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PSL: The inaugural class of CFEE students arrived on campus in September. Who are they?? Which skills will they acquire?

François Pumir: Half of this year’s CFEE class are students from PSL and the Web School Factory, while the other half are professionals from our partner businesses. The primary benefit of this training is that it gives the participants a new perspective and a set of methodologies for managing the digital transformation, which is exactly what those participants have been hoping to find. One of the essential ways we’re effecting the digital transformation is by putting people at the heart of every project. We encourage our students to adopt a user-centric approach and to tackle every issue in terms of what’s desirable rather than the more restrictive mindset – still so common in the business world – of what’s feasible. At this stage, everyone’s still very motivated, although the change in viewpoint has been a little disconcerting for some in the group.

Thibaut Barbarin: The students and professionals in our class come from a wide array of backgrounds. They’re engineers, attorneys, managers, and so on. And within their work groups they may each take a similar approach, or they may clash. That’s proven very fertile; we can already see that the learning process will be much faster than in other programs.

PSL: Why is that change of perspective so difficult?

F.P.: Right at the start of the semester, we held the CFEE Hack to serve as a real-world exercise. The class had six days to come up with new business models for some very established industries. It’s a difficult test, regardless of your age or experience, because you can’t simply fall back on an automatic response. The goal of the exercise is to give students the ability to sit down in front a corporate board or a group of lenders and offer a vision of a given topic that’s not just business-minded but user-centric, concrete and objective. The instructional team (professors, our partner business leaders, etc.) helped guide them through that first experience. It’s a shift in perspective that can be disconcerting, but it’s necessary in order to embrace the radically new vision of what the digital transformation can be.

T.B.: The CFEE Hack was a really enlightening experience for everyone in the class about the need to learn more. Ever since, they’ve been much more aware of the learning curve, they’re investing the time and they’re using that learning time more effectively.  That was also a very good learning experience for handling data. The digital transformation involves massive amounts of data, and in my view it’s pretty critical for every professional to get up to speed on those issues.

PSL: The CFEE program is built around a pedagogical model that emphasizes hands-on experience. How does that differ from conventional teaching methods?

With the CFEE, we’ve chosen to take a different approach from conventional teaching methods. To put our projects together, we start with what the company hopes to achieve and we join forces to provide the deliverables.

F.P.: Project-based instruction has been around since well before the CFEE, but we’re changing the format and especially the objective, because our instructional approach involves lecturers (entrepreneurs/professors/experts), students, businesses and their employees all at once. The digital transformation projects we’re tackling aren’t just fictional case studies that illustrate some pedagogical point; they’re actual company projects, whose progress and results are discussed by each company’s executive committee. So there are serious issues at stake! The goal and the ambition we’ve set is to create spin-offs or business units, and employees are at the heart of that process of learning how to generate value.

T.B.: When project-based instruction is used in conventional academic curricula, it often uses the pedagogical objective as the starting point, and the case studies they use may be real, but decades old. With the CFEE, we’ve chosen to take a different approach: we start with what the company hopes to achieve and we join forces to provide the deliverables.

PSL: What kind of relationship does that build between the students and the businesses?

The companies get an update on their project’s progress every two weeks, and it’s not uncommon for the CFEE teams to meet with the company’s executives and high-level managers over lunch to work on their projects.

F.P.: A very close relationship. As we said before, the CFEE program is distinctive in that its work groups include students, practitioners, educators – there’s no disinterested support. Everyone has a stake in the project’s success. That approach applies to the relationship with each company as well. Companies get an update on their project’s progress every two weeks, and it’s not uncommon for the CFEE teams to meet with the company’s executives and high-level managers over lunch to work on their projects.

PSL: How would you describe a promising candidate for the CFEE program?

F.P.: For me, it’s someone who has a real desire to be an entrepreneur and the necessary determination to eliminate obstacles and find solutions.

Management is becoming more horizontal these days, and an entrepreneurial mindset will be a key asset.

T.B.: Someone who’s looking for something different. Whether they’d like a more meaningful experience like so many people these days, or they’re simply interested in creating a start-up, it’s that sense of change that’s really important. My feeling is that management is becoming more horizontal these days, and an entrepreneurial mindset will be a key asset. F.P.: Again, it’s not a typical learning experience, and above all we’re looking for people who can all be part of a single team. The oral interview will play a much bigger role in whether you’re accepted than your CV or cover letter.

PSL: What can we expect from future CFEE program graduates?

F.P.: They’ll be people who can strike the right balance within their organizations, whether they’re entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs or something else – the important thing is that they know how to make a commitment and prosper. Fulfilling individual career goals is not what the CFEE program is about.

T.B.: They’ll be able to take responsibility for the decisions they make, and influence the people around them to help bring about change. This training really promises an exciting personal adventure.