Deadlock At The Christmas Fair: Five Students, Sixty Phone Cases
An LCVP mini-company of five students in Letterkenny, County Donegal, has three weeks left before the Christmas fair. They have already spent €270 on 60 plain phone cases at €4.50 each and have €80 left. The team is deadlocked. Two members want to cut the price from €12 to €9 to 'shift volume'; one wants to hold at €12 because 'the margin is the whole point'; one wants to spend the remaining €80 on Instagram advertising; and the fifth has missed four of the last six meetings and does not reply in the group chat. At the last meeting the discussion went in circles for forty minutes, two members stopped speaking to each other, and no decision was recorded. The link teacher has said the team must show evidence of a decision-making process in the portfolio, and that the report must explain how the team managed the contribution of every member.
1. Recommend a decision-making process the team should use to settle the price question, and explain why it is better than putting it to a vote.
Read the worked answer
A structured process, in six steps:
- Agree the question precisely: 'At what price, and with what offer, do we sell 60 cases at the Christmas fair to maximise total contribution?' A vague question ('should we cut the price?') guarantees another forty-minute circle.
- Agree the criteria before looking at options - profit, likelihood of selling all 60 units, time available, and what can be evidenced in the portfolio. Agreeing criteria first stops the loudest person from defining success afterwards.
- Gather evidence, don't trade opinions. A five-question survey of 40 students ('would you buy at €12? at €9?'), the cost sheet, and the fair's footfall estimate.
- Generate at least three options, including one nobody has proposed: €12 single, €9 single, two for €20, or €12 with a free screen cloth. Two options is a fight; four is a design problem.
- Evaluate against the criteria - a simple decision matrix or a PMI on each option, scored openly so everyone sees the reasoning.
- Decide, record and assign: write down the decision, the reason, who does what and by when, and set a review point after the fair.
Why not a vote: a 3–2 vote decides who wins, not what is right. It leaves two members with no commitment to the outcome, produces no criteria for judging later whether the decision was good, and gives the portfolio nothing to show. A vote is a legitimate last resort when consensus fails - but only after the criteria and evidence are on the table, and the minority's objection should still be recorded.
Also worth stating: the decision is reversible. A price can be changed at the fair; a team that has stopped speaking to each other cannot be fixed in three weeks.
2. Analyse the pricing options using the numbers and recommend one, with conditions.
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The numbers: the €270 is already spent (a sunk cost) and 60 cases are in hand.
| Price | Contribution per case | Cases needed to recover €270 | Profit if all 60 sell |
|---|---|---|---|
| €12 | €7.50 | 270 ÷ 12 = 22.5 → 23 cases | €450 |
| €9 | €4.50 | 270 ÷ 9 = 30 cases | €270 |
| €10 | €5.50 | 270 ÷ 10 = 27 cases | €330 |
The real question is demand, not margin. Cutting to €9 only wins if it sells at least seven more cases than €12 would - that is the gap between 23 and 30 units. If the school survey says 40 students would pay €12, cutting the price gives away €3 a case for nothing.
The €80 advertising proposal: it must sell about 11 extra cases at €12 (80 ÷ 7.50) just to pay for itself. Paid Instagram advertising aimed at a school fair is unlikely to do that. Free posts in school and local community groups, plus a stall photo, will probably reach the same people for nothing. Spend the €80 on change for the float, a card reader and a table cloth instead.
Recommendation: hold €12 and add a two-for-€20 bundle at the fair.
- It protects the single-unit margin that one member rightly defends.
- It gives the volume-seekers a genuine offer to sell, at €10 a unit - still €5.50 contribution each.
- It creates urgency at a one-day event, which is exactly where bundles work.
Conditions:
- Run the 40-student survey before the fair and publish the result to the team, so the decision rests on evidence.
- Set a floor rule in advance: if fewer than 25 cases have sold by the final hour, drop to €8 to clear stock - an unsold case is worth nothing after Christmas.
- Record the decision, the reason and the actual outcome; comparing forecast with actual is the evaluation the portfolio needs.
3. How should the team handle the member who has missed four of six meetings, both as a team problem and as portfolio evidence?
Read the worked answer
As a team problem - assume a reason before assuming a fault.
- One private conversation, not a group pile-on. Two members should ask, without accusation, why the meetings are being missed. Common and legitimate reasons: illness, caring responsibilities, a part-time job, exams, or simply not knowing what the role involves. A group-chat confrontation guarantees defensiveness.
- Agree a specific task with a deadline and a check-in. Vague roles ('helping with marketing') are what allow drift. 'Design three Instagram posts by Friday and send them to the group' is testable, and it gives the member a way back in.
- Consider a role change. Someone who cannot attend meetings may still be able to do stock-taking, design work or sell on the day. The team's goal is contribution, not attendance.
- Buddy them with a reliable member for two weeks, so they are not working alone and the team knows quickly whether anything is happening.
- If there is still no change after a week, the team - not one angry individual - raises it with the link teacher, with dates and agreed tasks, not opinions about attitude. The teacher can then decide on reassignment of marks or a changed role.
As portfolio evidence:
- Keep a simple task log: who agreed to do what, by when, and whether it was done. This is evidence of managing a team, not of picking on anyone.
- In the report, describe the process: how roles were allocated, what the team noticed, what was agreed, what changed. Write it factually and without personal criticism - 'the role was changed to design work in week 3 to match availability' rather than 'X was lazy'.
- Show that the decision was made by the team and recorded, which links directly to the decision-making evidence the teacher asked for.
- Be honest about the outcome, including if the member never contributed. The portfolio rewards accurate accounts of managing a real team, not a sanitised one - an examiner can tell the difference.