they are to head out on their international adventures.
To see all the photos from the Spring 2017 IBD Program “Big Reveal”, click here. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByYfWhxK5s7RUzJQX1BULU11VFk
