Team roles in case competitions.

Four students with the same job will produce one late deck. The Case Competition treats roles as a time technology. Roles should be light, named, and able to rotate between contests so nobody becomes only “the PowerPoint person.”

A working set of roles.

• Case lead. Owns the governing question, the clock, and the recommendation sentence. Stops rabbit holes.
• Research lead. Mines the exhibit pack and any allowed public facts. Labels sources. Kills unverified claims.
• Model lead. Builds the one calculation that matters: profit bridge, market size, fare yield, capacity, or valuation sketch.
• Story and slides. Turns claims into action titles and a 10-slide spine. Guards white space.
• Q&A and red team. Attacks the recommendation from the judge’s chair while there is still time to fix it.

On a team of four, combine story with Q&A or research with modelling. Do not create a fifth role called “ideas” with no output.

The first hour is a meeting, not a split.

Read together. Agree the decision, the criteria, and the first issue tree. Only then split. Teams that split at minute five produce four disconnected mini-cases. Teams that stay together for three hours produce no slides.

Handoffs need artefacts, not vibes.

Research should hand the modeler a table of drivers. The modeler should hand story a base-case number and two sensitivities. Story should hand Q&A a list of weak points. The lead should freeze the recommendation in writing so the deck cannot drift.

Ambassadors and executive committee members in a live week have a different job: logistics, hospitality, and continuity. Do not confuse contest roles with organising roles. Students who want to run the event should read the committee page and the school hosting note.

Practise roles on a 90-minute drill from the training page, then stretch into a 24-hour strategy.