How schools host a case competition.

A school case competition is a learning design problem disguised as an event. The Case Competition archive in Hong Kong is useful here because it already has a public visual identity, a committee model, a case shelf, and a contact path. Hosting well means protecting students, judges, and the integrity of the brief.

Write a brief that can be finished.

Choose one decision owner and one time horizon. Provide enough exhibits to analyse and not so many that the weekend becomes a reading test. If you use a licensed case from a business school, follow the licence. If you write an original local case, separate facts from colour, and date every figure.

The archive’s previous cases show the range: operations and public service, brand globalisation, crisis marketing, market entry, talent, and culture. Do not invent winners for those cases. Use them as teaching objects or as practice sets, not as unofficial result tables.

Design the learning, then the spectacle.

Decide whether the contest is a 3-hour sprint, a 24-hour case, or a multi-round weekend. Publish judging criteria in advance. Give teams a rehearsal slot if it is their first event. Provide a quiet work room, a print or export path, and a backup laptop rule.

• Eligibility, team size, and language.
• Allowed tools: calculators, public web, or closed pack only.
• Judge biographies at a high level, without turning the panel into a marketing claim you cannot support.
• A code of conduct covering plagiarism, AI disclosure if relevant, and respectful Q&A.

Committee and ambassadors.

The original committee page describes an executive group for planning, funding, and school relations, plus ambassadors who host teams. That split still works. Executive members own the brief, rooms, and judges. Ambassadors own arrival, meals, and the human temperature of the week. Neither group should leak the case.

After the final.

Give feedback, not only trophies. A short written rubric returned to each team is more educational than a vague “great job.” Archive photographs with consent. Write an after-action note: what broke, which exhibit confused everyone, whether timing was humane. Then hand the note to next year’s committee.

Schools can start from for schools, the committee, and judging criteria.