Alfa-Bank Masterclass: “Developing Teamwork Skills. Practical Advice from Real Business”
The Career Center and Student Support Office conducted a study on students' attitudes toward teamwork and their needs. It revealed strong interest in receiving practical advice from real business professionals on effective team building. The study also identified the top three “pain points” in teamwork experience:
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Imbalance in task distribution;
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The “we’ll do everything at the last minute” scenario;
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The gap between acquired knowledge and actual competencies.
To help students develop team-building skills, Alfa-Bank specialists held a masterclass on March 14. Anna Mashteeva — Head of the Primary Sales Development Directorate and Website Platform at Alfa-Bank, and a certified Agile coach — shared useful tips from her professional experience that help effectively address leadership in teams, task delegation, planning, and time management.
Students from various academic programs (APs) were organized into six cross-functional teams. They were asked to practice prioritization and delegation skills, plan a week of thesis preparation by breaking down a task into steps, and present their results. In addition, the Student Support Office pre-arranged individual assignments with five students, working on a task developed by Viktoria Kistova, Project Manager at Alfa-Bank. This allowed for the implementation of both team and individual formats of workplace management.
Sergey Filonovich
Head of the Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Commenting on the event, Professor Sergey Filonovich, Head of the Department of Organizational Behavior and HR Management, noted:
“Whether someone prefers to work individually or in a team strongly depends on their personality type. Moreover, as studies have shown (particularly regarding brainstorming effectiveness), team-based methods don't always produce better results — and they tend to be more resource-intensive than individual work.”
It’s hard to say who had it tougher: the individual students who had no one to consult with, or the unfamiliar students grouped into teams. The presentations showed a wide range of approaches and creative takes on routine teamwork processes. When bank representatives asked, “Who is the leader in your team?”, one group gave a comprehensive answer: “Whoever has the microphone is the leader!”
The Alfa-Bank masterclass enabled students to apply the techniques demonstrated in the lecture through a two-way, personalized approach — and reflect on their team experience. The TOP-3 performers in both “Individual” and “Team” categories received branded souvenirs. In addition, Nikita Voronkov (AP “Business Administration,” 3rd year) and Ruslan Bekirov (RANEPA graduate applying to the GSB doctoral program) were invited to spend a workday at Alfa-Bank’s office, supported by Roman Kurochkin, Alfa-Bank's Employer Brand Development Expert.
Anna Mashteeva
Head of the Primary Sales Development Directorate and Website Platform at Alfa-Bank
“It was a pleasure to see so many engaged and interested participants! The students weren’t shy about asking questions and engaging in dialogue. We didn’t have quite enough time for networking, but that was only because everyone got so absorbed in the practical case. My favorite moment was the question about office romances — it really threw me off for a minute. Definitely a winner in the ‘how to stump the speaker in one question’ category!”