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Introduction to Case Analysis Types of Cases The "case method" is an approach t

Introduction to Case Analysis Types of Cases The "case method" is an approach to learning that encourages students to extract useful lessons from the experiences of others ("cases"). Students study accounts of specific events in order to discover general principles that they can apply in other situations. Cases tend to fall into one of three categories that sometimes overlap:  Decision Cases describe a decision faced by the case protagonist. The student ultimately must choose among a finite set of distinct decision alternatives.  Problem Cases require a student to diagnose a problem in a business case and to formulate possible solutions.  Evaluation Cases illustrate a business success or failure. The student analyzes the underlying reasons for that success or failure to arrive at management lessons. What might you be expected to do with a case?  Discuss it. Harvard professor David Garvin, an expert case teacher and writer, sometimes says, "A case is a literary form intended to be discussed." A case does not fully achieve its purpose until students talk about it, just as the script of a play realizes its purpose when performed on stage. You should come to class prepared to discuss a case-specifically, to say what you think the decision should be, to articulate how the problem ought to be solved, and to defend your solution thoroughly, insightfully, and persuasively using data from the case.  Write a report or essay about it. The process of arriving at your recommendations for an exam or a paper is similar to how you prepare to discuss a case in class. However, you have the additional challenge of explaining your logic in written form, often within a limited number of pages or words. This limitation is especially pertinent on an exam.  Create a presentation. The analysis you'll do for a presentation will be similar to how you prepare for a discussion, exam, or paper on a case. The difference is the need to create presentation materials to help you explain your analysis and recommendations to a live audience. In short, you are the leader not merely a participant. Learning from Case Analysis Written by Robert D. Austin and Robert L. Kelley. For private circulation only From the events of a case, students can derive general principles, ideas, and theories. Sometimes these are famous frameworks, such as Porter's theory of generic strategies, Williamson's transaction cost theory, or the general principles of revenue recognition. Deriving or discovering a framework inductively from a real case helps you remember it and apply it to other business situations. That's because you've seen why it's needed, how to use it, and what its limits are. The role of the instructor in a case-based class is to guide students through this discovery process, to ask penetrating questions that refine and improve students' understanding, and to clarify the applicability of general concepts to other business settings. Assignment Questions Assignment questions are a good place to begin a case analysis. Usually your instructor will supply these, but occasionally they are included within a case, typically at the end. Some professors provide many detailed assignment questions; others offer relatively few or less-detailed ones. Assignment questions and questions that come up in a class discussion usually don't match up precisely. In general, assignment questions require a deeper exploration of the nuances of a case to be answered effectively, but they might merely prompt your thinking about key issues. Whatever your professor's approach to assignment questions, the basic challenge remains the same: identifying the important issues at the heart of the case, addressing those through analysis, and identifying what lessons from the case can be applied more broadly. Examples from the Komatsu LTD. and Project G case will be examined throughout this tutorial. To optimize your learning experience follow the suggestions in the "Try It" notes so that you will become familiar with the examples provided. One Approach to Case Analysis The figure to the left describes the general approach to case analysis used in this tutorial. It's by no means the only approach that exists, but it's a worthwhile one to try as you get started.  Getting Oriented  Identifying Problems  Performing Analysis  Action Planning Getting Oriented It's useful to think of a case analysis as digging deeper and deeper into the layers of a case. 1. You start at the surface, Getting Oriented and examining the overall case landscape. 2. Then you begin to dig, Identifying Problems, as well as possible alternative solutions. 3. Digging deeper, Performing Analyses you identify information that exposes the issues, gather data, perform calculations that might provide insight. 4. Finally, you begin Action Planning to outline short-, medium-, and long-term well-defined steps. Typically, you'll need to repeat this process multiple times, and as you do, you'll discover new analytical directions, evolving your assessment of the case and conclusion. Case Analysis Overview Analyzing a case is not just about digging. It's also about climbing back out to examine what you've unearthed, deciding what it means, determining what to analyze next, and digging some more. Illustrated here: Often your examination of information about a problem will change your idea of what the real problem is-and about what to analyze next. The process is similar to when a detective investigating a crime shifts his or her opinion about the most likely suspect as more clues come to light. Gather your materials and tools. These include the case itself, the assignment questions, and any other materials your instructor might provide (e.g., a spreadsheet or supplementary reading). Be prepared to take notes in the margins and to highlight important numbers or passages. This Case Analysis Worksheet can also be helpful as you organize information to use in your analysis. Your First Pass Quickly read the opening section. In roughly a page, this important part of the case typically identifies the place and time setting, reveals the type of case this is, and signals what problem or issue might be the starting point for analysis. Along with the assignment questions, this section provides the most-reliable clues for beginning to solve the mystery of the case. Flip through the pages, look at the section headings and exhibit titles, and skim parts of the body text that immediately catch your eye. Also glance through the exhibits, which usually appear at the end. Read and re-read the assignment questions, and compare them with the section headings and exhibits. Try to gain an initial impression of where you might find answers to the questions (under which headings, in which exhibits, and how the exhibits relate to relevant sections of the case). Defining the Problem Based on your first pass, take a preliminary stab at writing a sentence or two that summarizes:  the type of case it appears to be (Decision, Problem, or Evaluation)  your impression of the main problem(s) or issue(s) that might be the appropriate focus of your analysis Bear in mind that your initial impressions of the problem statement might change. Nevertheless, trying to define the problem early will help focus your thinking as you read the case in more detail. Identifying Problems After you are generally oriented to the case, it's time to dig deeper to test your initial assumptions. The digging process often begins with trying to find the answer to an assignment question or to a question that occurred to you during your first pass. Your opening questions lead you to sub-questions and sometimes to new questions altogether. Patterns will begin to emerge, as will major themes, problems, and issues that unify your questions and that ultimately elucidate the major pedagogical purpose of the case. Reading the Case Carefully Return to the beginning of the case, read it carefully, and add to your original notes and highlights. Pause to think about certain passages; then re- read them. Ask yourself: What's happening? What does this mean for the company? Will it succeed? What problems can I see coming? You may have gut feelings about some of the information that suggests particular significance, perhaps numbers or other facts. Circle or highlight those. You'll be wrong about some of them because some may be intentionally false leads ("red herrings") inserted by the case writer. Nevertheless, most cases will require that you synthesize numbers or facts from different sections to conduct important analyses. As you analyze more cases, you'll get better at spotting potentially important bits of information. Don't worry if not everything becomes clear immediately. That's just the way this works. Bringing Outside Concepts Into Your Analysis As you read carefully, you might begin to see connections to principles, frameworks, and theories with which you are already familiar from this or another class. To help identify appropriate frameworks, ask questions such as these:  "What kind of course is this?" A marketing course, for example, will typically employ marketing frameworks.  "What clues did the instructor provide?" Assignment questions, the title of the module, or the syllabus might signal the specific focus of the uploads/Management/ case-analysis-guide.pdf