Let me clarify why

Got this thoughtful email from the No camp:

Dear Professor,

I trust you have taken your recent decision to postpone the deadline taking care of interest of majority of the class. I just happen to check the final outcome and write back to you to express my dissatisfaction over the same.

A unidirectional decision based on majority polls always alienates a set of people on the other side of the table. I trust you will agree that a coherent decision shall always take care of interest of each party. After all, the 60 people in favor of submitting by original deadline (mentioned by you way back in course) are no different than others in terms of workload or their aspirations to spend chilled out weekends than other 160. It just with an element of discipline and zeal to "Make It Happen" that they covered more ground. My question is shouldn't there be an incentive for them?

Some students mentioned that they are inclined to implement more course learning into the project. I trust their intention but what is wrong in having a graded submission by original deadline and those interested in applying concepts further, re-submit their projects for feedback or may be have discussion with you / TA's later. This would have also taken care of nightmare of TA's to grade the project in case of non-uniform distribution.

Lastly, this alignment would have also taken care of split within the group. You will agree that all 60 people can't be from same study group. Now if 2 people want to finish it off early and others want to ride over the luxury of time from extended deadline, how should those group re-align?

I have put my argument forth and if you disagree, I completely trust your judgment and don't intend to develop this into another poll or a debate.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
V

My response:

HI V,

Thanks for the long and thoughtful message.

There are no easy options at this stage. And whatever decision happens, some group or the other won't be happy. The class is simply too heterogeneous to go by a one-size-fits-all prescription.

And sure, I could have done without controversy so close to a course evaluation. But that's not what's driving me and my decision. My aim is to stick to my mandate - bring to students the best in MKTR in terms of knowledge, thinking, skill-sets and application - within the constraints of time etc that could not be changed. I try to challenge the class to step outside the well-known comfort zone of regular MBA program MKTR.

And don't get me wrong - the class has done phenomenally well, IMHO. The way the class seems to have kept up with the amount of prime, useful material that was covered, the way the class has approached structured thinking about research design and methodology all inside of a 5 week term - is impressive by any standards. IMVHO, of course. I sometimes wonder if I have been too ambitious and whether anyone but a wet-behind-the-ears first time instructor would have attempted this task with a diverse, 250+ class size in an accelerated program.

Now, given that this project is the centerpiece of the applied learning in the class, (the exam and quizzes take care of the rest, and the CP grading components don't matter that much), I'd rather people get the option to use more time and apply their learning better. Is it ideal? No. But cramming through the Thursday 12-Nov deadline with exams hovering in Monday onwards was bound to throw up suboptimal results anyway. Especially because, a full 50% of the class wouldn't get *any* exposure to formal MDS and perceptual mapping right until Thursday itself. And why have all these fancy methods in the last 2 weeks? Because SPSS was available only in this time. Imagine doing factor and cluster without SPSS, for example!

Sure, one can argue that real life often forces constraints that result in suboptimal solutions etc and that is great learning for students, but that is besides the point. The main learning aimed for here is how to apply MKTR to get at better and better-supported recommendations, *not* to experience how real life time constraints produce suboptimal results.

OK, why not then, let groups who claim the gyan-incentive submit late without the project grade coming into the picture? Because even the idealist in me is practical enough to realize that the grade incentive is a powerful one. I would be forcing more sub-optimality if I went against that incentive.

In any case, I appreciate the thoughtful manner in which counterpoints have been made. I appreciate the trust you have placed in my decision.

Pls know that I do not take this decision to extend the deadline lightly.

Thank you and Regards,

Sudhir

P.S.
Clarification: The new deadline is Frday 20-nov noon 11.59 am. Previously I mistyped it as 21-Nov.