Please give us a break - 2011 bore no resemblance to the 'regular' series; nor was it meant to. I assume by regular series Katie means past series and her comments beg the question, did she actually understand the difference between an employee (pre 2011) and a business partner - 2011?

The tasks do usually tell you something useful about the candidates. The problem is who Lord Sugar blames and fires and what errors and underlying issues he ignores. In the past thats been further skewed by the luck of who loses, when, and who fits the job description. This time its been taken a stage further, because you can win if you are weak in many areas but you can throw out lots of ideas - one or two of which Lord Sugar fancies. Its further distorted by the fact that the nature of CVs is that anyone with an existing business and the right product may look much more attractive ofrom day one.

Tom didn't ask any questions about Melody's "research" or apply common sense to the proposition that people in Paris don't drive - he gave in because someone else more forceful was arguing strongly.

There's no logical reason on the biscuits task not to spend every penny possible. There was no profitability factor in judging the task. it was clear from everyone elses descriptions and the concepts that something attractive and different was wanted and another big clue was that adding multiple concepts was going to produce something expensive or bad. If the task rules were not clear, he should have asked about costs v taste. The last thing he should have done was to decide on his own to go with low cost/quality ingredients,There's a lot of mystery about that task - how the biscuits came to taste bad, contain cheap ingredients and were not reworked on first taste , but the person there who ought to have be on top of ingredients and taste was Tom.

[quote=thenetworkbabe;51555306]The tasks do usually tell you something useful about the candidates. The problem is who Lord Sugar blames and fires and what errors and underlying issues he ignores. In the past thats been further skewed by the luck of who loses, when, and who fits the job description. This time its been taken a stage further, because you can win if you are weak in many areas but you can throw out lots of ideas - one or two of which Lord Sugar fancies. Its further distorted by the fact that the nature of CVs is that anyone with an existing business and the right product may look much more attractive ofrom day one.

Tom didn't ask any questions about Melody's "research" or apply common sense to the proposition that people in Paris don't drive - he gave in because someone else more forceful was arguing strongly.

There's no logical reason on the biscuits task not to spend every penny possible. There was no profitability factor in judging the task. it was clear from everyone elses descriptions and the concepts that something attractive and different was wanted and another big clue was that adding multiple concepts was going to produce something expensive or bad. If the task rules were not clear, he should have asked about costs v taste. The last thing he should have done was to decide on his own to go with low cost/quality ingredients,There's a lot of mystery about that task - how the biscuits came to taste bad, contain cheap ingredients and were not reworked on first taste , but the person there who ought to have be on top of ingredients and taste was Tom.[/QUOTE]

`One man`s meat is another man`s poison` ?

Even when the rest of his team tried the biscuits I don`t remember anyone saying they tasted awful ..... iirc Zoe did change her opinion once in the BR.

[quote=Tissy;51557180`One man`s meat is another man`s poison` ?

Even when the rest of his team tried the biscuits I don`t remember anyone saying they tasted awful ..... iirc Zoe did change her opinion once in the BR.[/QUOTE]

Thats part of the mystery- its too late by the time Susan and Zoe get to see a biscuit, but Tom, and Melody, and possibly the people in the biscuit factory, and anyone they test it on, all miss that the biscuit doesn't taste good. Either it was Ok, or there's something odd there, or there was no time to fix a bad first effort and we don't get shown that.

Its Tom's who has been sent to run the biscuit making side of the task, though, (Melody seems to be there because its miles from Zoe) Its very questionable if he should have fired Zoe for delegating or Tom or Melody for mucking up. In Tom's case its straight after the Paris as PM fiasco and inventing is as much his specialist expertise as food production is Zoe's

I`ve always laid the blame at Melody`s feet for that fiasco, she was on one huge ego trip throughout the whole task

I'm afraid you have totally misunderstood what the term media whore means. Kate WORKS in the media and so is, by definition, not a media whore. People who do other things and are desperate to get media attention are media whores.

Bit embarrassing for you.

Did he?
I'm not talking about what they say I'm speaking of what I think they believe about themselves.

Tom may say that something he did was genius, As do several others. My husband says my bacon sandwiches are genius.

But helen ( and kate) both seem to me to really think they are very good because they follow a blue print of how to be a professional focused woman at work.

And who rates Helen? Yes thats right Karren Brady. Same blue print.

Looking at the original post, it looks like she understood it well enough; she just liked the series better the way it was before, an opinion in which she's clearly not alone.

I think that's always been the case. Just as it's always been the case that people rarely get fired for bad ideas, if they are the only ideas on the table. People can get fired for accepting bad ideas, and someone who throws out good ideas but doesn't push them hard enough can get criticised for that. As happened with Susan and Tom.

In neither case was it a fatal flaw, partly because there were other people around with bigger flaws. It's an interesting question: would you rather someone who didn't see a mistake, or someone who saw it but did nothing about it?


Again, that's always been the case. Lord Sugar has his prejudices. Anyone with a legal background, or a scientific background, has a hurdle to overcome through-out the show. Many get fired (eg Glenn) because they fail to overcome it. For example, Karen (s2, lawyer), Sophie (s3, scientist). (Sophie's case was especially galling because her team only lost by £10 and she had done a fantastic production job. Lord Sugar didn't value her contribution.)


In the edit, we see him say that all three people on the team were heavily against the child seat, and that he'd be a fool to force them to sell a product they didn't like. We don't see the discussion that led him to that conclusion, so we don't know how much he queried. (Now that I've rewatched it, the market research doesn't seem as prominent as I remembered. The point remains, though. It was a rational decision.)


He may have done that. He could still have increased the quality by putting fewer biscuits in the box, but if no-one had told him that quality was a priority than he'd have no reason to do that.

As you say, it's not really clear what happened there, so it's hard to know for sure who's fault it was. I agree with Tissy that Melody deserves at least some of the blame. She is such a dominant character that she may deserve most of it.


Why? His taste buds are not more qualified than Melody's.

Agreed.

I find it quite hilarious that people think Tom should've been an amazing biscuit maker. Invention in engineering and invention in food are completely different, it's stupid to think an engineer should make really good biscuits

Plus with the biscuit tasks, there's no reason Tom should've assumed they would be luxury biscuits because of the price. Ding dong anyone, the other team did biscuits for children at the same price - hardly high end. Zoe was the right one to go in this task.

I remember Tom saying that they went for a mid range biscuit. It was a clear indication that they were not told at any point that they should make a high quality luxury biscuit. As much as I hate to say it, Zoe was the one to blame. She should have communicated this information to Tom and Melody. After the mistakes she made when managing the rubbish task, LAS had no choice but to fire her.

Regarding the topic of the thread, I really don't get the argument that the tasks had no effect on the final decision. The point of the tasks was to get the best final four and in my opinion they achieved their purpose. The final four were clearly better than the rest of the candidates. I believe that Helen and Susan both had a much better chance to win before the interviews, but their business plans let them down. That is why Tom won. What would have been the point of the final interviews if LAS had chosen whoever performed better at the tasks?!!

It was the same as all the past series apart from the final which was a bit of a shambles to quote LS.

Next year the BBC and LS better make it clear that all the candidates will be given an equal chance of a partnership, and not just those who have started their own businesses. LS's reason for dismissing Glenn was totally unfair.

And they have to even out the CV problem by thinking it through and taking out some of the detail available to his Lordship on day one. You can't have Lord Sugar knowing on day one that one candidate has already produced something thats made £x and spotting that there's a safe or attractive option there to make a return on his 250k. The CV needs to just say someone set up own design company/sells own skincare products and thats all - in the same way as it would say works for Greggs/family firm for others. its bad enough that the winning criteria is different than the show task criteria, but is decidedly odd when he can pick who he wants in the final on the basis of knowing what just some have to offer on day one. if there's going to be a final reveal of business plans and detailed CVs to decide the winner at the end, you need to level the playing field and at least make it look like the final 4 got there on what they did on the show only.

its true he may then end up with 4 dud plans, but, if that inherent in the new show concept, he should have to live with it - rather than make sure.

Even more embarassing for me. On first reading I thought she said medium whore, not small or large or XXL, just medium.

In Sophie's case, she sealed her fate by commenting in the boardroom about how she felt uncomfortable selling stuff for so much more than it had cost them to make. Nick Hewer said later that as soon as those words had left her mouth he knew she was doomed.

Perhaps people are mistaking him for Wallace & Gromit...