In this activity participants solve a workplace challenge (e.g. which of these 3 marketing campaigns should we choose for this product?). The workplace scenario can be entirely made up or it can be based on a real workplace scenario. Participants can work in small teams, ideally with a volunteer supporting them. They should be provided with clear instructions for the challenge, including timings, and an information pack with materials needed to complete the challenge, such as images, news stories, data, graphs.  

Students could present on how they approached the challenge and their findings to stakeholders within the firm and get feedback. If a real scenario is used, staff could feedback on how they have approached this challenge themselves, what steps they took and the outcome. 

In this activity students carry out a structured research task, such as a competitor review or survey activity. You could structure the activity as follows: 

1. Brief: introduce students to the task, provide some real-life context to show the relevance of this research in your company/team. 

2. Research task: Participants could be given a set structure to follow, including certain criteria, key questions or sub-headings.  

Participants could present the results of this research to stakeholders within the firm and get feedback. 

 You could also encourage participants to reflect on and critique their own research using criteria provided. 

This activity gives participants the chance to role play a negotiation, such as a complex sale or another decision involving multiple stakeholders. 

There could be a “starter activity” included here to introduce participants to what good negotiation looks like and the complexities involved. This could be in the form of a brief presentation from staff about how they use negotiation at work, or an activity where students are given some definitions of negotiation, and they decide which is the best description. 

The negotiation activity can be structured as a game, with teams acting as different stakeholders, negotiating with each other. Ideally, each team will be provided with an information pack and some preparation time to plan their strategy before they begin negotiating with the other team. 

A volunteer could be assigned to each group to observe how they perform in the negotiation. Observations could be recorded against some criteria provided at the start of the activity and then fed back to the group at the end.  

Students can be given a break half-way through the negotiation to discuss strategy with their team. You could provide some “new information” at this point, which may influence their strategy.  

Try to relate the negotiation as closely as possible to a recent scenario as this gives students a better sense of a “real” negotiation. 

In this activity, participants receive a brief, such as the company needs a new office location or is seeking new clients, and must work in groups to prepare a pitch in response to the brief. Groups should be provided with a briefing pack, including activity instructions, timings, useful information sources or links. 

 Groups can then present their pitches to other groups and/or volunteers. Feedback could be provided and a winning group could be selected for giving the best pitch. 

Ideally, the scenario used in the pitch activity should be real, or relevant to the company.  

 It could also be useful to include some guidance and success criteria around giving a good “pitch”.