Real-Time Business Case Method: Study What a Real Company is Doing. Right now. This Minute.

Since 1920, the basic case study method used first at Harvard Business School (HBS) and then by practically every business school on earth has changed little. Sure, they are putting them on tablets now, but otherwise the simple formula is 1. research something that happened, 2. write it up, 3. leave the key issues open for the students to analyze and interpret (even though the outcome is known to the case designer), and 4. hold a highly accountable class discussion about it. Often at the end, the outcome is revealed for comparison to the students prescriptions or predictions.  Nice. Tidy.  Print, repeat.

And print they did.  HBS alone has 17,000 case studies for sale!

But what if you took the whole concept up a notch?  What if the outcome was unknown because it simply hadn't happened yet?  Because the company was making the crucial decisions right now?  Today and tomorrow and throughout the course and, if the company survived, long after the students left the classroom.

And what if you had a front seat to the action? A reporter inside the company documenting what was happening week by week, interviewing executives and employees, and sending out updates once a week, including company documents, strategy, and financial forecasts?

And what if you could actually speak to the executives via video conference and ask them questions once a week?  And what if you were allowed to critique their business strategy using the same information they have available to them and provide recommendations for their consideration?

This is precisely the audacious experiment conceptualized and implemented by James Theroux at the Isenberg School of Management.  The results were phenomenal.  In the first implementation of this approach, 45% of  the students said they felt it was the most memorable or valuable course they had taken.

And was it good for the company?  Why would they air their dirty laundry in front of and answer questions from a bunch of students when they have urgent work to do and critical decisions to make?  Well, consider that the students identification of core weaknesses in the business model turned out to be accurate and their recommendations for action prophetic.

According to Theroux:

“Over time, and including [a] merger, the result has been to a large degree that [the students'] thoughts on positioning the company have come to fruition.”

Repeating this kind of success is difficult.  In a later iteration, a mere 25% of the students found it to be the most memorable or valuable course they had taken (I hate it when only a quarter of my students think my class was the best one ever!). The company in this case was slower moving, the technology field it was in was harder to understand, and the access to the leadership was, unexpectedly, more limited.

But the best things to do are way too often also the hardest things to do.  It is worth trying again and again to get a model like this right; to refine the selection criteria; to get the costs of engaging in the approach manageable (either by lowering execution costs or by scaling participation fees); to demonstrate benefits so compelling to both the company and the learning institution that the approach becomes accepted and routine and takes it place along side that other, once radical, approach that has been working since 1920.

Hats off to Dr. Theroux!

For more information on Real-Time Case Method, see:
Real-Time Case Method: Analysis of a Second Implementation. Theroux, James M.
Journal of Education for Business Jul/Aug 2009, Vol. 84 Issue 6, p367-373 7p; 2 Charts, 12 Graphs, 2009 

The Power of Learning Analytics, Targeted Intervention, and Mastery Learning at Scale

This is the first time I have ever reblogged, but the posting by Bror Saxberg, CLO of Kaplan, regarding applying learning analytics at scale at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee is worth repeating.  It is a powerful combination of large scale analytics, careful experimental design, targeted intervention,  semi-automated student motivation, and mastery learning. Make sure you jump to the original via the link below to see some very compelling charts representing their success.

By the way, I ran in to Bror at the Educause Learning Initiative conference, and he is more than ready to lead the revolution for the application of learning sciences to higher education, and he has enough energy for a dozen mere mortals to pull it off!  I am interested in connecting with others who share this passion as well. 

Bror writes:

At the recent Educause Learning Initiative meeting in Austin Texas, I came across some very interesting recent randomized control trial results from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.  They’re testing a combination of mastery learning plus “amplified assistance” (data-driven suggestions for faculty about who to intervene with and how) in an introductory Psychology course, and, with thousands of students (!!) having run through controlled trials, they’re showing significant improvements in pass rates and long term retention.

via brorsblog.typepad.com