Charles was starring out his second year of teaching and, as he told his New Dominion faculty colleagues, he had developed a sincere commitment to the case discussion teaching methods and philosophy. Charles was in his second week of teaching Quantitative Analysis and Operations Management (QAOM). He wanted to give that class every chance, but he had not foreseen that 80 intelligent persons might, individually and jointly, entirely miss the main point of the case. Charles disapproved of the practice of giving a pat "answer" to a case at the end of class; on the other hand, he could not conscientiously allow 80 apprentice managers to leave class thinking that the last hour passed for an adequate case analysis. Charles drew a slow breath; one more comment, he thought, and then they are in for it.