The last 2 mths we have bombarded this blog with random thoughts from all our Firenze Interns on their journey and current thoughts. What we havent done is put it all together for an easy comprehension.
Boring newsletter post to the rescue :)
<Boring News letter post>
Why Project Firenze?
The idea was to get students from top bschools to collaborate across and stretch them with a case that is several levels tougher, ambiguous and more difficult than the other case competition. By doing something like the students are forced to be in a state of discomfort which immediately leads to innovation and learning when good teamwork, mentorship is facilitated. When a project is run with that motive leadership learnings is bound to happen and that was the goal. Ofcourse students who can go through such a vigorous method and yet love the experience and learn from it would have competencies which are congruent to the most successful Microsoft employees.
Also by sharing current business problems that we are trying to solve in front of students one of the goals to see some innovative thinking which we can take and implement. A win-win situation.
· 150 students from Tuck (60) & Tepper (90) participated on current business problems from Microsoft Services.
· Tuck students were asked to focus on Sharepoint Service offerings and were given freedom to look across the world of how they would grow that portfolio globally. Where? Which countries? What strategies in which countries? How? What is the growth? The focus was on technology and freedom was on geography. The judges were from the Sharepoint product group and Services line offering Directors
· Tepper students were asked to focus on Microsoft Services’ explosive growth requirement in Brazil and were given the freedom to look at several technologies across the services portfolio and which pieces of services offerings/technologies can provide that growth. What should we do first? How should we implement it? When? What will it take? The focus was on geography with the freedom given on technology. The judges were from Brazil in the field, and from the Latin America HQ.
· For helping answer qns and provide some mentorship - The student participants from both these universities were put in touch with ppl who actually run the business from Corporate or field over 1 hr conference calls – 2 times in 2 wks.
· After 2 wks – the students were asked to give presentation decks over from where only 20 students from each university were picked for the finals
· The students were given detailed feedback on their strategy, recommendations, style so that they could have some learning from the exercise
· After another wk – the finalists (20 students from each university) presented as a conference call/presentation to the business stakeholders for about 25 mins including Q&A
· The winners were then picked and invited to redmond.
Detailed time line is below.
Dates
Events
Oct 1 -
· Competition Announced at Tepper & Tuck officially
Oct 22
· Case Competition STARTS
Oct 26th & Nov 2nd
· Mentorship calls for all teams over 1 hr conf calls with Microsoft business stakeholders.
Nov 10
· First Round Ends – as students submit their presentations
Nov 15
· 4 Teams from each university announced as finalists
Nov 20
· Finals – Top 4 teams present via teleconference & Winners picked
Dec 1st – 4th
· Winning students invited to fly to Redmond for the “Microsoft leadership Experience”
Dec 4th
· Final round Internship Interviews for all winners
January/February
· Internships offered in Redmond and Latin America
March
· Interns accept offers
May/June
· Interns join Microsoft
Who were the judges the students presented to in Round 1 and Finals?
Jonathan Biard – Director, Microsoft Services
Catherine Walton – Sr. Product Manager, Sharepoint Product Group
Eric Stathers – Director, Microsoft Services
Francisco Aguilera – General Manager, Microsoft Services Latin America
Gustavo Souza – Director, Microsoft Services Latin America
Hermenegildo Cavalcanti – Manager, Microsoft Brazil
What is the Microsoft Leadership Experience that the students were being invited to?
· The winning teams from Tepper and Tuck were given a new problem which is a combination of the two problems that the teams had solved individually. They then were combined so that there are 2 teams of mixed Team and Tuck members.
· For 6 hrs after this happens, the 2 teams were driven towards a “Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing” phases where the students get to know each other, challenge each other’s assumptions and get to a solution given pre-existing business prejudices.
· During this time, each team was observed by a General Manager and a Senior HR Manager.
· At the end of this, the teams were given feedback on how the team reacted, how they formed, what the leadership styles were, the team dynamics. Feedback included what the team and students did well, what they could have done better and give an opportunity to learn more about themselves, their team skills, conflict resolution abilities and their leadership skills.
· The HR Managers will then give personal reports to each student on several competencies that Microsoft has to help its employees chart their personal/business/managerial/leadership growth. The feedback was along the top competencies which are found in high levels in our top performers at Microsoft, so that the students get a good benchmarking view of what they are doing great and where they can improve.
· More importantly the whole day helps the students apply their academic learnings in a very safe environment for a real life current business problem while being observed/coached/mentored by Microsoft executives and HR managers.
· This we believe was an invaluable experience which by itself is a great award for any student along leadership learning experiences.
Who were the execs who were part of the Microsoft leadership experience?
Norm Judah – CTO, Microsoft Services
John Frederiksen – General Manager, Microsoft Services
Laura Longcore – General Manager, Microsoft Services
Kathy Ramirez – Senior HR Manager, Microsoft Services
Lisa Bourdeau – HR Director, Microsoft Services
Who are the students who won Microsoft internships through Project Firenze?
Internship at Microsoft Services Redmond: Deepthi Kapila (Tepper), Sheldon Menezes (Tuck), Vivek Raval (Tuck)
Internship at Microsoft Services Latin America: Udayan Pandit (Tuck), Harpreet Duggal (Tepper)
Ofcourse you are getting to hear from them on this blog :)
</Boring News letter post>