The CFO Pushes Back. The Bus Driver Doubts You. The Superintendent Wants Proof. Welcome to Kellogg’s New Case Study The Wall Street Journal just reported that Northwestern’s Kellogg School is changing the classic M.B.A. case study with AI. Instead of reading a pile of facts and writing a memo, students now question AI characters such as superintendents, CFOs, and bus drivers to solve real-world budget problems. No ready-made answers. Just uncertainty, bias, and pushback. In other words, real life. That’s what makes a good case study powerful. It reveals lazy thinking. You can see right away who truly understands the issue and who just memorized the playbook. I’ve used a similar approach when hiring for acquisitions positions. I’d hand candidates the full broker packet,T-12, rent roll, comps,and a 17Bii calculator, then ask, “So, what should this building sell for?” Many people froze. They could model in Excel but couldn’t think through the problem. They’d never learned how to value a deal with quick math or explain the reasoning behind it. That’s why I appreciate what Kellogg is doing. Case studies, whether in class or on the job, separate those who can plug in numbers from those who can make sense of them. Now, with AI, we can test and train that kind of judgment at scale. Not to replace thinking, but to reveal who’s actually doing it. https://lnkd.in/ekh2Vg9q