By their nature these tend to be ‘written’ documents meant to be published or presented, as an example, as the capture of a moment in time like a set of accounts, available to be reread but not actually used, something at ‘the end’. In my experience this makes them interesting but of less value than they could be.
Part of the proposal to the RAEng. when I first went to Leeds University was to follow their outline and use transferable case studies for teaching. I quickly found I could not use anyone else’s case studies and the ones I could use of my own only had meaning with my personal background knowledge.
How could these be transferable? How could they be used creatively?
We changed direction and use ‘the process we used’ as the case study, which was transferable, and the work we did with the students as examples of that process in action. [the process will be online shortly]
When case studies are presented, as at the recent Design Council presentation in Leeds, though often inspiring, the audience has to make the jump to connecting it to their own needs and aspirations, a jump they often cannot make because the ‘case study’ is presented as a story [good point] but it is someone else’s story [weaker point].
Though this is not catchy, what about “case experience” – where the process is clear, the experience of doing – that the ‘case/cases’ are examples of the process in action with the key outcomes highlighted and it is shown that the process is flexible and transferable to the audiences individual cares.
It is left like an open question – this process helped these ‘cases’ – can it help you?
How can this work for you? Think about your own problems/issues/opportunites taken through this – what do you imagine would happen?
Why don’t we try? Where do you want to go?
Put the initial information from some audience members into the process as part the ‘case experience’ presentation. That connects the audience to the idea so that they can see that they too can gain from this process – the ’study’ becomes a transferable idea.
Just a thought.
November 15, 2008 at 7:16 pm |
David, Good thought. I think the point of documenting and utilising the process, makes the learning transferable and easily applicable to other scenarios. The beauty of ’stories’, in all walks of life, is that they make facts, actions or events interesting and memorable. As such they are invaluable!
We can all get ’star struck’ by using case studies from big names/corporates and forget that a SME audience can struggle with (a) seeing the overall relevance to them and (b) being able to pick abstract principles and see their potential benefits. It leaves us all open to the dismissive, ‘It’s easy for them because they’ve got millions of pounds of budget’, comment which undermines any sincere or calculated approach.