Here is a little video I did on how to do a research interview.
30 minutes long, fairly straightforward, I now have the technology sorted that I can make videos like this fairly easy and with decent quality. Might have used a better microphone, but what the heck, it works and only took me about four hours, including writing the outline.
As usual with these things: Caveat emptor. But this approach works for me.
Outline posted below the fold.
Continue readingBank in the nineties, I facilitated a meeting with Frank Elter at a Telenor video meeting room in Oslo. There were about 8 participants, and an invited presenter: Tom Malone from MIT.
The way it was set up, we first saw a one hour long video Tom had created, where he gave a talk and showed some videos about new ways of organizing work (one of the more memorable sequences was (a shortened version of) the four-hour house video.) After seeing Tom’s video, we spent about one hour discussing some of the questions Tom had raised in the video. Then Tom came on from a video conferencing studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss with the participants.
The interesting thing, to me, was that the participants experienced this meeting as “three hours with Tom Malone”. Tom experienced it as a one hour discussion with very interested and extremely well prepared participants.
A win-win, in other words.
I was trying for something similar yesterday, guest lecturing in Lene Pettersen‘s course at the University of Oslo, using Zoom with early entry, chat, polling and all video/audio enabled for all participants. This was the first videoconference lecture for the students and for three of my colleagues, who joined in. In preparation, the students had read some book chapters and articles and watched my video on technology evolution and disruptive innovations.
For the two hour session, I had set up this driving plan (starting at 2 pm, or 14:00 as we say over here in Europe…):
Leading the discussion. Zoom allows you to show a virtual background, so I chose a picture of the office I would have liked to have…
14:00 – 14:15 Checking in, fiddling with the equipment and making sure everything worked. (First time for many of the users, so have the show up early so technical issues don’t eat into the teaching time.)
14:15 – 14:25 Lene introduces the class, talks about the rest of the course and turns over to Espen (we also encouraged the students to enter questions they wanted addressed in the chat during this piece)
14:25 – 14:35 Espen talking about disruption and technology-driven strategies.
14:35 – 14:55 Students into breakout rooms – discussing whether video what it would take for video and digital delivery to be a disruptive innovation for universities. (Breaking students up into 8 rooms of four participants, asking them to nominate a spokesperson to take notes and paste them into the chat when they return, and to discuss the specific question: What needs to happen for COVID-19 to cause a disruption of universities, and how would such a disruption play out?
14:55 – 15:15 Return to main room, Espen sums up a little bit, and calls on spokesperson from each group (3 out of 8 groups) based on the notes posted in the chat (which everyone can see). Espen talks about the Finn.no case and raises the next discussion question.
15:15 – 15:35 Breakout rooms, students discuss the next question: What needs to happen for DNB (Norway’s largest bank) to become a data-driven, experiment-oriented organization like Finn.no? What are the most important obstacles and how should they be dealt with?
15:35 – 15:55 Espen sums up the discussion, calling on some students based on the posts in the chat, sums up.
15:55 – 16:00 Espen hand back to Lene, who sums up. After 16:00, we stayed on with colleagues and some of the students to discuss the experience.
The dashboard as I saw it. Student names obscured.
Some reflections (some of these are rather technical, but they are notes to myself):
Satisfactory results, I would say.
I used polls on three occasions: Before each discussion breakout, and in the end to ask the students what the experience was like. They were very happy about it and had good pointers on how to make it better
Conclusion: This can work very well, but I think it is important to set up each video session based on what you want to use it for: To present something, to run an exercise, to facilitate interaction. With a small student group like this, I think interaction worked very well, but it requires a lot of presentation. You have to be extremely conscious of time – I seriously think that any two-hour classroom session needs to be rescheduled to a three hour session just because the interaction is slower, and you need to have breaks.
As Winston Churchill almost said (he said a lot, didn’t he): We make our tools, and then our tools make us. We now have the tools, it will be interesting to see how the second part of this transition plays out.
Last Thursday, I was supposed to teach a class on technology strategy for a bachelor program at the University of Oslo. That class has been delayed for a week and (obviously) moved online. I thought about doing it video conference, but why not make a video, ask the students to see it before class? Then I can run the class interactively, discussing the readings and the video rather than spending my time talking into a screen. Recording a video is more work, but the result is reusable in other contexts, which is why I did it in English, not Norwegian. The result is here:
To my teaching colleagues: The stuff in the middle is probably not interesting – see the first two and the last five minutes for pointers to teaching and video editing.
For the rest, here is a short table of contents (with approximate time stamps):
This is not the first time I have recorded videos, by any means, but it is the first time I have created one for “serious” use, where I try to edit it to be reasonably professional. Some reflections on the process:
My excellent colleague Ragnvald Sannes pointed out that this is indicative of how teaching will work in the future, from a work (and remuneration) perspective. We will spend much more time making the content, and less time giving it. This, at the very least, means that teachers can no longer be paid based on the number of hours spent teaching – or that we need to redefine what teaching means…
Another video on moving to video-based teaching, this time about some things to consider to make the transition as easy for yourself as possible (as well as increasing the experience for the students):
From the Youtube posting:
Many teachers now have to move their courses online, and are worried about it. Teaching online is different from teaching in a classroom, but not so different: The main thing is still that you know your material and care about the the people at the other end. There are some things to consider, however, so here are five tips to think about when you move your course online:
In these viral times, a lot of universities will need to switch to video teaching, and for many teachers, this is a new experience. Here is a short (and fast) video I made with five – non-technical – tips for better video conferencing and teaching.
To sum it up:
1. Sound is more important than picture.
2. Look into the camera!
3. Don’t make the obvious mistakes: Background, lighting, and clothing.
4. Be lively! The medium consumes energy, you need to compensate.
5. Get to know the tools.
Good luck!
For the past two days I have run a seminar on case teaching for faculty at the University of Stavanger Business School, by initiative and invitation from Ken Wathne. (The picture above was taken at 11pm, which tells you something about summer in Norway and the gardening at UiS.)
I love case teaching (obviously) and think it is not only a very useful tool to use and skill to have – but also a way for business schools to future-proof their business model. In a time of Youtube and learning-on-demand, case teaching offers a way to analyse and learn real leadership skills in complex decision situation – something that cannot easily be automated, like standard business courses.
Here are some links to things I have used in the seminar:
Case teaching is not just for the classroom – increasingly, you can (and some schools do) offer discussion-based (or, at least, interaction-courses online.) My buddy Bill Schiano and I wrote a long note on how to do this for Harvard Business Publishing back in 2017 – and I then completely forgot about it.
Recently, I rediscovered it online, published by HBP – so, here goes: Schiano, Bill and Espen Andersen (2017): Teaching with Cases Online, Harvard Business Publishing. Enjoy. (More resources available at the HBP Teaching Center page.)
Incidentally – should you (as a school) consider doing courses this way, beware that this is not a cost reduction strategy. You probably will need to pay the online teachers more than those doing regular classrooms, simply because it is more work and quite a bit more design, at least in the beginning. But it may be an excellent way of reaching student groups you otherwise could not reach, for geographical or timing reasons.
Since I sometimes give classes on how to do case teaching and have written a book on the subject with Bill Schiano, I am sometimes asked how to write a teaching case. The following blog post is a quick tips & tricks collection (essentially an update of this post.)
Why are you writing this case?
First and foremost: Cases are written for a teaching purpose – and to write a teaching case, you need to have a teaching objective in mind. It is not enough to have an interesting company. Even the best company story needs to have a pedagogical point, a theory or dilemma to illustrate. So don’t write a teaching case just because you happen to know someone in a really interesting company – it does need to be a good story, but it also need to have a purpose.
The standard outline
Cases – particularly the standard HBS case – follow an outline that can seem rather trite, but which is very effective. It is something like this:
Most cases are just that – one case. You can have a B case and even a C case, but keep them short, since they have to be handed out and read in class. The B case should explain what the company did and perhaps introduce a new problem, the C case, if necessary, should bring some sort of closure, explaining what eventually happened. In my experience, it is very hard to get discussion after a C case – the students become exhausted. As a novice case writer, especially if you are writing about a company with a long history, it can be tempting to create a long string of small cases, but in practice this seldom works well – for one thing, it forces the discussion into a very predictable path.
The no-nos
No theory. A good case should be a description of an interesting situation, frequently a decision point – and nothing else. This means that there should be no theory and no discussion of the case in the case itself. Save that for the teaching note, or write a separate academic article about it. Not only does this make the case more realistic, it also means it can be used for more purposes than the one initially envisioned. This can be quite challenging for the traditional academic writer – but it is actually good practice to only present the facts (though, of course, which facts you choose to present constitute a discussion of sorts).
No hero, no villain. When teaching students how to analyze a case, I always start by saying that for most business situations, if is useful to begin the analysis with the assumption that people are not stupid and not evil. Consequently, when you write a case, make sure it has no heroes and no villains. If a case has a clear-cut hero or villain, it is a sign that you have not done enough research. Write things so that the students can see the issue from many perspectives.
No judgement. I frequently find, when reading prospective teaching cases, especially if written with the help of the communications department of a company, that judgements tend to be embedded in the text itself, though it is supposed to be as neutral and purely descriptive as possible. Do not write that a company is “leading” – instead, describe what they do, perhaps adding a bit of industry numbers for comparison, and let the decision about how leading the company is be up to the student. Do not write “Smith was a highly accomplished manager, leading a successful technology implementation.” Instead, write “Smith, at 29, was promoted to be the youngest vice president in company history after conceiving and overseeing the introduction of the first machine learning platform in the industry.”
No consultingese. Be very careful of weasel terms – is the company embarking on a strategic alliance or merely collaborating with another company for a specific purpose? (As a friend of mine said: “I buy all my socks at Marks and Spencer. That does not mean I have a strategic alliance with them.”) Avoid terms that are not well defined, and be precise in your language. Remember, a teaching case has the longest legs when it describes a human situation (since humans change slowly) and to not tie the narrative to specifically to a technology or a situation. (See the example of Fabritek below.) I quite often use old technology cases, and when the students complain, ask them to take out a pen and change the dates mentioned to current times, update the technology capabilities accordingly – and see if anything else changes.
Dramatic structure
A really well written case has dramatic structure – there is a beginning, a middle that builds up the story, and a really compelling issue at the end. The best cases are almost like a detective story, where you have to dig deep into the analysis to find surprising and sometimes counter-intuitive conclusions. One example of a “detective story” case is Fabritek 1992*, a very old (first published 1969, rewritten by Jan Hammond) case about a quality control issue in a small mechanical workshop. (Hat tip to Robert D. Austin, eminent case teacher, for making me aware of this case and showing me how to teach it.) The case is excellent because it starts with the company (strategic level), proceeds to describe a new situation and a new process (organizational or business logic level) and then introduces the problem (operational level.) Analyzing the operational details leads to one conclusion, which then can be discussed in terms of the organization and its business logic, which can then be placed into a strategic context. The case is excellent because it allows links between these levels – and also teaches the students that the devil indeed resides in the details, and that you as a manager better be very close to how the business you are leading works and makes money.
A second case which shows quality and innovation is iPremier, written by Robert D. Austin and Jeremy C. Short, the first and only graphic novel (cartoon) case I am aware of. The story is about a small online gift company being attacked by hackers, exposing glaring gaps in their security procedures and forcing managers at various levels to make some really hard decisions. The graphic format is excellent in making the various characters real (though they, on average, tend to be way too good-looking for a normal business situation), illustrates technical issues in a way that is very understandable even by non-technology students, and has a cracking good storyline with a B and a C case. I like to introduce a few technical cases in my courses because, well, I don’t think there is enough technology in business schools, and this cases answers very well because it illustrates that certain technical decisions very much require top management attention – ignore (or mindlessly delegate) technology understanding and responsibility at your peril. The graphic format also provides a welcome break from the standard case verbiage, which can be a trifle dour on occasion.
Details, details, details!
Research cases – the kind that is published in refereed journals – tend to be written from a very specific viewpoint, and only facts pertaining to that perspective is included, often in a very abstract format. A teaching case is the direct opposite: It needs lots of details, frequently made available as exhibits (graphs, pictures, documents, tables, etc.) placed at the end, after the main text. A teaching case writer, when visiting a company to write about it, needs to notice the small details, much like a really good journalist does. I tell my students that they should prepare each case so well that they feel like they have worked in the case company – and to allow them to do that, you need to provide the operational details necessary. (Incidentally, having more details than strictly necessary has the added benefit of making the case realistic – in the real world, you have to decide what is important and what is not.)
Doing it – and reading about it.
I am not aware of many books about how to write a good teaching case, with one exception: Grandon Gill (pictured), professor at University of South Florida and an excellent case teacher, has written a book called Informing with the case method, which is available for free download in PDF, MOBI and EPUB format from his web site. It has lots of details, tips and tricks, not just about case writing, but also about case teaching and course planning. (For the latter, of course, I am duty bound to recommend Bill Schiano’s and my book Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide
Last but definitely not least: Don’t underestimate how much work writing a proper business case is. Getting the details right, describing the dramatis personae, and making the storyline compelling is quite a challenge, in many dimensions different from the traditional academic article. On the other hand, should you get it right, you will have a very effective teaching tool for many years to come.
Good luck!
I have been asked to give a keynote speech at a conference on case teaching in Vienna, at the The University of Applied Sciences BFI. This is quite an honor, and I am very much looking forward to it.
Should you happen to want to be in Vienna and focus on case teaching on May 19 – well, I hope to see you there!
In our book Teaching with cases: A practical guide, Bill Schiano and I talk at a fairly high level about how to give effective student feedback by using a spreadsheet and personalized emails. Our argument is that by giving every student individual feedback in addition to the grade, you reduce the number of grade justification requests and complaints. This blog post is a detailed guide on how to do it – too detailed for the technically inclined, probably, but we all have to start somewhere.
You probably already have all the tools you need on your computer – a spreadsheet and an email client that works with your spreadsheet – such as Excel and Outlook, for example. (For myself, I use Excel and SerialMailer, a cheap serial mail client for Mac.) You can probably use online software as well, for instance a Google spreadsheet (which is nice because editing by more than one teacher is easy) and Gmail, though I have never tried it.
The idea is to use the spreadsheet to organize all your feedback, and to set it up so you use as little time as possible to give as much feedback as possible. I will demonstrate this, with an example for a fictitious course with three in-class sessions (with participation grading, 40% of grade), an individual written examination (30% of grade), and a group assignment (30%). I will show the various details of building the spreadsheet below – if you want to skip ahead and inspect the thing your self, I have made it available for downloading.
I start with a spreadsheet of students and email addresses, provided to me by the administration or downloaded from our LMS. Let’s say it looks something like this:
(If I have the time or can get the administration to create it from their databases, I ask to have first and last names in separate columns. For this demonstration, I won’t bother.)
Then I add columns for each of the assignments that I am going to grade:
(In this example, the individual examination has six questions, of which the students should answer four.)
For the group project, I create a separate sheet (in the same workbook, called “Groups”
The group sheet is exceptionally simple, just group number, points and comment. If you have several group assignments, this is where you will put them:
Note that I also create a group numbered 0. This is what I use for students who drop the course or don’t do the group assignment.
With that done, I assign students to groups in the Students sheet…
…and then I am ready to start teaching my course.
As the course rolls along, I enter points and comments for each student. As mentioned in the book, it is extremely important that you do the participation evaluation immediately after each class. I tend to give the students a score of 1-3, sometimes 1-6, with some definition. As I will show later, what scale you use does not really matter, as you can normalize them to whatever you want later in the process.
Anyway, assume the course is finished, and you have entered comments and points for everything – for the individual student, in the Student sheet….
…for the groups, in the Groups sheet:
To finish the evaluation part (we’ll get to communication later), you need to a) match the group points and comments to each individual student, b) calculate a final score for each student, and c) determine the letter grade for each student.
First: Group grades and comments. For a small class like this, this is probably a bit of overkill – you could just copy comments and points over to each individual student. But doing it the way I show here has the advantage (aside from being correct from a database administrator’s point of view) of error-correction (any error you make will be systematic and therefore easily spotted) and repeatable (the first time you do this, it is a chore, the second time, you just copy your previous spreadsheet and fiddle with it). Moreover, if you have a class with more than 40 students, a bit of “programming” saves time and effort. (I have done this for classes of 350 students, a situation where participation grading is not really possible – except as a small reward for exceptional students – but where the group feedback mechanism becomes extremely valuable.)
So, first – link individual students with their group’s scores and comments, using the LOOKUP function:
The formula is
=LOOKUP($E2;Groups!$A$2:$A$8;Groups!B$2:B$8)
and what it does is take the student’s group number (E2), look it up the first column of the “Groups” sheet (Groups!$A$2:$A$8), using fixed references to be able to copy the formula to the rest of the sheet, and displaying the group score (which is in column Groups!$B2:$B8). This nicely picks up all the group scores and comments:
We now have all the information for each student, then we have to calculate the various scores. We have the exam score already (the average of the exam points) and the participation score (a sum of the score for each session.) We now need to calculate the total points, which isn’t too hard: The max for participation is 9, for the others it is 10, so the formula for the total will be:
=(W2*0,3)+(O2*0,3)+(J2*0,4*10/9)
(I use comma as a decimal delimiter, parentheses for readability). We can now add a student ranking in the G column (students are always interested in this, so why not tell them?)
Now we are ready to set the grades. The simple way to do this is to sort the students by their scores (or rank, if you will):
How you set the letter grades is up to you, of course, but it helps to have the students sorted. I set grades by starting at the top, trying to get a reasonable distribution, and make sure that I don’t use absolutes so that some unlucky student narrowly misses a better grade. Let’s say we end up here:
Now we are ready to communicate the results to the students. We will do that by writing a letter to them, composed largely of common text (i.e., feedback that is the same to all students), and them use the mail/merge function of word to merge in the individual details from the spreadsheet.
Example letter using SerialMailer
As said above, I use a product called SerialMailer on my Mac. The concept is simple: You write the letter, link to the spreadsheet, and insert field names into the text. When the letter is sent out (or printed), the field names are substituted for the values for each individual student.
Here is how to do it in Word (if you want to send it out via email, you need to have Outlook as well.):
First, open Word and write the letter:
(As you can see, I recycle much of my texts…)
Let’s start by replacing “student” in the opening salutation with the student’s name. Then you open the Mailings tab in Word and hit Select recipients from an existing list…
…and select your spreadsheet:
I get this message, click OK:
And open the “Students” sheet (i.e. the individual sheet):
If you click “Insert Merge Field” now, you should get a list of the column headings in the spreadsheet:
Delete the word “student”, choose “Insert Merge Field” and choose “Name”, and the field code will be in the document:
If you hit “Preview Results”, the code will be replaced by the content for each student:
Now write field labels and insert the fields you want to share with the students. I like to add the listing at the end of the letter, but you can do whatever you want:
Hit Preview, and this is what each student will see:
And there you go. Now hit “Finish and Mail Merge”, and select whether you want to print the documents on paper (or PDF) or send them out via email (shown).
You must tell Outlook where the email addresses are in the spreadsheet:
Then specify a subject and choose HTML Message (if you want formatted text):
…and, well, this is where I will have to stop, since I do not use Outlook. But trust me, it works well, the students love having individualized feedback, and it really isn’t that much more work than just providing the grade. As an added bonus: If students want a grade justification, you can just tell them that they already have it…
(Corrections and feedback welcome, of course.)
My versatile and creative colleague Hanno Roberts and I have made a series of five videos on case learning and preparation, originally for students at the BI/Fudan MBA program. This teaching method is difficult both for teacher and student, but highly rewarding provided you give it proper attention – which means effective preparation. Hanno and I talk about the goal of case teaching, how students can prepare individually, how to prepare as a group, how to go through the case discussion in the classroom, and then we sum up with some strategies for how to retain what you have learned.
Hanno and I did these videos against a green-screen, with little preparation – we basically met, outlined a structure with some keywords, decided broadly on who should say what, and dove right into it. Most of the videos were shot once, and then the very capable Milosz Tuszko edited them, added background, logos and keywords.
The updated videos are a less wooden than the previous version, methinks, and available in high resolution and with better sound. We clarified the differences between my version of case teaching and Hanno’s (both work, by the way). Over the years the original videos have been much watched – hopefully, our students (and others) will watch them carefully, and the result will be better case teaching, more learning, and an even more enjoyable experience teaching.
Details about each video below the fold…
I am currently – with colleagues Mikael Lönnborg and Gerhard Schjelderup – editing what we hope to be a book of Scandinavian teaching cases. In a meeting in Stockholm recently, I was asked to explain what it takes to write a teaching case. I gave my opinion, we had a very interesting discussion. Here is my (very rough and off the cuff) opinion about what it takes (in reality, how a teaching case differs from a research case).
Why are you writing this case?
Cases are written for a teaching purpose – and to write a teaching case, you need to have a teaching objective in mind. It is not enough to have an interesting company. Even the best company story needs to have a pedagogical point, a theory or dilemma to illustrate. So don’t write a teaching case just because you happen to know someone in a really interesting company – it does need to be a good story, but it also need to have a purpose.
The standard outline
Cases – particularly the standard HBS case – follow an outline that can seem rather trite, but which is very effective. It is something like this:
Most cases are just that – one case. You can have a B case and even a C case, but keep them short, since they have to be handed out and read in class. The B case should explain what the company did and perhaps introduce a new problem, the C case, if necessary, should bring some sort of closure, explaining what eventually happened. In my experience, it is very hard to get discussion after a C case – the students become exhausted. As a novice case writer, especially if you are writing about a company with a long history, it can be tempting to create a long string of small cases, but in practice this seldom works well – for one thing, it forces the discussion into a very predictable path.
The no-nos
A good case should be a description of an interesting situation, frequently a decision point – and nothing else. This means that there should be no theory and no discussion of the case in the case itself. Save that for the teaching note, or write a separate academic article about it. Not only does this make the case more realistic, it also means it can be used for more purposes than the one initially envisioned. This can be quite challenging for the traditional academic writer – but ist is actually good practice to only present the facts (though, of course, which facts you choose to present constitute a discussion of sorts).
When teaching students how to analyze a case, I always start by saying that for most business situations, if is useful to begin the analysis with the assumption that people are not stupid and not evil. Consequently, when you write a case, make sure it has no heroes and no villains. If a case has a clear-cut hero or villain, it is a sign that you have not done enough research. Write things so that the students can see the issue from many perspectives.
Dramatic structure
A really well written case has dramatic structure – there is a beginning, a middle that builds up the story, and a really compelling issue at the end. The best cases are almost like a detective story, where you have to dig deep into the analysis to find surprising and sometimes counter-intuitive conclusions. One example of a “detective story” case is Fabritek 1992*, a very old (first published 1969, rewritten by Jan Hammond) case about a quality control issue in a small mechanical workshop. (Hat tip to Robert D. Austin, eminent case teacher, for making me aware of this case and showing me how to teach it.) The case is excellent because it starts with the company (strategic level), proceeds to describe a new situation and a new process (organizational or business logic level) and then introduces the problem (operational level.) Analyzing the operational details leads to one conclusions, which can then be discussed in terms the organization and its business logic, which can then be placed into a strategic context. The case is excellent because it allows links between these levels – and also teaches the students that the devil indeed resides in the details, and that you as a manager better be very close to how the business you are leading works and makes money.
A second case which shows quality and innovation is iPremier, written by Robert D. Austin and Jeremy C. Short, the first and only graphic novel (cartoon) case I am aware of. The story is about a small online gift company being attacked by hackers, exposing glaring gaps in their security procedures and forcing managers at various levels to make some really hard decisions. The graphic format is excellent in making the various characters real (though they, on average, tend to be way too good-looking for a normal business situation), illustrates technical issues in a way that is very understandable even by non-technology students, and has a cracking good storyline with a B and a C case. I like to introduce a few technical cases in my courses because, well, I don’t think there is enough technology in business schools, and this cases answers very well because it illustrates that certain technical decisions very much require top management attention – ignore (or mindlessly delegate) technology understanding and responsibility at your peril. The graphic format also provides a welcome break from the standard case verbiage, which can be a trifle dour on occasion.
Details, details, details!
Research cases – the kind that is published in refereed journals – tend to be written from a very specific viewpoint, and only facts pertaining to that perspective is included, often in a very abstract format. A teaching case is the direct opposite: It needs lots of details, frequently made available as exhibits (graphs, pictures, documents, tables, etc.) placed at the end, after the main text. A teaching case writer, when visiting a company to write about it, needs to notice the small details, much like a really good journalist does. I tell my students that they should prepare each case so well that they feel like they have worked in the case company – and to allow them to do that, you need to provide the operational details necessary. (Incidentally, having more details than strictly necessary has the added benefit of making the case realistic – in the real world, you have to decide what is important and what is not.)
Doing it – and reading about it.
I am not aware of many books about how to write a good teaching case, with one exception: Grandon Gill (pictured), professor at University of South Florida and an excellent case teacher, has written a book called Informing with the case method, which is available for free download in PDF, MOBI and EPUB format from his web site. It has lots of details, tips and tricks, not just about case writing, but also about case teaching and course planning. (For the latter, of course, I am duty bound to recommend Bill Schiano’s and my book Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide
Last but definitely not least: Don’t underestimate how much work writing a proper business case is. Getting the details right, describing the dramatis personae, and making the storyline compelling is quite a challenge, in many dimensions different from the traditional academic article. On the other hand, should you get it right, you will have a very effective teaching tool for many years to come.
Good luck!
The case teaching book is, I have been reliably informed, selling well. It is currently in heavy rotation on Harvard Business Publishing’s web pages (see image below) and also available on Amazon.com
And that, well, makes my day a little brighter…
The Table of Contents in the paper and PDF version of Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 1: Introduction: Why you should read this book 1
Why case teaching? 2
How case classes and students vary 4
Class size 5
Core versus elective 5
Part-time versus full-time 5
Gender 5
Weekly versus modular courses 6
Domestic versus international 6
Single versus multi-section 6
Executive versus graduate versus undergraduate 7
One of many case classes for students vs. only or one of few 7
In school versus other location 7
Practical Guidance for all Case-Teaching Faculty 7
The central framework: Foundation, flow, and feedback 8
Chapter 2: Foundations: Preparing for the course 11
Taking Ownership 12
Making a Contract 14
Developing Content 16
Structuring the syllabus 26
Selecting cases 18
Selecting readings and textbooks 24
Using guest speakers 26
Using assignments 28
Working with Students 29
Motivating Students 32
Enthusiasm and Engagement 33
Relevance 33
Opportunities to build valuable skills 33
Safe participation 34
Fun 34
Finding Information about Students’ Backgrounds 35
Helping the students prepare for case discussions 36
Classroom participation requirement 36
Establishing Infrastructure 38
Establishing seating arrangements 39
Using Name cards and seating charts 42
Setting length and frequency of class sessions 44
Session Length 45
Session Frequency 45
Wrapping up 46
Chapter 3: Flow During the Class Session 49
Preparing Yourself 51
Crafting a teaching plan 52
Demeanor in class 54
Dressing for class and impression management 55
Managing your anxiety 57
Preparation 57
Exercises 58
Rituals 59
Starting to Teach 59
The first class 59
Opening classes 62
Building trust in the class 64
Managing the Discussion 66
The Emcee: Calling on students and managing airtime 67
The Scribe: Using the board 70
Board plan 71
Writing on the board 74
The Conductor: Using body language, silence, and movement 76
Using the physical space 79
The TV Host: Asking questions 82
Giving up control 84
Time management 85
How long to let a discussion go 86
If you are running out of time 86
Breaks and other interruptions 87
Teaching long class days 88
Beyond Discussion 89
Using theory and other non-case material 89
Inductive versus deductive case use 90
Communicating Theory 91
Role-Playing 93
Multipart cases 94
Group work 95
Group Presentations 96
Group Discussions 98
Team teaching in the classroom 99
Are you getting the most from each student? 101
Humor in the classroom 102
Energy 103
Raising the energy level 104
Relationships among and with students 106
Concluding a Discussion 107
Chapter 4: Feedback: Assignments, Grading and Guidance 111
The Evaluative Mindset 112
Designing Evaluation 113
Designing assignments 115
Individual Oral Assignments 115
Individual Written Assignments 116
Group Oral Assignments 117
Group Written Assignments 118
Designing Exams 118
Selecting Cases for Exams 118
Writing Exam Questions 119
Take-Home Exams 121
Designing Term Papers 122
Term Papers as Research Method 124
Grading 125
A matter of scaling 125
How to structure feedback 127
Group Work 130
Final Exams 130
Class participation 131
Capturing Participation 133
Setting Expectations 134
Setting Expectations by Self-Evaluation 135
Exams 136
The dreaded extra-credit requests 139
Handling academic dishonesty 140
Conclusion 143
Chapter 5: Managing Classroom Issues 145
Issues with Individual Student 145
How do I manage students who hog airtime? 146
How do I manage combative students? 147
What can I do about students’ computer use in class? 148
What do I do if a student does not pay attention in class? 149
What do I do if a student complains? 150
How do I accommodate students with disabilities? 151
Issues with groups of students 152
What Do I Do When Students Are Not Well Prepared? 152
How do I get students to prepare better? 153
Reward Good Preparation 153
Help Them Along 154
Draw Out Prepared But Reticent Students 154
Require Case Write-ups or Give Pop Quizzes 154
Give a Stern Lecture 154
Make An Example of a Student or Two 154
How do I stop side conversations? 155
How Do I Manage Dysfunctional Class Behavior? 156
Hissing 156
Genuflection 156
Sharking 157
What if the class turns against me? 157
How is Teaching Executives Different? 159
How should I deal with student pranks? 161
How Do I Deal with Student Representatives? 163
How Do I Deal with Dysfunctional Groups? 164
Free-Riders 164
Personality Conflicts 165
Poor Project Management 165
Poor Performance 165
Issues Beyond Students 166
What if I can’t find enough cases that fit? 166
What do I do if I have lost track of the discussion? 167
What if I run out of questions? 168
How do I deal with problems in an intensive-format course? 137
Prepare Differently 169
Manage Expectations 169
Manage Process Closely 169
What can I do if I am low on energy? 170
What If the Administration Gets Involved?
Chapter 6 Quantitative and technical material 174
Flipping the Qualitative and Quantitative 175
Being Qualitative about the Quantitative 175
Being Quantitative about the Qualitative 176
Explicitly Teach Estimation 177
Quantify Anything 177
Know the Industry Data 177
Change Assumptions or Problems on the Fly 179
Teaching Quantitative Material 179
Making a Teaching Plan for a Quantitative Case 179
Pacing the Discussion 180
Asking for a Number at the Beginning 181
Managing Math Phobia and Aversion to Numbers 183
Making the value clear 182
Acknowledging the Phobic 182
Filling in the Holes 182
Fostering a Sense of Self-Efficacy 183
Using the Board 183
Making the best use of students 185
When Students Go Wrong 185
When No One Has the Correct Analysis 186
Discussing a Quantitative Case with Subjective Numbers or Estimates 187
Using Groups 188
Teaching Technical Material 189
Motivating the Study of Technology 189
Structuring the Teaching of Technology 190
Conclusion 192
Chapter 7 Adjusting for language and culture 195
The Foreign Student 197
Making Adjustments for Foreign Students 200
The Foreign Teacher 202
The Teacher Abroad 204
Expectations for teaching 205
Teacher power 206
Student behavior 207
Using Interpreters 208
Trust the locals 211
Chapter 8: Preparing for the next time 213
Debriefing a course 213
Interpreting and using student feedback 215
How to Read Student Feedback 215
Striving for High Evaluations 217
Reviewing Case Selection 217
Debriefing with a Teaching Group 218
Archiving Material 218
Evaluating case teachers, including yourself 219
Before Class 219
During Class 219
After Class 220
Managing relationships with alumni 220
Chapter 9: Fostering Case Teaching at the School Level 223
The Commoditized Business School 223
Relevance is Relevant 224
Integration is Integral 225
Institutionalizing Case Teaching 228
Recruiting, Incentives and Promotion 228
Teaching-Related Procedures 230
Getting Infrastructure Right 230
Classroom Design 231
Good, Abundant Board Space 231
Blackboards Rather Than Whiteboards 231
Seating 232
Making Cases Easy to Use and Produce 233
Case Production 234
Chapter 10 Technologies for Case Teaching 238
Take Control of the Technology 238
Technology for Teacher Productivity 239
Teacher’s Computer Use in Class 241
Presentation Software 243
Tools for Student-Teacher Interaction 246
Learning Management Systems 246
Build a Sandbox 246
Explore the System 247
Maintain Communication Norms 247
Create a FAQ Repository 247
Structure for Reuse 247
Facilitate Searching 247
Consider the User’s Experience 248
Maintain Structure 248
Automate Availability 248
Explore the Analytics 248
Seek and Accept Help 249
Other Technologies to Support Student Interaction 249
Social Media 249
In-Class Polling and Voting Tools 249
Questionnaires 250
Shared Documents 250
Analysis Tools 250
Online Simulations 251
Online Teaching 251
Teleconference Teaching 251
Get the Basic Technology Right 252
Communicate in a Way Suited to the Medium 252
Communicate via Side Channel and Back Channel 253
Get to Know the Students 254
Videoconferencing 254
Lighting and Background 255
Sound 256
The Video Camera 256
Concurrently Teaching Face-to-Face and Remotely 259
Teaching Asynchronously with Discussion Forums 260
Foundations: Designing the Course and Forming the Contract 262
Flow: Running the Discussion 265
Guidelines for Students 267
Feedback: Evaluating and Closing the Loop 269
Managing the inevitable technical failures 271
Conclusion 273
Index 275
About the Authors 293
Our book is out!
Bill Schiano and I have written a book, Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide
Bill and I are both passionate about case teaching and use it whenever possible. We have aimed the book at the kind of people we were 18 years ago: Teachers wanting to use case teaching, but finding ourselves in institutions where case teaching is not the dominant teaching method. (We actually wanted to name the book Case teaching when you are not at Harvard, but saner minds intervened.)
There are a few books on how to do case teaching available, but common to them is that they are a) rather philosophical and abstract in their advice, and b) take the institutional environment for granted – i.e., they assume that you are at a school, such as Harvard Business School, Wharton, INSEAD or University of Western Ontario, where case teaching is the norm, the students are brilliant and fiercely competitive, classrooms are made for case teaching and excellent teaching is valued by the administration (and the promotion committees.)
We wanted the book to be relentlessly practical – what to wear to class, how to deal with disruptive students, how to get students to prepare, how to grade participation. We also wanted the book to address how to create the necessary infrastructure for case teaching with little or no administrative support, down to how you create name cards (let the students do it or use a spreadsheet/mail-merge function) and class chart (take a photo of the students holding their name cards, print it in weak grayscale for after-class note-taking.)
The book is built around three concepts: Foundations (how to set up the course, contract with the students, and set up infrastructure); Flow (how to conduct the discussion in the classroom, manage time and boards, ask questions, and conclude discussions); and Feedback (how to design grading and feedback, especially participation grading.) We have extra chapters on dealing with difficult issues (much of it based on questions from participants in HBS’ case teaching seminars); how to teach quantitative and technical material; how to deal with differences in language and culture (foreign students and foreign teachers); how to prepare for the next course; how to foster case teaching at the school level (many business schools are now looking to better teaching, including case teaching, as a differentiator); and lastly, a long and detailed chapter on technologies for case teaching, including our views on how to teach cases online.
The book also includes a collection of online resources (sample syllabi, sample teaching plans, etc.) for teachers, available at teachingwithcases.hbsp.harvard.edu. We hope to grow this collection as we hear from readers and build more material ourselves.
That’s it for now – I’ll be back with excerpts, a full table of contents, and various other nuggets eventually. But given that this book has been on my mind for a couple of years now, it is a rather good day…
With two colleagues, Gerhard Schjelderup and Mikael Lönnborg, I am trying to create a case collection, to be published as a book. We start with a call for abstracts, with a deadline of June 9. You will find the details in this PDF document.
The main idea is simply to do something about the lack of available teaching cases on Scandinavian (or, for that matter, Nordic) companies. We want cases that are like HBS cases – no theory in the case, a thorough description of an interesting company with an interesting problem. Seems simple enough, no?
See you for the workshop on October 10!
These videos have been updated: You find the new ones here.
My versatile and creative colleague Hanno Roberts and I have made a series of five videos on case learning and preparation, originally for students at the BI/Fudan MBA program. This teaching method is difficult both for teacher and student, but highly rewarding provided you give it proper attention – which means effective preparation. Hanno and I talk about the goal of case teaching, how students can prepare individually, how to prepare as a group, how to go through the case discussion in the classroom, and then we sum up with some strategies for how to retain what you have learned. Hanno and I did these videos against a green-screen, with little preparation – we basically met, outlined a structure with some keywords (displayed on the little computer on the table in front of us, decided broadly on who should say what, and dove right into it. Most of the videos were shot twice, and then the very capable Lars Holand picked the least bad clips, added the background and logos, and generated the files in .mp4 and .flv. The lack of scripting was intentional – we did not want the videos to be too formal and stultifying, though the format itself might be. We also wanted to be a bit formal, to make sure we got our main points across. The results is a bit stiff, there are a few repetitions (we intro each clip, to make them more embeddable), but given that these were created also to be understandable for students whose first language isn’t English, I think it kind of works. And it was fun to do, and not too much work. Anyway, the videos are there, free for all to use – and hopefully, our students will watch them carefully, and the result will be better case teaching, more learning, and an even more enjoyable experience teaching. Continue reading
Applied Abstractions 