MBA Consulting Practicum

Upcoming Events

You may view the recording of an information session given to FT MBA students regarding the MBA Consulting Pracitcum to be held for FT MBA students in the Fall 2017 semester. The content of the course is the same as what will be offered in Summer 2017 at the DC campus. Please note the calendar reviewed in the recording has Fall 2017 dates. You can expect a similar schedule for the summer course, adjusted for summer dates. Please contact Nicole Coomber (nmcoomber@rhsmith.umd.edu) for more information. 

https://umd.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=3f36161c-0ed7-4dba-b8c8-466ccbcbf76a 

Course Description

The Business Consulting Practicum - BUMO758K is a 4-credit course and consists of semester-long consulting engagements with clients who have contracted with the Robert H. Smith School of Business to receive management consulting services.  The course also integrates regular class time for project teams to receive timely instruction on a wide array of consulting skills to supplement the client engagement during the entire semester. For Summer 2017, classes will be held at the DC Campus.  

At the core, consulting is about problem-solving for clients. Whether you intend to work as a consultant for outside clients or to provide the best services within your own company as an internal consultant, the frameworks, tools, and techniques you learn in this class will set you up for success. This course is led by Nicole M. Coomber, PhD, a lecturer in management and organization who has taught consulting classes for the past eight years, and Albert Krall of Deloitte Consulting, who has 25 years of experience in Deloitte, Accenture, and smaller consulting firms.

Students who join this class will become junior consultants working for Coomber and Krall as managing partners. Coomber and Krall will engage a client and brief students on methods of consulting, background on the client, and problem-solving. The class will start with a three week consulting boot camp, where students will learn about consulting frameworks; problem solving methods; research and analysis methods; and presentation and storytelling methods. Throughout, the emphasis will be on teaching student consultants how to deliver value for the client.

After the initial boot camp in consulting practices, student consultants will work in teams of four or five on a project designed and scoped by Coomber and Krall. Student consultant teams will deliver four updates to their managing partners and their clients, culminating in a final deliverable to the client. The deliverables will consist of a kick-off deck; initial research findings; initial recommendations; and final recommendations. 

The topic of the project will be determined by Coomber and Krall based on initial interviews with students, and student consultants will be assigned to teams based on the initial interviews. All teams will work on different aspects of a project with one client.

Upon completion of the MBA Consulting Practicum course, students will gain a wide range of skills in a "living case" environment by:

1. Understand the management consulting industry and the application of consulting skills in all business settings
2. Explain how a structured consulting process can be used to analyze business problems, define approaches, design solutions and present understanding
3. Listen to, interpret, iterate, and define a client’s challenge within a consulting process
4. Understand how to gather and analyze research, both primary and secondary, that furthers understanding of a client’s challenge
5. Formulate a hypothesis for solving a client’s challenge based on prior knowledge, information gathering, and research
6. Create and evaluate possible solutions to a client’s problem, defined by specific criteria
7. Communicate ideas effectively in diverse professional settings
8. Synthesize the lessons of a client project and evaluate the performance of the team and the individual on delivering the results 

Application Process

The application process is competitive. 

Enrollment in the MBA Consulting Practicum is not guaranteed. Students must apply to be considered in the selection process.

To apply, students must complete the following:

1. The MBA Consulting Practicum application form.  
2. An interview (via Adobe Connect)

This information will be reviewed by Dr. Nicole Coomber, and appropriate Smith staff who assisted with sourcing clients to assess the background and career interests of the applicant pool.  The review process will focus on determining which students are the best fit for the projects being offered.  Follow-up interviews may be held with a subset of the applicant pool to finalize student selections for specific projects.

Students will be enrolled in Testudo by MPO once selected for the course.

Key Dates