Page 344 - The Case Lab Book

the students for independent analysis of future case studies. The onus here though, lies with the lecturer
to do the work and provide the worked solution.

FIRST CLASS TEST

On occasion the class has been offered the opportunity for the first person to solve the equation
(Diagram 4) to have the day off. The equation is supposed to be the fundamental strategy followed by all
businesses and one that helps protect against gross errors of judgment.

It is hypocriful but the solution (Diagram 5) does help illustrate that business is not all about number
crunching or slavish adherence to analytics.

Where students must deal directly with the meaning of the information in the case study context
lecturers should be able to list exactly what the students should know and should be able to do after they
have finished the case that they didn't know and couldn't do before they went through the case.

However, in the icebreaker case study the objective is not to attempt to do the latter. Rather, instead of
trying to achieve the impossible of "the students will learn how to think critically", it merely aspires to de-
scale the thought process by showing that talking to one another and developing linkages between case
information and its interpretation is an elementary but essential feature of case analysis. As Herreid
[Herreid, 1997, 2000, 2004] states the very act of writing key points demonstrates case method process
whilst giving structure to the discussion, demonstrating it is not aimless rambling.

Chalkboard work is essential to the success of a case and forms a pivotal part of determining how a
student sees its worth.

The objective then is to ameliorate fear by using an ice breaker case study as the introduction to case
teaching and case analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

The process of case study analysis is simply a means of making sense of large, complex, unstructured,
problems. It provides insight into the building blocks and the relationships which bind and influence them
and which in turn, are used by the individual in conjunction with his or her own intellectual and intuitive
abilities to form these rational solutions. However, for many students fear manifests when faced for the
first time with this unknown methodology. Consequently, the first introduction to the case method is
extremely important and should therefore be given due consideration by the lecturer as a means of settling
the student into a deeper and more productive method of analysis. To this end, doing the ice breaker case
study and drawing out the analysis and showing relationships and possible interpretations is fundamental.
Moreover, this process attempts by example, to encourage students to construct their own solutions to future
cases by applying the same questioning and relationship building steps (or diagnostic adaptations)
encountered in the ice breaker case study. Diagnostic tools should and must be adapted to circumstances
existent in the case study under examination - one size does not fit all.
The provision of the e-resource Ice Breaker Case Study provides a further support for the student by
presenting access to the worked ‘solution’, appropriate theory base and tests and quizzes delivered to multiple
platforms and accessible when the student wants them.

THE ICE BREAKER CASE

The following introductory, ice breaker business case study, takes between one and one - and - a half
hours to complete with the class. It is an attempt to demystify the case method in the eyes of the students.
It allows the lecturer to visually construct a solution drawing on the interpretation of each paragraph by the
class but augmented by the lecturer. In addition, on student prompts, the lecturer constructs an analysis
drawing on common diagnostic tools and their interpretation to aid the assessment of the company’s current