Note to Instructors
The Marketplace draft has been used
in integrated business courses and has proven to be very successful in
forming balanced and harmonious teams. In several years of use with both
undergraduate business majors and MBA students, there have been virtually
no complaints about the equity of workload or personality conflicts. There
are still differences in the quality of the work, but the teams seem to
be happy with their members.
The description below is has been used to form
from 5 to 18 teams. Credit for the sports-type draft system goes to Ron
Decker at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. It is highly recommended
Students are from multiple disciplines –
sample assuming 6 teams are being picked
- The teams for the Marketplace exercise
will be picked by students.
- Six teams are to be formed.
- To ensure proper balance, a sports'-type
draft will be used.
- During the class period before the draft
will occur, all students will briefly introduce themselves to the class
in much the same way they would introduce themselves to a prospective
employer. The goal is to persuade the rest of the class that the student
has the necessary skills and motivation to make a contribution to the
team.
- The Marketplace draft will take place
during the next class following presentations of resumes.
- Six students with either a management or
human resource concentration or a general business major will be selected
to serve as initial team captains. The team captains will be announced
during the class when the resumes are presented.
- As a condition for accepting the team captain
position, the student must commit to not reveal any details regarding
the order of picking for at least 5 real years.
- The balance of the students will be divided
into four groups based on their majors (Accounting/Finance, Marketing,
Logistics/Operations and all others). Each of the four groups will be
assigned to one of the four drafts.
- The order of selection by the team captains
will be randomly determined, and change with each round of the draft.
- On the day of the draft, the initial team
captains will be free to pick a second person from those with accounting/finance
as a major.
- In the second round, the captain and his
or her first pick will decide together on who to pick from the marketing
students as the third member of the team.
- In the third round, the team will pick the
fourth member from the logistics/operations majors.
- In the fourth round, the team will pick
from among the remaining students.
- The entire class will convene at 8:10 am
to receive final instruction on the mechanics of how the draft will
work.
- Team selection will begin at 8:20 am.
- Team captains will pick the second person
at an interval of 1 minute (i.e., team 1 will pick at 8:21, team 2 at
8:22, team 3 at 8:23, etc.).
- There will be a 10 minute break between
rounds while each team confers on its pick for the next round.
- If there are not enough students in a major,
then a random set of students will be selected from another major which
has more students or just a few students. In any case, there will always
be the same number of students as teams to choose from in each draft.
- Once the team captains and other members
of the team have decided on the priority of their choices for the next
team member, the team captains will go into the hallway to make the
pick in secrecy. The order of picking will be random for each draft.
- No one may refuse to be on someone's team.
- The balance of the class time will be spent
in team meetings in order to exchange phone numbers, class schedules
and get to know one another.
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