Select your role
Choose the perspective you will use during the scenario.
Strategic Planner
Focuses on goals, trade-offs, resources, and long-term direction.
Operations Organizer
Focuses on structure, workflow, coordination, and practical delivery.
People Leader
Focuses on motivation, communication, relationships, and buy-in.
Performance Monitor
Focuses on metrics, accountability, risk, and quality control.
Scenario: Fall Festival Budget Cut
Your student activities committee planned a $15,000 fall festival. The budget has been cut to $8,000 after vendor contracts were already discussed.
You have three possible supports:
- A local business offers $3,000 if its brand is featured.
- The alumni association offers $2,000 if you add a networking component.
- Campus sustainability offers $1,500 if the event becomes greener.
The team is split. Some want to protect the original student event. Others want to redesign it around the new constraints.
Your role:
Choose a team response
Select the decision your team would defend.
Accept corporate sponsorship
Recover funding quickly while managing concerns about commercialization.
Build a community event
Use alumni and sustainability support to redesign the event around broader stakeholders.
Downsize the event
Keep student control by reducing scope, renegotiating vendors, and protecting the original purpose.
Create a hybrid model
Split the event into student-led activities plus sponsored, alumni, and sustainability components.
Reflection summary
Role used:
Team decision:
What this decision practises
Instructor use
This activity can be used as a short classroom discussion, small-group exercise, or debrief prompt after reading management theory.