20 Steps to Case Solving

1. Determine what main questions are being posed in the case.
2. Determine what additional questions need to be  answered  for you to make a recommendation – think total business solution.
3. Group like questions together; this will often spawn more questions to be considered .
4. Reread case a second time, making notes and jotting down additional questions, observations and potential solutions that come to mind.
5. Evaluate your data – use tools such as SWOT, PESTLE, etc. to organize your thoughts.
6. Write your problem statement.
7. Prepare to write your situational analysis by assessing the overall macro environment situation/ market conditions (from case which must be taken into account when determining your best solution to the stated problem. 
   8. Write the situational analysis. Remember: It must be an assessment/ analysis, NOT simply a recitation of case facts.  Think: “So what?”
   9. Identify your evaluation criteria; can be Quantitative or Qualitative.
   10. Evaluate the Status Quo (allowing for changes in macroenvironment).
   11. Develop possible solutions for each of the questions posed/ problems identified.  Come up with as many options as you can.
   12. Develop 2 or more viable, distinctly different alternatives; you will know they are truly different if they take the company/product in different directions. Feel free to combine options and to have some options be repeated in each alternative.
   13. Evaluate your proposed alternatives using the evaluation criteria you set earlier.
   14. Identify your top alternatives; write a short rationale for keeping or discarding each one.
   15. Review your recommendation to ensure that it is comprehensive and that all elements work together.
   
   
   16. Create your implementation plan; ensure that all items outlined in your recommendation are included in the implementation plan.
   17. Revisit your situational analysis and see if anything needs to be added, amended or deleted.
   18. Write your conclusion.
   19. Write your Executive Summary: It should be a précis of your paper, not a roadmap.
   20. Hand  your paper in on time. 

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Research Timeline

Research papers come in many sizes and levels of complexity. There is no single set of rules that fits every project, but there are guidelines you should follow to keep yourself on track throughout the weeks as you prepare, research and write. You will complete your project in stages, so you must plan ahead and give yourself enough time to complete every stage of your work.

Your first step is to write down the due date for your paper on a big wall calendar, in your planner, and in an electronic calendar.

Plan backward from that due date to determine when you should have your library work completed. A good rule of thumb is to spend:

• - Fifty percent of your time researching and reading
• - Ten percent of your time sorting and marking your research
• - Forty percent of your time writing and formatting

Timeline for Researching and Reading Stage

• - 1 week for short papers with one or two sources
• - 2-3 weeks for papers up to ten pages
• - 2-3 months for a thesis

It's important to get started right away on the first stage. In a perfect world, we would find all of the sources we need to write our paper in our nearby library. In the real world, however, we conduct Internet queries and discover a few perfect books and articles that are absolutely essential to our topic - only to find that they are not available in the local library.

The good news is that you can still get the resources through an interlibrary loan. But that will take time. This is one good reason to do a thorough search early on with the help of a reference librarian.

Give yourself time to collect many possible resources for your project. You will soon find that some of the books and articles you choose don't actually offer any useful information for your particular topic. You'll need to make a few trips to the library. You won't finish in one trip.

You'll also discover that you will find additional potential sources in the bibliographies of your first selections. Sometimes the most time consuming task is eliminating potential sources.

Timeline for Sorting and Marking Your Research

• - 1 day for a short paper
• - 3-5 days for papers up to ten pages
• - 2-3 weeks for a thesis