Consulting Lab (formerly Strategy Lab) is an experiential lab course designed to give students the experience of engaging with real clients on strategic issues as management consultants. Professor Harry L. Davis designed the course with Joe Raudabaugh (MBA ’80), an emeritus partner at Kearney who became interested in experiential education as a student in one of Prof. Davis’ original New Product Laboratory courses. Projects are sourced from real clients by Kearney consultants, who also serve as coaches for student teams.
Students have two objectives in this course: to (1) address the complex, strategic business problems brought by clients and develop actionable, data-driven recommendations and (2) to develop their own interpersonal and leadership skills in the context of a flat team. Teams will be created based on project interest from students. Each project will center on an important strategic challenge and require students to apply a broad set of concepts and tools. Kearney will coordinate client participation, supplement faculty with consulting resources to coach and support the student teams, and provide collaboration technologies to enable the teams and clients to work virtually. Previous clients have included 3M, Campbell Soup, Georgia Pacific, Nike, Walgreens, Feeding America, Siemens Energy, Emerson, IDEX, Avendra, Innerworkings, Valkre, Accretive Health, Beam Suntory, Facebook, and Walmart.
- An Information Session was held on Wednesday, February 8 from 12-1pm in Harper Center C08. For those who could not attend, please view a recording of the session. Note: Update to slides in Info Session recording -- the first class session will be on March 2, and the last class session will be on May 19 (Week 9).
The Spring 2023 course will be in person, and classes will be held at the Gleacher Center.
Additional meetings:
In addition to the regular Thursday afternoon meetings, there are three additional required meetings. If you cannot commit to attending these sessions, you should not apply for the course. Please note that the first is before the beginning of the spring 2023 quarter.
Thursday, March 2 (revised date) – Orientation from Kearney, team meetings
Friday, March 24 – First in-person meetings with clients
Friday, May 19 – Final Debrief
Enrollment:
Enrollment is via iBid, and this course is open to all populations (full-time, evening and weekend) starting in Phase 1 of bidding.