Fredrick Maaseide

"Attend the workshops! It’s a great platform to meet potential teammates and other students interested in consultancy."

When were you an active case student at BI and at which campus?
I was an active case student during fall 2019.

Why did you decide to join BI’s case activities?
I wanted to apply my theoretical knowledge in practice. Case competition definitely challenged me in this area, including my presentation skills.

What was the name of your case team and how did you find your teammates?
I was a part of the Nordic Guardian Consultancy team. I was lucky enough to participate in a case workshop, where two international students were looking for new teammates. After a short interview, we established our team consisting of four different nationalities.

Did you have a specific role on your team?
I got the chance to experience every role that case competition had to offer. After a few cases, I found confidence in presenting the solution itself. 

What is your best memory from your case journey at BI?
I have many great memories from case competitions. All of them include memories I share with my international teammates, which I am super grateful to have met. My best memory was the feeling when our team was announced winners of BI Case Challenge 2019, knowing that our team was going to represent BI in the upcoming University of Münster Case Challenge 2019. 

What are your top three takeaways from case training and competitions?

1. Teamwork! We developed good friendships during our spare time, but the mentality completely switched as soon as the case file was on our screen. Brainstorming, precise communication and task delegation were continuous throughout a case. I think our social gatherings besides case, increased our ability to cooperate when solving cases.
2. Deadlines! The deadline for our first case was two weeks. Next case, one week. Last case, four hours! Our team developed a progress sheet, where we had deadlines every 10 minutes in order to efficiently solve the cases. I´m glad to have experienced this type of time pressure and how I approach it, as I’ve been facing multiple challenging deadlines during my master’s degree.
3. The people! I had an amazing time with my team, and we developed a very supportive culture. Svein, Hilde and Marielle were good mentors and engaged in our skills development. The case workshops are also a great platform for networking with other teams.

What skills did you learn from participating in case which were relevant to your development/career and how?

1. Problem solving skills. Definitely an important skill that I developed during case competitions. It was an important lesson for me to see that our solutions actually were feasible. My team presented a case in Münster with the CEO of the company present. After the presentation, he told us that he had already put our solution to practice and gone through with it.  
2. Presentation skills. I had no idea of the complexity of the PowerPoints when I watched the first team present on a case workshop. My team, Svein and Hilde gave me tools and instructions on how to develop neat PowerPoints that easily communicate the message.  
3. Decision-making skills. There can be a lot of uncertainty the first minutes during a case. After brainstorming through different alternative solutions, our team had to decide on one solution and stick to it, even if we saw a better alternative halfway through the case. It was important that decisions were made efficiently as we had extremely limited time. 

Do you have any advice to students who are curious about case?
Attend the workshops! It’s a great platform to meet potential teammates and other students interested in consultancy. I realized after attending, that it's also a great way to get in touch with international students!