Bloomberg Center for Cities

Teaching Case Workshop

An event of the Bloomberg Center for Cities

Register


4:00 p.m - 6:00 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Taubman T-G-1 Wiener Auditorium

About the Event

For enrolled Harvard graduate students. 

Help us workshop our newest teaching case, Newport News: Breakthrough Expectations, taught by Professor Mitchell B. Weiss. The case’s protagonist, Mayor Phillip Jones, is a recent Harvard alumnus (MPP/MBA 2021) who entered office in January 2023. Full case details are below.

A meal will be provided after the workshop.

We ask all participants to prepare for the case discussion by reading the materials provided. Further workshop details and case materials will be provided once registration has closed.

Space is limited. Registration will close when full or by Monday, November 13 at 12:00 p.m. EST.

 

Case: Newport News: Breakthrough Expectations

Case Description: The case profiles 33-year-old Mayor Phillip Jones of Newport News, Virginia, as he’s preparing to hit the ground running for his first term. Jones believes that collaborating across the city will be core to getting things done. Our discussion will focus on the concept of team launches, and the case describes how Jones began to organize and prioritize a retreat with key city officials. The case features Jones’s hopes for such a retreat but also concerns among others about whether and how Jones should host such a gathering. Among the worries are whether its timing is fitting so soon after the shooting of a teacher by an elementary school student sends the city reeling.

Speakers

Mitchell B. Weiss
Mitch Weiss Headshot

Mitchell B. Weiss

Richard L. Menschel Professor of Management Practice

Mitch Weiss is the Richard L. Menschel Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. He created and teaches the school’s course on Public Entrepreneurship—on public leaders and private entrepreneurs who invent a difference in the world. He also teaches The Entrepreneurial Manager in the first year of the MBA Program. Prior to joining HBS in 2014, Mitch was Chief of Staff and a partner to Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino. Mitch helped shape New Urban Mechanics, Boston’s municipal innovation strategy, and make it a model for peer-produced government and change. He is the author of We the Possibility from Harvard Business Review Press (2021). Mitch has been named one of the 100 most influential academics in government.

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