[Case Study Enthusiast] Part 0: The Wonderful World of Case Study Articles

I am a person who creates B2B case study articles. Every week, I interview a company somewhere and craft case studies that say things like, 'This is how DX succeeded' or 'We introduced XX and solved our challenges.'

When you do this kind of work, you develop an occupational hazard.I can't help but be curious about other case study articles. When I see a good case study, I groan, 'That's well done,' and when I see one that falls short, I mutter, 'Ah, what a waste.' Before I know it, I'm scoring them in my head.

Sometimes, I compile case studies that might be useful and share them with clients, saying, 'This approach might be helpful.' As I've been exposed to hundreds of case studies like that, my way of distinguishing the good from the bad has become a 'template.'

I will reveal that 'yardstick' in this series. While introducing good case studies, I will break down why that article is good—or where it falls short—on a 10-point scale. In Part 0, I will introduce the perspectives I use for evaluation.

5 Yardsticks (2 points each, 10 points total)

• Reproducibility……Can other companies or industries think, 'We could do this too'? Boasting gets 0 points; having some sort of blueprint gets 2 points.

• DX Structural Integrity……Is it just an IT implementation, or did it change the very premise of the work? If they just bought a tool, the score won't go up.

• Organizational Transformation……Did the people, organization, and culture move? A case study without transformation or change is a lonely thing.

• Quantitative Results……Are there changes in metrics—in other words, are there numbers? Not 'we improved efficiency,' but 'we reduced it by X%.' This is where the biggest difference is made.

• Trendiness……Generative AI, agents, data infrastructure—does it incorporate the trends people are talking about now? This depends on ingenuity, but I want to actively introduce new methods.

How to read the scores

If it's 8.5 points or higher, it's 'flawless, I want to introduce it immediately.' Even around 8 points, it's plenty interesting. Basically, I will only cover articles with 8 points or more in this series. However, sometimes 6 or 7-point articles might get mixed in.I don't always introduce them just because the score is high. Regardless of the score, I will introduce case studies that I personally find noteworthy without hesitation. It is in the 'missed opportunity' case studies that common pitfalls and strangely brilliant elements coexist.

While I'm at it, I'll confess that the yardstick isn't uniform. For physical-world DX (factories, robots), I weigh 'implementation on the shop floor' more heavily than organizational transformation, and vendors have their own quirks. There are sources that easily produce numbers and those that don't. I hope to be able to explain the background of those things as well.

Who is this series for?

Case study introduction articles... who is this series for?It is an anatomy for your company, which wants to publish B2B case studies, to strengthen your own case studies. As a creator, I will open up case studies from a creator's perspective. That's why, at the end of every installment, I will leave a hint: 'If you were to publish a case study, I want you to focus on this.'

Case studies are like wine. Even from the same vineyard, the quality changes depending on how it's prepared. I can't evaluate the taste of wine, but I do know a thing or two about the quality of case study articles.

From now on, I will introduce them irregularly as the mood strikes me. Which case study will be in Part 1? Please wait a little while.

Oh, right. This series is about the 'eye for seeing' case studies, but I also write about the 'hand for making' them. I am serializing a guide on how to bring the production of case study articles in-house with the help of AI. It's a series that steps up from things you can do easily. Please give it a try if you feel like it.

How to create case study articles, now serializing

The person writing this article is...