About the Cases

Case Studies are short. They describe a discrete issiue. They are not white papers so they are not exhaustive. There are two types of case studies: (1) factual ones depicting real organizations, people, and situations and (2) fictional ones that, although usually based loosely on actual people and events, do not use real organization's or people's names. The advantages of factual case studies are that they can provide a wealth of detail, give credibility to situations and problems, and, most important, provide real outcomes. Actual results give those who analyze a case real-world solutions:

• How did the organization or manager solve the problems? This Question brings into consideration the scope of the case study. For most studies the intervention or solution takes at least a full business cycle to render measurable results. •
• Did the solutions work? Which begs the next question, while most of us enjoy positive outcomes interventions generally are a balance or trade off between more effective solutions and expedience. The overall effect on the organization may have many undesirable outcomes for some departments.

Although factual cases furnish concrete, not theoretical, solutions, they also have some drawbacks. Often we get hung up on what we may remember from them. Some later outcomes bring the solutions into question. When discussing factual cases, we tend to focus on the accuracy of the details rather than on the appropriateness of the solutions. Factual cases tend to become outdated as organizations, strategies, problems, and people change over time. Also, if a factual case portrays real organizations or people in a negative way, questions of taste, fairness, and even libel can arise. Finally, in a factual case we must obviously stick to the facts, as we remember them, which means that they are limited to dealing with only those management topics that are implicit in the case.

The most effective use of factual cases are for describing current organizational problems, then analyzing and attempting to solve the problems using a consultative approach. Which in most cases is outside the scope of the engagement that prompted the case study Fictional cases have the drawback that one can never know if a solution works or not. Fictional cases are theoretical ones, and thus often do not have the credibility that factual ones do. On the other hand, fictional cases are not constrained by the facts. This means that I can exercise poetic license and describe problems, issues, situations, and people in order to focus only on the problems they want to address. My solution on this site is to write cases that closely parallel the factual situation.