People don't work like that. Give them no intelligent choice, or a choice between bad alternatives, and many people will support whatever dumb choice has most support.

Daniel will inevitably produce bad questions - because there are no good ones. If there are, he doesn't know what they are, or what the answers are to them , or what might be surprising answers. He has no poll to base his answers on, even if he could have thought of some good questions.

Daniel's failure, as a pub quiz manager was to not recognise that there were no answers, or obvious questions. You can't make up answers to a pub quiz. What was Henry V111's seventh wife called - gets no correct answers. Do most women prefer tulips or daffodils? Has no answer - until there's some polling evidence for one. He should have been most aware that this was impossible- and should have said so - however obvious it should have been to the others.

They are only "very successful" if you believe their CVs. (A point I've touched on before. I am so hoping a lot more get to interviews this year...)

These tasks aren't very hard.

It's:

1) Find out what people want from the focus group.

2) Lord Alan has set up two appointments for you. Work out what they want.

3) Produce a product that will satisfy 1) and 2).

This is the second time this series this game has been played. The bright ones should have learnt by now how to win this particular type of task. The quick way to lose is when you go off on your own and try and be clever like Pamela did.

I'm always amazed at how Candidates don't watch past series. But then if they did watch past series and had a clue they wouldn't go on the show.

That's why you don't employ those people. The most valued people to are the ones that say "Hang on, this is a bad idea. If we do it a different way then we can save it".

The problem is that the Apprentice encourages people to support a bad product because they know they can blame the PM for backing it.

Well, why don't you give the show a try then? Prove me wrong.

I think that the tasks are harder than they look, because in the real business world no one comes up with a completely new idea, develops it and then pitches it to retailers in the time that they have. The tasks, by their very definition, are mostly impossible to complete properly in the time that they are given. For example, they're criticised for not listening to market research, but even that isn't very reliable; the focus groups they are given often seem to consist of about five or six people, so you aren't going to get much beyond personal opinions. On last year's dating website task, they did listen to the market research and it turned out to be the wrong decision, because the opinions of the focus group didn't accurately reflect the market. The tasks aren't designed for the winning team to do well, they're designed for the winning team to be slightly less bad than the losing team - in the board game task the winning team did a great job, but that is pretty rare. In the time that they have, with all the constraints placed upon them, I'm pretty sure that it is very, very difficult to complete the tasks. I'm not aware of quite how difficult, because the constraints put upon them by the production team isn't very clear - but as I said, if someone here goes on the show and comes back saying that I was absolutely wrong and the tasks were easy as hell, I will eat my words totally. Prove me wrong!

perhaps if they'd of had 10 good question cards that weren't so bad even bad is cringing at them and then said well we'll obviously get a full set of 100 before going into production then they would of been onto more of a winner but the PM just kept pushing the idea through without really doing much checking and ignoring pretty much all advice so if it worked all the credit would be on them

I disagree really, the reason they discover it's harder than they thought is because contrary to your belief most of them are clueless when it comes to business and have not proven themselves whatsoever in the business world. They have had a business idea (that often won't work) and have then progressed onto the selection process where the producers have snapped them up because they blow their own naive trumpet at every chance and they know that they will infuriate viewers whilst at the same time making them feel better about themselves because they are all so stupid in comparison to the average person.
Every single week basic common sense goes out of the window. I know the producers edit it like this to highlight common sense failures but I doubt they struggle much to find them.........

Basic questions no one ever seems to have a clue about....

1. How much are we spending?
2. How much can we sell for?
3. Does this idea work?
4. Are we doing what Sugar asked us to do?

If I was on it I wouldn't even need to go in the boardroom to know how much profit we'd made, if it was a general public selling task, would have it all accounted for, it's hardly major finance we are talking here.

I would definitely never ever make any mistakes

Well, same as I said to the other guy... do it then

On You're Fired! they always come across as more capable than they appear on the programme.

With the focus group they were on a looser straight away. I find it funny that one team gets a focus group intuned with their idea, the other group gets a bunch of "hardcore board game nerds" that were never going to be satisfied with a "party game".

"So Joel, why should I invest 250k in your business plan...?"

"Well Lord Alan, I actually just came on this Process to prove a point on an Internet forum and for no other reason than to prove someone wrong...!".

"You have made a bleedin' mockery of this highly important Process. You're FIRED...!"




Luck will always play a role in these games, but you can weight the odds in your favour if your are prepared and bring either knowledge or experience. It's very clear that (most) of the Candidates have neither.

I would also be wary of taking everything at face value. It's very unlikely that the Candidates design and launch a board game from scratch. It's much more likely they pick one alternative out of a set of options and just cusomise one aspect (eg the questions) of it.

Ah, but bear in mind you're trying do that while making yourself look good, with a team that might not necessarily have the same agenda, whilst also being up against another team, and having LS & his "watchers" analysing your every move (let alone with cameras pointing at you!), with all the second-guessing that implies, and I'm never that surprised at some of the nominally stupid decisions they make...

There's that saying in poker that "you don't play the cards, you play the man", and I think something similar could apply the The Apprentice - LS is not looking for someone who can think of 100 quiz questions, or create a breakfast cereal or make a smelly candle or whatever. He's looking for versatile, hard-working people with some flair, imagination, common sense and good thought processes, who can make themselves understood, and work well with (and gain the respect of) others, and much of the time that's not (necessarily) about winning the tasks, but doing the right thing even when losing... the fact is, that it's an incredibly pressurised (and artificial) situation, and it's impressive that anyone comes across well with all that against them...

But that idea can't be done a better way. You almost certainly have to change the concept of the game from a quiz, to a random game- because you have no answers for a quiz to be based on. In a random game, it doesn't matter if the answers are random. Something like snakes and ladders might work. But that just gives you an awful lot of complexity to work out - can you mix questions, and random results ,and write questions or consequences that are written for players of either sex ? And how do you make the game random , and playable enough, so that anyone will want to play it again? It just gets too complicated?

It also is very difficult to change an idea a desperate group have jumped on. People don't listen. The loudest people are often the most stupid. Wishful thinking takes over. People who come up with ideas don't often ever see whats wrong with them. Dissent is brought up in the boardroom as negativity - and inability to work with others. Dud ideas do sometimes win - particularly if the other team have a dudder idea. Lord Sugar usually spots a hopeless idea - but not all of them. He's also a bit random whether he sides with the lone voice pointing out its a dud idea, agrees they were negative, or condemns them for not being successful in turning back the tide.

As you say. its a lot easier to let the PM sink. and just do what you are told.

The big failure is more often the stage before this. what should we do? There's a lack of creativity, tempered by logic. That may be partly because the options are already shaped by the production team - and shaped more by available time, geography and the selected collaborators.. Its also not a skill that most of humanity have or need. No one there is ever going to need to be able to make a viral youtube , or a boardgame to do what they want to do. or a , technology packed, jumper, or their own adverts. .

How much are we spending begs the questions whats our market, whats the norm, what will work, whats the alternative ways of doing it? There's also what the other team will be doing, and the mystery of what Lord Sugar will deem important. Inedible product may be deemed a fixable problem, quality ,at great cost, may not. Cheap tat may win, or get a penalty, or get no buyers. Who knows what rules will prevail this task?

How much do we sell for requires a knowledge of the market and norms. It also depends on what the buyer will pay - thats often random and unpredictable. Its artificial when people have other reasons to buy and people buy rubbish - like the tours - no informed customer would. It also depends on what the next buyer you haven't yet met will buy for, and what the other subteam can sell for, miles away. Where they try and sell isn't in their gift either.

Does this idea work isn't the question they end up with often. They end up with does this dumb idea work better than the even dumber ideas we came up with. There's very few strokes of creative genius - for every Bodyrocka there's half a dozen emergency biscuits, or expensive cardboard kennels, or cats calendars.

Much of it has zero bearing on whether they can do what they say they can. Uma's ability to decorate a storage box told us nothing much about her bridal business. Lyndsey found the tasks unrelated to anything she did - but that doesn't mean she couldn't set up more swimming clubs. Many people don't get fired because they were uniquely bad, or missed something the other team spotted.. They go because some one had to go that week, they lacked experience, they were too smooth and corporate , their proposal wasn't interesting to him, or he decides they are too little, or too much, like him.

It is odd how they always look surprised to find out how much they have sold. Are they told to look surprised, or did no one really ever add it all up?

Coming up with new winning ideas for anything is very difficult, especially in the little time they have . Some are creative types and might find it easier . I couldn't come up with any new board game .
I was surprised that Daniel's game no matter how bad it was sold over a £1000 worth .

Also, if you're going to employ a focus group, you better have one or preferably two alternatives to fall back on, if the focus group say your idea is pants . Pamela had nothing to fall back on, because the silly woman would not entertain any other ideas .

Indeed, if you have one focus group, you really need two or three options to show them - so you can then pick the best one. Turning up with one option is silly - they can just say no or yes. And, even if you drop that one, you can't then test a new one.

Of course , the problem then is that you need to think of two or three options including some decent ones - and they couldn't come up with one.