Last year at the 2019 Polit Case Competition, the team ”Tværfagligt gruppearbejde” blew the audience and judges away with their economic insight, well-organized presentation, and impressive slideshows.
The group consisting of Jens Brink (University of Copenhagen), Viktor Julegaard (University of Copenhagen), Jacob Nymark Poulsen (Copenhagen Business School), and Magnus Eckardt Lauritzen (Copenhagen Business School) took home the first price. We had a talk with the winning team about their experience at Polit Case Competition 2019.
How did you prepare for the case-solving?
”To be able to focus purely on the case solving while at Polit Case Competition, we designed a PowerPoint master template and collected beautiful, inspiring, and useful slide decks to draw inspiration from. We also assigned rough roles – who take charge of writing the storyline, who does data work, and so forth. Then, the night before the case experience, we met for a couple of beers, and while this may not be advisable for all, it worked for us!”
How did you allocate and structure your time and tasks during case-solving?
”The first thing we did was to write a schedule on our whiteboard – when to be done with what, to secure a flow and avoid being stuck up on single tasks. The time allocation was roughly as follows:”
How did you prepare your presentation?
”After a fun and social dinner with the rest of the participants at the beautiful premises of DI, we returned to our interim office. We divided our storyline into four two-minute parts. We met early the next morning and presented for each other, giving feedback to each other. We focused on delivering a strong and comprehensible message without getting lost in detail. With the final script in place, we spent the remaining hours practising over and over again. This included how and where to stand, how to bridge from one person to the next, and how to bind introduction and ending together – and ultimately ensured that the presentation went smoothly and was persuading.”
What is your best advice to future participants?
”Remember that the most crucial part of the Case Competition is the presentation – this is the only thing you are judged on! The tricky, but fun, part of Polit Case Competition is to deliver a high-quality, complicated economic analysis in a clear and understandable way. In short – make sure that your analysis is correct and make sure that you can explain it in a very brief amount of time.”
Why should economics students participate in Polit Case Competition 2020?
”Polit Case Competition is a short, fun, and very well-organized case competition, thus the perfect entry point to Case Competitions. You will undoubtedly learn more about yourself, teamwork, and how to apply economic analysis to real-life situations. It is a valuable chance for us to get out of the theoretical shell and use our skills – something that does not always come naturally to economists.”
How did you spend the price?
”I’ll have to admit that part of the price was spent the same night at a bar – and a couple of weeks later, we went out for a nice celebratory dinner. We are social persons and like to spend time together.”
What was the funniest part of participating?
”Polit Case Competition is a very social case competition, and although it is a competition, it was great fun to work alongside and against friends from university!”