Cohort Operations — Hold the Line at Biscayne Executive Learning

A four-round, intermediate service-operations simulation set inside Biscayne Executive Learning (BEL), the custom- and open-programs unit of a Miami university business school that bills USD 14M a year delivering ~60 executive cohorts and lives or dies by its Net Learner Experience score. At 7:40 a.m. on April 13, 2026 two flagship cohorts collide: a burst pipe has knocked Room 300 — BEL's only hybrid-capable room that seats 50 — out of service for 9 days, two faculty change their availability, and the academic operations team must re-sequence faculty and facilities, allocate 3 senior + 4 junior coordinators, and hold a USD 40,000 remaining quarterly support budget while protecting a Net Learner Experience of at least 8.5/10 on BOTH cohorts. Cohort A (MeridianHealth Leadership Academy, 48 clinical managers, Day 1 in 48 hours, contractually needs the hybrid room) carries a USD 3.2M renewal the CHRO calls 'the audition'; Cohort B (Global Finance Certificate, 30 international executives mid-program) was promised Room 300 for a Thursday guest-faculty session. Playing the Academic Support Coordinator, you (1) map the collision and name the single binding constraint — the out-of-service hybrid room — before touching anything, tracing the dependency cascade rather than fixing the loudest problem; (2) re-sequence facilities and faculty, choosing the hotel suite (USD 4,200/day, USD 16,800 = 42% of the budget) vs split rooms vs virtual, flipping Cohort A to its faculty's Wednesday-morning window, and protecting Cohort B's promised room; (3) allocate scarce coordinators and the budget to protect the PORTFOLIO — resolving the overtime-risk senior coordinator (1.5x cost and fatigue risk) instead of overloading her, and not robbing Cohort B to save Cohort A; and (4) absorb a live escalation — the CHRO asks if Day 1 is handled and a junior coordinator calls in sick — with proactive client communication, a real backfill bench, and a single named decision-maker with an issue-tracking routine. The math rewards constraint-first sequencing, portfolio-balanced staffing, budget-as-portfolio thinking, and proactive recovery, and punishes the five classic errors: whack-a-mole fixing, spending blind on the hotel suite, overloading the senior coordinator, robbing one cohort to save the other, and silent operations. Final KPIs track Cohort A Experience, Cohort B Experience, Operational Resilience, and Budget committed against the USD 40,000 cap.