Decision Modeling in the Classroom: What Does Optimality Mean in Scheduling the Norwegian Women’s Bandy League?

This paper presents a sports case based on the women’s bandy league organized by the Norwegian Bandy Federation. The case has been used in different formats during four consecutive years in a master’s course on decision modeling at a business school in Norway. These formats included first a structured problem-solving task, with clear instructions on how to model constraints and define the objective function. The case was later taught using the case teaching method, where certain criteria were deliberately presented ambiguously to encourage deeper student engagement and discussion. Students’ feedback indicates that incorporating realistic sports-based examples, such as the Bandy Case, enhances motivation and engagement with mathematical modeling. As part of their learning experience with this case, students also highlight that sports-related examples help them connect mathematical programming to real-world problems, deepen their understanding of optimization techniques, and improve their coding skills. Overall, our results support the conclusion that sports-based examples are an effective tool for fostering interest and deepening understanding in decision modeling education.