Case Writing Tips

Executive Summary

 Write from the perspective of the person in the case that needs to come up with a solution  Summarize your report not the case (don’t just repeat case facts)

o Situation, Main issue, Causes, Options, Recommendation!, M&C, Implementation  Make sure you say what you’re going to do!

Issue Identification

 Short / Long term  Internal / External environments that influence the issue  Sorted by importance

Issue Impact External and Internal environments Urgency

 Corp. strategy?

Operating Environment / Root Cause Analysis

 Economic / Competitive environment o Qualitative + Quantitative arguments

 Analysis tools

 PESTEL (Political / Economic / Socio-Cultural / Technological / Environment / Legal)

 SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats) o DO NOT PROPOSE SOLUTIONS in this section

 “How did we get here?”  Root Cause of the issues

o Fish bone diagram

Alternatives & Options

 Pros / Cons for each option o Use a table o Short description of each (sentences) then point form pro/con

 Decision Criteria – related to corp. strategy o Used to score / rank options

 Example: The following criteria was used to analyze the options: Organizational Strategy Alignment (Strategic Fit)

1 = Poor 5 = Excellent

Addresses Root Cause(s)

0 = None 5 = All

Stakeholder Buy-in Probability

0 = None 5 = All

Risk

0 = High 5 = Low

Cost (Money and resources)

1 = High 5 = Low

Time

1 = Long 5 = Short

Ease of Implementation 0 – Hard 5 – Easy

Case Writing Tips

Recommendations

 What you would do!  Contingency plan?

Implementation

 Specific steps  What, Who, When o (RACI chart – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) o Use a table o When – timeline  Immediate, 1 mth, 3 mths, 6 mths…. o Stakeholder buy-in? o Deal with negative consequences (Cons for that option)

Monitor and Control

 What is success?  How you will determine if your plans are working? – link back to Implementation

o Specific KPIs with metrics  What will you do if the plan is failing? (Contingency plan)  Use a Balanced Scorecard