A B-school staple gets a critical eye.

Last fall, Columbia’s MBA program got a new twist. Instead of the tried-and-true case study, Columbia unleashed the “decision brief” — like a case study, but with less information. The innovation was in response to employers who often said that newly minted MBAs were often unable to quickly deal with problems when lacking total information, reports BusinessWeek.

“I want to see MBAs who can jump in and make decisions, not jump in and learn to make decisions,” Henry Kravis told BW.

The thinking was along these lines: sure it’s all fine and well to have all the information at hand and figure things out after the face, but what about the real world, a world of imperfect information?

Enter the decision brief. So far, Columbia has developed six decision briefs, one of which is based on GE. It goes a little something like this:

“Among them is one that focuses on General Electric’s business-process-outsourcing division in India. Given increased competition, the company needed to consider a bigger investment, as well as the possibility of serving non-GE customers. With just a little more information than that, students are asked to come up with various strategies.”

Ready for an imperfect world?

Fun Fact: Did you know Goldman hires more Columbia interns than any other employer? (so reports the same BusinessWeek article)