Although almost every business is unique in it's own way, there are some universal lessons that apply to just about any business. Studying business cases enables us to analyze business issues and lessons from different perspectives, and to apply our critical thinking and problem-solving skills to real world business situations. Business cases are usually a summary of either a real life business scenario, or a fictional account about a business situation or a dilemma. These cases can range from a brief paragraph or two to many pages of information and data to analyze. And there are a number of ways you can go about analyzing the data and information in a case study, but one particular procedure has proved its usefulness over and over again. This method is based on the Harvard Business School's case analysis process. And in this lecture, I'll be focusing on introducing you to the five steps for case analysis in the Harvard Business School's case analysis process. There are five steps in this process. First, reading the case. Second, identifying the problem. Third, researching issues surrounding the problem and analyzing the data in the case. Fourth, generating and evaluating solutions to the problem. And fifth and finally, recommending a solution. The first step is to read the case. To read the case effectively and efficiently I suggest that you first skim the case. Skimming is a key step in your reading, as it enables you to gain familiarity with the case by reading it to get the gist or the broad idea of what the case is about. Next you should go back to determine the critical facts in the case. This type of active reading helps you to determine critical facts about the case, such as where it's taking place, who the main characters are, what the key facts are, and how the protagonists may have already tried to deal with the problem in the case. This type of understanding will allow you to then move on to the second step, which is identifying the problem at the heart of the case. This second step involves separating the facts around which the business case has been built from the symptoms of the problem. A simple way to identify this problem is to focus on the end result and then work backward towards the root of the problem by asking why and what caused this problem. This method is called the 5 Whys, as you would begin with the end result of the case and then begin asking why this result occurred. For example, if in a business case the end result was that an employee has been fired on her first day on the job, You'd begin by asking why this action was taken. Why was she fired? Maybe you could come up with the answer that the employee behaved rudely to a customer. So, once you've asked this first question, you would then ask another "why" question related to the answer. You might ask "why was the employee rude to the customer?" And this process of asking why again and again should continue until you've separated all the inferences, assumptions and symptoms of the problem and have come up with what you feel is the root cause of the problem itself. The next step is to become familiar with the problem by conducting your own research and analyzing the data provided in the case to support any hunches you have about the problem. The type and amount of research you'll need to conduct really depends on the content of the case and your own background knowledge and experience, but once you have a better understanding of the issues surrounding the problem, you next need to start looking at the data or evidence from the case to begin investigating what is causing the problem. This data will either be presented in a non-numerical qualitative fashion, or with numerical quantitative data. When analyzing qualitative data, try to keep a very clear idea of what you're trying to discover or prove, so you're not distracted. When analyzing qualitative data, look closely at the textual features, like titles, subtitles, highlighted terms, maybe synonyms of any key words from your problem statement, any pictures, images and exhibits that have been included in the case. Numerical data tends to be given either in the text or in charts, or tables in the exhibits at the end of the case. Remember that the purpose behind all this research and analysis is to begin to help you to brainstorm the potential solutions to the problem. So you should really be evaluating all the data you come across to see if it enables you to suggest how to solve the problem presented. This brings us to the fourth step in the case analysis process, which is generating and evaluating solutions to the problem. The fourth step involves using the information you gained in your research into the issues surrounding the problem, and your analysis of any evidence related to the problem, to begin to brainstorm all the feasible ideas you can come up with to solve the problem. It's really important that you write down everything you can think of before discarding the idea, no matter what. Once you have a list of potential solutions to the problem, you will then need to evaluate how suitable each of them would be, until you come up with a preferred solution. The final step of this process is to decide upon one solution to solve the problem and to then recommend it. To do this you would use a clear action plan. An action plan provides information on all the tasks that need to be accomplished, in order to carry out the recommended solution. You need to maybe articulate who would need to be involved, what needs to be done, where it would be done, how long each major step would take, how much money each major step would cost, and how the solution would benefit the stakeholders in the case. Well, analyzing business cases can seem overwhelming at first. But as you can see, if you approach your reading and analysis in a structured systematic way, using something like the Harvard Business School's case analysis process, you should be able to work through the case to understand the problem at the heart, work through the problem to understand the problem at the heart of the case, and then come up with a recommended solution that should help to solve the problem. Thank you very much for watching this lecture.
