The Value of Case Studies

These days, every company claims to care about process improvement and performance. Case studies are a perfect way to demonstrate how your organization is striving to improve quality, cut costs, streamline operations, produce innovations and the like. Who are you trying to convince? Your customers and stockholders are always interested in what
your company is doing to make its products
and services better, cheaper and faster. A
case study doesn’t just tell them, it shows
them what you’re doing by weaving the details into a story.

“The rewards of participating in a case study can be many,” says Casey Hibbard, whose firm, Compelling Cases, specializes in writing case studies for business clients. “I've seen featured customers get significant PR in major media outlets, new customers and awards.”

If you’re concerned about revealing trade secrets to competitors, or you’re keeping your process improvement program under wraps publicly, you can
still derive benefits from generating case studies that are used internally.
Case studies are an excellent way to highlight success stories and help generate positive buzz about the program – especially if your initiative is young or floundering.

A case study can be a reward for people involved in your improvement program. It’s easy to get lost in the details and lose sight of the big picture, especially if you have busy practitioners who move quickly from one project
to another. A case study reminds them of the good work they have accomplished.

Case studies can also be used as sales or training tools for employees says Hibbard. “One company I work with publishes case studies in an internal-only database that sales reps can review, but can't copy or paste. So, reps can read the information and commit it to memory, and share it in conversations. But the information isn't floating in the public domain.”

Elements of a Successful Case Study

A good project-level case study typically features a compelling story that answers these questions:

• What was the business problem addressed?
• What methodology (DMAIC, DMADV, SCORE, D4, etc.) was employed
  to understand the problem and devise a solution?
• What was the solution, and how did the project team arrive at it?
• What was the benefit?

Note that the benefit is not the same as the solution. Benefits can be financial savings or revenue increases, or other positive outcomes such as new products or services, enhanced employee retention, reduced cycle times, increased capacity, etc. Ideally, at least one benefit will have baseline and post-project metrics that that can be disclosed as a specific number or as a percentage (e.g., reduce cycle time from six minutes to three minutes, or reduce cycle time by 50 percent.)

A program-level case study can feature the same basic information, but on a larger scope:

• What business problems does the company face (e.g., what are its challenges, what is the competitive landscape)?
• What does the process improvement program entail (which methodologies, how many practitioners, what is the scope of the deployment, etc.)?
• What are some of the solutions put in place as a result of the program? You can highlight 2-3 project success stories and how each addressed
  a specific challenge.
• What are the benefits of the program? How has the program improved the company’s bottom line? If you’re not comfortable revealing specific financial benefits, you can express the ROI as a percentage. Although financial benefits are key, other improvements such as positive culture change, increased market share and improved customer satisfaction will make the story more compelling.
  

In either case, the project or program you’re featuring needs to have enough maturity to have reached a critical mass of results. For projects, this equates to at least one month of validated financial results (with one month’s worth, you can always annualize). For business-level case studies, this means that many projects in different areas have been completed and validated, and to-date aggregate financial savings or benefits have been documented.

Formatting the Final Product

Case studies come in all flavors – brief, detailed, text-heavy, visually engaging, conversational or academic. Your project case studies can be as succinct or as detailed as you want them to be. If you limit them to a few paragraphs, you can still include a high-level description of the business problem, solution and benefits. Case studies that are 1-2 pages can include graphs (think before and after metrics), quotes from key project personnel, lessons learned and a more in-depth discussion of the specific tools used.

Program case studies are likely to be two pages or more as you’ll want to provide some background and current state information about the deployment, as well as a few specific success story examples. Quotes from company executives, the deployment leader, champions and key project personnel put
a face on the facts and figures. Graphs are always helpful, but consider people pictures, too – the before/after of an area that’s had 5S applied, or a project team hard at work.

As far as the final product, again the options vary. You can format case studies in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect, or get fancy with a desktop publishing program such as Adobe InDesign. Alternatively, a program like Microsoft PowerPoint can be used to make a less content-driven case study that uses bullets for key points. Either way, you should export the case study as a PDF to protect the formatting
and content integrity. (You may want a PDF even if you include the case study on your website so people can print the file and read it at their leisure.)

A consistent format for every case study – with the same sections, sidebars, look and feel – is nice, but not required. As long as the final product looks professional, free of typos and grammatical errors, the important thing is to get the word out about your project or program.

Sharing Your Case Study

Before you publish or share your case study, make sure you have the required approvals. First, provide a copy to anyone who was quoted in the case study to make sure they are ok with what they said and the context in which it’s placed. (Even if the person said it, sometimes they change their mind when they see it in print!)

Then, depending on your organizational policies, get the necessary approvals from your manager, the project Champion or program Deployment Leader, marketing, communications or public relations, and the legal department. In fact, it’s usually a good idea to make sure you understand your company’s policies before you start working on the case study.

Note that if you contract an outside agency to write the case study, you should have approval rights on the final product. “The client always has final approval,” Hibbard says. “We respect their requests for changes and their time throughout the process until they feel comfortable with the story.”

After all, a case study isn’t “straight” journalism, it’s supposed to make your company look good. Although it highlights the positives, it should include coverage of some of the struggles and issues along the way. If it doesn’t, no reader will believe it. So, if the case study writer asks about these struggles, you can be candid knowing that you’ll be able to review and make adjustments prior to publication.

Once you’re ready to share your case study with the world, you can post it on your program or company website, include it in a newsletter, print handouts, even print and frame copies for those who were quoted or were involved with the initiative. In addition, many companies send out press releases about their case studies.
 
You may also consider submitting your case study to a process improvement publication or Web site that accepts submissions, such as iSixSigma.com or onesixsigma.com. Keep in mind, each of these organizations have their own requirements, so you may have to work with them to edit the case study per their guidelines.

More Information

BMG has written a number of case studies featuring client success stories, including brief write-ups, longer case studies with graphics, and Power-Point overviews.

Compelling Cases (http://www.compelling-cases.com) specializes in writing case studies, and the website includes helpful information about the topic.