This week is going to be the death of me!  If you’ve ever been in the military, you know the meaning of “Hell Week”.  This is a Navy Seal term.  The fourth week of BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition School) is known as Hell Week. This is when students train for five days and five nights solid with a maximum total of four hours of sleep. Hell Week begins at sundown on Sunday and ends at the end of Friday. During this time, trainees face continuous training evolutions.

The slogan at Norwich University is “Expect Challenge”, and they are not playing around.  

We got our group outline turned in.  It was a good effort.  We accomplished all of our goals, and the professor provided some constructive feedback.  Now that we’ve got sign-off on the outline, we’re on to the final week.  This is going to be rough.

Not only do we have to collaborate with our team and complete the final case study (which will probably be 10-20 pages per team member), we also have to write an additional essay (part 1 of the final exam).

In a 1,500 word (minimum) to 2,000 word (maximum) essay, describe the unique challenges of strategic resource management for a manufacturing company that has businesses in four countries (USA, Mexico, France, and Turkey). Address human capital, information capital, organizational capital, strategy alignment, and enterprise continuity management.

Note: By "unique" we mean that you should name and describe those special circumstances such a business faces in operating overseas (specifically in those four locations). For example, is the labor pool in Turkey educated enough to operate and maintain modern manufacturing technologies? What might be the environment for organizational capital in Mexico? What kind of IT capital is needed for a company to operate in four such dispersed locations?

I am suspecting I will be dedicating this entire week to these projects.  The funny thing about it though is that as we’re coming to the end of the class, and as difficult as some of the projects are, my mind is feeling very open and enlightened.  It’s almost refreshing to look back at what I’ve learned.  This MBA program has really been worth the time invested.

I suppose I’ll be overdosing on coffee and tea for the next week, and I’ll write here on this blog as I get time.