Business is not a spectator sport.
So we stop asking students to read about it. In each program a team sits in the chair where the decision actually gets made, in a real small-business world, inside a single class block. They decide, investigate, negotiate, persuade, and respond, and they walk out having done the thing, not heard about it.
Five verbs, five worlds.
Same spine, a different muscle every time. Pick one to see what a team actually does.
Read a real business, then make the call and defend it.
What students do
Teams get a case on a small business, weigh the numbers against the tradeoffs, and recommend a decision to a panel.
The skill it builds
Judgment. Turning messy, incomplete facts into one clear, defensible recommendation.
The books do not add up, and someone on the inside knows why.
What students do
A forensic-accounting escape room. Follow the money, clear the innocent, and name the insider who committed the fraud.
The skill it builds
Reading evidence. Telling a red herring from a real lead, and backing an accusation with proof.
Two teams, one deal, and a scoresheet each side keeps hidden.
What students do
Two teams negotiate a real deal. Each side has a private points table and a walk-away.
The skill it builds
Value creation. Finding the interest behind the position, and growing the pie before splitting it.
Win the yes from a buyer who has heard a hundred pitches.
What students do
A team pitches a buyer, lender, or panel and handles live objections from an objection deck.
The skill it builds
Persuasion. Turning features into benefits, and making the yes easy to say.
It is going wrong, right now, and the clock does not stop for you.
What students do
A live, unfolding emergency. A facilitator drops new developments on the clock while the team triages.
The skill it builds
Composure. Protect people first, tell the truth fast, and adapt as the facts change.
Same shape, five skills.
Every program shares a spine, so a class that runs one can run all five. What changes is the muscle it builds.
Understanding
Quality
The shared shape across all five: four criteria, 25% each. Case in Point scores these four; every program tunes the wording, never the balance.
Worth it on both sides of the desk.
For faculty
- Drop-in ready. Print the packet and run it. Facilitator guide, answer key, and scoring rubric all included.
- No prep, no specialty. You do not need an accounting or negotiation background to run any of them.
- Real frameworks, not gimmicks. Interests versus positions and BATNA, benefits versus features, forensic-accounting controls, decision analysis, and crisis communication, the same concepts your upper-level courses build on.
- Fair, transparent scoring. Four criteria at 25% each, the same clean shape across all five.
- Fits your block. Setup, play, and debrief land inside one class session.
- The numbers always tie out. Each exercise is generated from one source file with its answers checked automatically, so a case never drifts into being unfair or unsolvable.
For students
- You do business, you do not just read about it. Real decisions, real tradeoffs, real consequences.
- Worlds you already get. A café, a juice bar, a landscaper, a barbershop. No jargon wall to climb first.
- Skills that travel. Deciding, investigating, negotiating, persuading, and responding show up in every job you will ever have.
- Everyone plays. Team-based by design, so you are in it, not watching someone else be in it.
- You leave with proof. You made the call, found the fraud, closed the deal, won the yes, and steered a crisis, before you ever had a business card.
The whole method, in one open book.
A short, readable textbook that teaches the five muscles the programs train, worked end to end through one running small business. Free to read, share, and adapt under Creative Commons.
- One chapter per muscle. Decide, investigate, negotiate, persuade, respond, each taught the way the packets play it.
- Worked, not lectured. Every idea is carried through Sunny's food truck, with the numbers shown and checked.
- Practice with answers. Try-it problems and a full answer key, so students can work and self-check.
- Yours to adapt. Licensed CC BY 4.0: assign it, excerpt it, remix it, at no cost.