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Business Management Case Study: A Complete Breakdown

Gain a comprehensive understanding of the "Business Management Case Study" as we break down the concept from start to finish. Discover the incredible journeys of companies like Apple Inc., Tesla and Netflix as they navigate innovation, global expansion, and transformation. This detailed analysis will provide insights into the dynamic world of business management.

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Case studies play a pivotal role in understanding real-world challenges, strategies, and outcomes in the ever-evolving field of Business Management. This blog dives into the intricacies of a compelling Business Management Case Study, dissecting its components to extract valuable insights for aspiring managers, entrepreneurs, and students alike. Learn the study behind some of the most significant Business Management Case Studies & how an online business degree can help you learn more in this article. 

Table of Contents

1) What is Business Management? 

2) Case Studies in Business Management 

    a) Apple Inc. Innovation 

    b) Tesla’s EV revolution 

    c) Amazon retailer to e-commerce giant 

    d) McDonald’s global expansion 

    e) Netflix’s transformation 

3) Conclusion 

What is Business Management?  

Business Management refers to the set of activities, strategies, and practices employed to oversee and coordinate an organisation's operations, resources, and personnel to achieve specific goals and objectives. It encompasses a wide range of responsibilities to ensure an organisation's efficient and effective functioning across various functional areas. 

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Case Studies in Business Management  

Here are some of the notable case studies in the field of Business Management that have garnered attention due to their complexity, innovative strategies, and significant impact on their respective industries:  

Apple Inc. innovation  

a) Background: Apple Inc. is a global technology giant noted for its innovative products and design-driven approach. In the early 2000s, Apple faced intense competition and declining market share. The company needed to reinvent itself to remain relevant and competitive. 

b) Problem statement: Apple's challenge was revitalising its product line and regaining market leadership while navigating a rapidly changing technological world. 

c) Analysis of the situation: The Case Study dives into Apple's design thinking and customer-centric innovation to develop products that seamlessly blend form and function. The company's focus on user experience, ecosystem integration, and attention to detail set it apart from its competitors. 

d) Proposed solutions: Apple's strategy involved launching breakthrough products like the iPod, iPhone, and iPad that redefined their respective markets. The company also invested heavily in creating a robust ecosystem through iTunes and the App Store. 

e) Chosen strategy: Apple's commitment to user-centred design and innovation became the cornerstone of its success. The strategy encompassed cutting-edge technology, minimalist design, and exceptional user experience. 

f) Implementation process: Apple's implementation involved rigorous research and development, collaboration among various teams, and meticulous attention to detail. The company also established a loyal customer base through iconic product launches and marketing campaigns. 

g) Results and outcomes: Apple's strategy paid off immensely, leading to a resurgence in its market share, revenue, and brand value. The company's products became cultural touchstones, and its ecosystem approach set new standards for the technology industry. 

Tesla’s EV revolution  

a) Background: Tesla, led by Elon Musk, aimed to disrupt the traditional automotive industry by introducing electric vehicles (EVs) that combined sustainability, performance, and cutting-edge technology. 

b) Problem statement: Tesla faced challenges related to the production, scalability, and market acceptance of electric vehicles in an industry dominated by internal combustion engine vehicles. 

c) Analysis of the situation: This Case Study examines Tesla's unique approach, which combines innovation in electric powertrains, battery technology, and software. The company also adopted a direct-to-consumer sales model, bypassing traditional dealership networks. 

d) Proposed solutions: Tesla's solutions included building a network of Supercharger stations, developing advanced autonomous driving technology, and leveraging over-the-air software updates to improve vehicle performance and features. 

e) Chosen strategy: Tesla focused on high-quality engineering, creating a luxury brand image for EVs, and promoting a community of passionate supporters. The company also bet on long-term sustainability and energy innovation beyond just manufacturing cars. 

f) Implementation process: Tesla faced production challenges, supply chain issues, and scepticism from traditional automakers. The company's determination to continuously refine its vehicles and technology resulted in incremental improvements and increased consumer interest. 

g) Results and outcomes: Tesla's innovative approach catapulted it into the forefront of the EV market. The Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y gained popularity for their performance, range, and technology. Tesla's market capitalisation surged, and the company played a significant part in changing the perception of electric vehicles. 

Amazon retailer to e-commerce giant  

a) Background: Amazon started as an online bookstore in the 1990s and quickly expanded its offerings to become the world's largest online retailer. However, its journey was riddled with challenges and risks. 

b) Problem statement: Amazon faced difficulties in achieving profitability due to its aggressive expansion, heavy investments, and price competition. The company needed to find a way to sustain its growth and solidify its position in the e-commerce market. 

c) Analysis of the situation: This Case Study explores Amazon's unique business model, which prioritises customer satisfaction, convenience, and diversification. The company continuously experimented with new ideas, services, and technologies. 

d) Proposed solutions: Amazon's solutions included the introduction of Amazon Prime, the Kindle e-reader, and the development of its third-party seller marketplace. These initiatives aimed to enhance customer loyalty, expand product offerings, and increase revenue streams. 

e) Chosen strategy: Amazon's strategy revolved around long-term thinking, customer obsession, and a willingness to invest heavily in innovation and infrastructure, even at the expense of short-term profits. 

f) Implementation process: Amazon's implementation involved building a vast network of fulfilment centres, investing in advanced technology for logistics and supply chain management, and expanding its services beyond e-commerce into cloud computing (Amazon Web Services) and entertainment (Amazon Prime Video). 

g) Results and outcomes: Amazon's strategy paid off as it transformed from an online bookstore to an e-commerce behemoth. The company not only achieved profitability but also diversified into various sectors, making Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world for a time. 

McDonald’s global expansion  

a) Background: McDonald's is one of the world's largest and most recognisable fast-food chains. The Case Study focuses on the company's global expansion strategy and challenges in adapting to diverse cultural preferences and market conditions. 

b) Problem statement: McDonald's challenge was maintaining its brand identity while tailoring its menu offerings and marketing strategies to suit different countries' preferences and cultural norms. 

c) Analysis: The Case Study analyses McDonald's localisation efforts, menu adaptations, and marketing campaigns in different countries. It explores how the company balances standardisation with customisation to appeal to local tastes. 

d) Solutions and outcomes: McDonald's successfully combines global branding with localized strategies, resulting in sustained growth and customer loyalty in various markets. The Case Study demonstrates the importance of understanding cultural nuances in international business. 

Netflix’s evolution  

a) Background: Netflix started as a DVD rental-by-mail service and became a leading global streaming platform. The Case Study explores Netflix's strategic evolution, content production, and influence on the entertainment industry. 

b) Problem statement: Netflix's challenge was transitioning from a traditional DVD rental business to a digital streaming service while competing with established cable networks and other streaming platforms. 

c) Analysis: The Case Study analyses Netflix's shift to online streaming, its investment in original content production, and its use of data analytics to personalise user experiences and content recommendations. 

d) Solutions and outcomes: Netflix's strategic pivot and focus on content quality and user experience contributed to its dominance in the streaming market. The Case Study illustrates how embracing digital disruption and customer-centric strategies can drive success.  

Conclusion  

These case studies offer valuable insights into different facets of Business Management, including innovation, strategic decision-making, customer-centric approaches, and market disruption. Analysing these cases provides aspiring managers and entrepreneurs with real-world examples of how effective strategies, risk-taking, and adaptability can lead to remarkable success in the dynamic business world. 

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Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2017

We generated a list of the 40 most popular Yale School of Management case studies in 2017 by combining data from our publishers, Google analytics, and other measures of interest and adoption. In compiling the list, we gave additional weight to usage outside Yale

We generated a list of the 40 most popular Yale School of Management case studies in 2017 by combining data from our publishers, Google analytics, and other measures of interest and adoption. In compiling the list, we gave additional weight to usage outside Yale.

Case topics represented on the list vary widely, but a number are drawn from the case team’s focus on healthcare, asset management, and sustainability. The cases also draw on Yale’s continued emphasis on corporate governance, ethics, and the role of business in state and society. Of note, nearly half of the most popular cases feature a woman as either the main protagonist or, in the case of raw cases where multiple characters take the place of a single protagonist, a major leader within the focal organization. While nearly a fourth of the cases were written in the past year, some of the most popular, including Cadbury and Design at Mayo, date from the early years of our program over a decade ago. Nearly two-thirds of the most popular cases were “raw” cases - Yale’s novel, web-based template which allows for a combination of text, documents, spreadsheets, and videos in a single case website.

Read on to learn more about the top 10 most popular cases followed by a complete list of the top 40 cases of 2017.  A selection of the top 40 cases are available for purchase through our online store . 

#1 - Coffee 2016

Faculty Supervision: Todd Cort

Coffee 2016 asks students to consider the coffee supply chain and generate ideas for what can be done to equalize returns across various stakeholders. The case draws a parallel between coffee and wine. Both beverages encourage connoisseurship, but only wine growers reap a premium for their efforts to ensure quality.  The case describes the history of coffee production across the world, the rise of the “third wave” of coffee consumption in the developed world, the efforts of the Illy Company to help coffee growers, and the differences between “fair” trade and direct trade. Faculty have found the case provides a wide canvas to discuss supply chain issues, examine marketing practices, and encourage creative solutions to business problems. 

#2 - AXA: Creating New Corporate Responsibility Metrics

Faculty Supervision: Todd Cort and David Bach

The case describes AXA’s corporate responsibility (CR) function. The company, a global leader in insurance and asset management, had distinguished itself in CR since formally establishing a CR unit in 2008. As the case opens, AXA’s CR unit is being moved from the marketing function to the strategy group occasioning a thorough review as to how CR should fit into AXA’s operations and strategy. Students are asked to identify CR issues of particular concern to the company, examine how addressing these issues would add value to the company, and then create metrics that would capture a business unit’s success or failure in addressing the concerns.

#3 - IBM Corporate Service Corps

Faculty Supervision: David Bach in cooperation with University of Ghana Business School and EGADE

The case considers IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC), a program that had become the largest pro bono consulting program in the world. The case describes the program’s triple-benefit: leadership training to the brightest young IBMers, brand recognition for IBM in emerging markets, and community improvement in the areas served by IBM’s host organizations. As the program entered its second decade in 2016, students are asked to consider how the program can be improved. The case allows faculty to lead a discussion about training, marketing in emerging economies, and various ways of providing social benefit. The case highlights the synergies as well as trade-offs between pursuing these triple benefits.

#4 - Cadbury: An Ethical Company Struggles to Insure the Integrity of Its Supply Chain

Faculty Supervision: Ira Millstein

The case describes revelations that the production of cocoa in the Côte d’Ivoire involved child slave labor. These stories hit Cadbury especially hard. Cadbury's culture had been deeply rooted in the religious traditions of the company's founders, and the organization had paid close attention to the welfare of its workers and its sourcing practices. The US Congress was considering legislation that would allow chocolate grown on certified plantations to be labeled “slave labor free,” painting the rest of the industry in a bad light. Chocolate producers had asked for time to rectify the situation, but the extension they negotiated was running out. Students are asked whether Cadbury should join with the industry to lobby for more time?  What else could Cadbury do to ensure its supply chain was ethically managed?

#5 - 360 State Real Options

Faculty Supervision: Matthew Spiegel

In 2010 developer Bruce Becker (SOM ‘85) completed 360 State Street, a major new construction project in downtown New Haven. Just west of the apartment building, a 6,000-square-foot pocket of land from the original parcel remained undeveloped. Becker had a number of alternatives to consider in regards to the site. He also had no obligation to build. He could bide his time. But Becker worried about losing out on rents should he wait too long. Students are asked under what set of circumstances and at what time would it be most advantageous to proceed?

#6 - Design at Mayo

Faculty Supervision: Rodrigo Canales and William Drentell

The case describes how the Mayo Clinic, one of the most prominent hospitals in the world, engaged designers and built a research institute, the Center for Innovation (CFI), to study the processes of healthcare provision. The case documents the many incremental innovations the designers were able to implement and the way designers learned to interact with physicians and vice-versa.

In 2010 there were questions about how the CFI would achieve its stated aspiration of “transformational change” in the healthcare field. Students are asked what would a major change in health care delivery look like? How should the CFI's impact be measured? Were the center's structure and processes appropriate for transformational change? Faculty have found this a great case to discuss institutional obstacles to innovation, the importance of culture in organizational change efforts, and the differences in types of innovation.

This case is freely available to the public.

#7 - Ant Financial

Faculty Supervision: K. Sudhir in cooperation with Renmin University of China School of Business

In 2015, Ant Financial’s MYbank (an offshoot of Jack Ma’s Alibaba company) was looking to extend services to rural areas in China by providing small loans to farmers. Microloans have always been costly for financial institutions to offer to the unbanked (though important in development) but MYbank believed that fintech innovations such as using the internet to communicate with loan applicants and judge their credit worthiness would make the program sustainable. Students are asked whether MYbank could operate the program at scale? Would its big data and technical analysis provide an accurate measure of credit risk for loans to small customers? Could MYbank rely on its new credit-scoring system to reduce operating costs to make the program sustainable?

#8 - Business Leadership in South Africa’s 1994 Reforms

Faculty Supervision: Ian Shapiro

This case examines the role of business in South Africa's historic transition away from apartheid to popular sovereignty. The case provides a previously untold oral history of this key moment in world history, presenting extensive video interviews with business leaders who spearheaded behind-the-scenes negotiations between the African National Congress and the government. Faculty teaching the case have used the material to push students to consider business’s role in a divided society and ask: What factors led business leaders to act to push the country's future away from isolation toward a "high road" of participating in an increasingly globalized economy? What techniques and narratives did they use to keep the two sides talking and resolve the political impasse? And, if business leadership played an important role in the events in South Africa, could they take a similar role elsewhere?

#9 - Shake Shack IPO

Faculty Supervision: Jake Thomas and Geert Rouwenhorst

From an art project in a New York City park, Shake Shack developed a devoted fan base that greeted new Shake Shack locations with cheers and long lines. When Shake Shack went public on January 30, 2015, investors displayed a similar enthusiasm. Opening day investors bid up the $21 per share offering price by 118% to reach $45.90 at closing bell. By the end of May, investors were paying $92.86 per share. Students are asked if this price represented a realistic valuation of the enterprise and if not, what was Shake Shack truly worth? The case provides extensive information on Shake Shack’s marketing, competitors, operations and financials, allowing instructors to weave a wide variety of factors into a valuation of the company.

#10 - Searching for a Search Fund Structure

Faculty Supervision: AJ Wasserstein

This case considers how young entrepreneurs structure search funds to find businesses to take over. The case describes an MBA student who meets with a number of successful search fund entrepreneurs who have taken alternative routes to raising funds. The case considers the issues of partnering, soliciting funds vs. self-funding a search, and joining an incubator. The case provides a platform from which to discuss the pros and cons of various search fund structures.

40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2017

Click on the case title to learn more about the dilemma. A selection of our most popular cases are available for purchase via our online store .

How to Write a Case Study: Bookmarkable Guide & Template

Published: November 30, 2023

Earning the trust of prospective customers can be a struggle. Before you can even begin to expect to earn their business, you need to demonstrate your ability to deliver on what your product or service promises.

Sure, you could say that you're great at X or that you're way ahead of the competition when it comes to Y. But at the end of the day, what you really need to win new business is cold, hard proof.

One of the best ways to prove your worth is through a compelling case study. In fact, HubSpot’s 2020 State of Marketing report found that case studies are so compelling that they are the fifth most commonly used type of content used by marketers.

Below, I'll walk you through what a case study is, how to prepare for writing one, what you need to include in it, and how it can be an effective tactic. To jump to different areas of this post, click on the links below to automatically scroll.

Case Study Definition

Case study templates, how to write a case study.

• How to Format a Case Study

Business Case Study Examples

A case study is a specific challenge a business has faced, and the solution they've chosen to solve it. Case studies can vary greatly in length and focus on several details related to the initial challenge and applied solution, and can be presented in various forms like a video, white paper, blog post, etc.

In professional settings, it's common for a case study to tell the story of a successful business partnership between a vendor and a client. Perhaps the success you're highlighting is in the number of leads your client generated, customers closed, or revenue gained. Any one of these key performance indicators (KPIs) are examples of your company's services in action.

When done correctly, these examples of your work can chronicle the positive impact your business has on existing or previous customers and help you attract new clients.

Free Case Study Templates

Showcase your company's success using these three free case study templates.

• Data-Driven Case Study Template
• Product-Specific Case Study Template
• General Case Study Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Why write a case study? 

I know, you’re thinking “ Okay, but why do I need to write one of these? ” The truth is that while case studies are a huge undertaking, they are powerful marketing tools that allow you to demonstrate the value of your product to potential customers using real-world examples. Here are a few reasons why you should write case studies. 

1. Explain Complex Topics or Concepts

Case studies give you the space to break down complex concepts, ideas, and strategies and show how they can be applied in a practical way. You can use real-world examples, like an existing client, and use their story to create a compelling narrative that shows how your product solved their issue and how those strategies can be repeated to help other customers get similar successful results.  

2. Show Expertise

Case studies are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise on a given topic or industry. This is where you get the opportunity to show off your problem-solving skills and how you’ve generated successful outcomes for clients you’ve worked with. 

3. Build Trust and Credibility

In addition to showing off the attributes above, case studies are an excellent way to build credibility. They’re often filled with data and thoroughly researched, which shows readers you’ve done your homework. They can have confidence in the solutions you’ve presented because they’ve read through as you’ve explained the problem and outlined step-by-step what it took to solve it. All of these elements working together enable you to build trust with potential customers.

4. Create Social Proof

Using existing clients that have seen success working with your brand builds social proof . People are more likely to choose your brand if they know that others have found success working with you. Case studies do just that — putting your success on display for potential customers to see. 

All of these attributes work together to help you gain more clients. Plus you can even use quotes from customers featured in these studies and repurpose them in other marketing content. Now that you know more about the benefits of producing a case study, let’s check out how long these documents should be. 

How long should a case study be?

The length of a case study will vary depending on the complexity of the project or topic discussed. However, as a general guideline, case studies typically range from 500 to 1,500 words. 

Whatever length you choose, it should provide a clear understanding of the challenge, the solution you implemented, and the results achieved. This may be easier said than done, but it's important to strike a balance between providing enough detail to make the case study informative and concise enough to keep the reader's interest.

The primary goal here is to effectively communicate the key points and takeaways of the case study. It’s worth noting that this shouldn’t be a wall of text. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, charts, and other graphics to break up the content and make it more scannable for readers. We’ve also seen brands incorporate video elements into case studies listed on their site for a more engaging experience. 

Ultimately, the length of your case study should be determined by the amount of information necessary to convey the story and its impact without becoming too long. Next, let’s look at some templates to take the guesswork out of creating one. 

To help you arm your prospects with information they can trust, we've put together a step-by-step guide on how to create effective case studies for your business with free case study templates for creating your own.

Tell us a little about yourself below to gain access today:

And to give you more options, we’ll highlight some useful templates that serve different needs. But remember, there are endless possibilities when it comes to demonstrating the work your business has done.

1. General Case Study Template

Do you have a specific product or service that you’re trying to sell, but not enough reviews or success stories? This Product Specific case study template will help.

This template relies less on metrics, and more on highlighting the customer’s experience and satisfaction. As you follow the template instructions, you’ll be prompted to speak more about the benefits of the specific product, rather than your team’s process for working with the customer.

4. Bold Social Media Business Case Study Template

You can find templates that represent different niches, industries, or strategies that your business has found success in — like a bold social media business case study template.

In this template, you can tell the story of how your social media marketing strategy has helped you or your client through collaboration or sale of your service. Customize it to reflect the different marketing channels used in your business and show off how well your business has been able to boost traffic, engagement, follows, and more.

5. Lead Generation Business Case Study Template

It’s important to note that not every case study has to be the product of a sale or customer story, sometimes they can be informative lessons that your own business has experienced. A great example of this is the Lead Generation Business case study template.

If you’re looking to share operational successes regarding how your team has improved processes or content, you should include the stories of different team members involved, how the solution was found, and how it has made a difference in the work your business does.

Now that we’ve discussed different templates and ideas for how to use them, let’s break down how to create your own case study with one.

• Get started with case study templates.
• Determine the case study's objective.
• Establish a case study medium.
• Find the right case study candidate.
• Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.
• Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.
• Download a case study email template.
• Define the process you want to follow with the client.
• Ensure you're asking the right questions.
• Layout your case study format.
• Publish and promote your case study.

1. Get started with case study templates.

Telling your customer's story is a delicate process — you need to highlight their success while naturally incorporating your business into their story.

If you're just getting started with case studies, we recommend you download HubSpot's Case Study Templates we mentioned before to kickstart the process.

2. Determine the case study's objective.

All business case studies are designed to demonstrate the value of your services, but they can focus on several different client objectives.

Your first step when writing a case study is to determine the objective or goal of the subject you're featuring. In other words, what will the client have succeeded in doing by the end of the piece?

The client objective you focus on will depend on what you want to prove to your future customers as a result of publishing this case study.

Your case study can focus on one of the following client objectives:

• Complying with government regulation
• Lowering business costs
• Becoming profitable
• Generating more leads
• Closing on more customers
• Generating more revenue
• Expanding into a new market
• Becoming more sustainable or energy-efficient

3. Establish a case study medium.

Next, you'll determine the medium in which you'll create the case study. In other words, how will you tell this story?

Case studies don't have to be simple, written one-pagers. Using different media in your case study can allow you to promote your final piece on different channels. For example, while a written case study might just live on your website and get featured in a Facebook post, you can post an infographic case study on Pinterest and a video case study on your YouTube channel.

Here are some different case study mediums to consider:

Written Case Study

Consider writing this case study in the form of an ebook and converting it to a downloadable PDF. Then, gate the PDF behind a landing page and form for readers to fill out before downloading the piece, allowing this case study to generate leads for your business.

Video Case Study

Plan on meeting with the client and shooting an interview. Seeing the subject, in person, talk about the service you provided them can go a long way in the eyes of your potential customers.

Infographic Case Study

Use the long, vertical format of an infographic to tell your success story from top to bottom. As you progress down the infographic, emphasize major KPIs using bigger text and charts that show the successes your client has had since working with you.

Podcast Case Study

Podcasts are a platform for you to have a candid conversation with your client. This type of case study can sound more real and human to your audience — they'll know the partnership between you and your client was a genuine success.

4. Find the right case study candidate.

Writing about your previous projects requires more than picking a client and telling a story. You need permission, quotes, and a plan. To start, here are a few things to look for in potential candidates.

Product Knowledge

It helps to select a customer who's well-versed in the logistics of your product or service. That way, he or she can better speak to the value of what you offer in a way that makes sense for future customers.

Remarkable Results

Clients that have seen the best results are going to make the strongest case studies. If their own businesses have seen an exemplary ROI from your product or service, they're more likely to convey the enthusiasm that you want prospects to feel, too.

One part of this step is to choose clients who have experienced unexpected success from your product or service. When you've provided non-traditional customers — in industries that you don't usually work with, for example — with positive results, it can help to remove doubts from prospects.

Recognizable Names

While small companies can have powerful stories, bigger or more notable brands tend to lend credibility to your own. In fact, 89% of consumers say they'll buy from a brand they already recognize over a competitor, especially if they already follow them on social media.

Customers that came to you after working with a competitor help highlight your competitive advantage and might even sway decisions in your favor.

5. Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.

To get the case study candidate involved, you have to set the stage for clear and open communication. That means outlining expectations and a timeline right away — not having those is one of the biggest culprits in delayed case study creation.

Most importantly at this point, however, is getting your subject's approval. When first reaching out to your case study candidate, provide them with the case study's objective and format — both of which you will have come up with in the first two steps above.

To get this initial permission from your subject, put yourself in their shoes — what would they want out of this case study? Although you're writing this for your own company's benefit, your subject is far more interested in the benefit it has for them.

Benefits to Offer Your Case Study Candidate

Here are four potential benefits you can promise your case study candidate to gain their approval.

Brand Exposure

Explain to your subject to whom this case study will be exposed, and how this exposure can help increase their brand awareness both in and beyond their own industry. In the B2B sector, brand awareness can be hard to collect outside one's own market, making case studies particularly useful to a client looking to expand their name's reach.

Employee Exposure

Allow your subject to provide quotes with credits back to specific employees. When this is an option for them, their brand isn't the only thing expanding its reach — their employees can get their name out there, too. This presents your subject with networking and career development opportunities they might not have otherwise.

Product Discount

This is a more tangible incentive you can offer your case study candidate, especially if they're a current customer of yours. If they agree to be your subject, offer them a product discount — or a free trial of another product — as a thank-you for their help creating your case study.

Backlinks and Website Traffic

Here's a benefit that is sure to resonate with your subject's marketing team: If you publish your case study on your website, and your study links back to your subject's website — known as a "backlink" — this small gesture can give them website traffic from visitors who click through to your subject's website.

Additionally, a backlink from you increases your subject's page authority in the eyes of Google. This helps them rank more highly in search engine results and collect traffic from readers who are already looking for information about their industry.

6. Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.

So you know what you’re going to offer your candidate, it’s time that you prepare the resources needed for if and when they agree to participate, like a case study release form and success story letter.

Let's break those two down.

Case Study Release Form

This document can vary, depending on factors like the size of your business, the nature of your work, and what you intend to do with the case studies once they are completed. That said, you should typically aim to include the following in the Case Study Release Form:

• A clear explanation of why you are creating this case study and how it will be used.
• A statement defining the information and potentially trademarked information you expect to include about the company — things like names, logos, job titles, and pictures.
• An explanation of what you expect from the participant, beyond the completion of the case study. For example, is this customer willing to act as a reference or share feedback, and do you have permission to pass contact information along for these purposes?
• A note about compensation.

Success Story Letter

As noted in the sample email, this document serves as an outline for the entire case study process. Other than a brief explanation of how the customer will benefit from case study participation, you'll want to be sure to define the following steps in the Success Story Letter.

7. Download a case study email template.

While you gathered your resources, your candidate has gotten time to read over the proposal. When your candidate approves of your case study, it's time to send them a release form.

A case study release form tells you what you'll need from your chosen subject, like permission to use any brand names and share the project information publicly. Kick-off this process with an email that runs through exactly what they can expect from you, as well as what you need from them. To give you an idea of what that might look like, check out this sample email:

8. Define the process you want to follow with the client.

Before you can begin the case study, you have to have a clear outline of the case study process with your client. An example of an effective outline would include the following information.

The Acceptance

First, you'll need to receive internal approval from the company's marketing team. Once approved, the Release Form should be signed and returned to you. It's also a good time to determine a timeline that meets the needs and capabilities of both teams.

The Questionnaire

To ensure that you have a productive interview — which is one of the best ways to collect information for the case study — you'll want to ask the participant to complete a questionnaire before this conversation. That will provide your team with the necessary foundation to organize the interview, and get the most out of it.

The Interview

Once the questionnaire is completed, someone on your team should reach out to the participant to schedule a 30- to 60-minute interview, which should include a series of custom questions related to the customer's experience with your product or service.

The Draft Review

After the case study is composed, you'll want to send a draft to the customer, allowing an opportunity to give you feedback and edits.

The Final Approval

Once any necessary edits are completed, send a revised copy of the case study to the customer for final approval.

Once the case study goes live — on your website or elsewhere — it's best to contact the customer with a link to the page where the case study lives. Don't be afraid to ask your participants to share these links with their own networks, as it not only demonstrates your ability to deliver positive results and impressive growth, as well.

9. Ensure you're asking the right questions.

Before you execute the questionnaire and actual interview, make sure you're setting yourself up for success. A strong case study results from being prepared to ask the right questions. What do those look like? Here are a few examples to get you started:

• What are your goals?
• What challenges were you experiencing before purchasing our product or service?
• What made our product or service stand out against our competitors?
• What did your decision-making process look like?
• How have you benefited from using our product or service? (Where applicable, always ask for data.)

Keep in mind that the questionnaire is designed to help you gain insights into what sort of strong, success-focused questions to ask during the actual interview. And once you get to that stage, we recommend that you follow the "Golden Rule of Interviewing." Sounds fancy, right? It's actually quite simple — ask open-ended questions.

If you're looking to craft a compelling story, "yes" or "no" answers won't provide the details you need. Focus on questions that invite elaboration, such as, "Can you describe ...?" or, "Tell me about ..."

In terms of the interview structure, we recommend categorizing the questions and flowing them into six specific sections that will mirror a successful case study format. Combined, they'll allow you to gather enough information to put together a rich, comprehensive study.

Open with the customer's business.

The goal of this section is to generate a better understanding of the company's current challenges and goals, and how they fit into the landscape of their industry. Sample questions might include:

• How long have you been in business?
• How many employees do you have?
• What are some of the objectives of your department at this time?

Cite a problem or pain point.

To tell a compelling story, you need context. That helps match the customer's need with your solution. Sample questions might include:

• What challenges and objectives led you to look for a solution?
• What might have happened if you did not identify a solution?
• Did you explore other solutions before this that did not work out? If so, what happened?

Discuss the decision process.

Exploring how the customer decided to work with you helps to guide potential customers through their own decision-making processes. Sample questions might include:

• How did you hear about our product or service?
• Who was involved in the selection process?
• What was most important to you when evaluating your options?

Explain how a solution was implemented.

The focus here should be placed on the customer's experience during the onboarding process. Sample questions might include:

• How long did it take to get up and running?
• Did that meet your expectations?
• Who was involved in the process?

Explain how the solution works.

The goal of this section is to better understand how the customer is using your product or service. Sample questions might include:

• Is there a particular aspect of the product or service that you rely on most?
• Who is using the product or service?

End with the results.

In this section, you want to uncover impressive measurable outcomes — the more numbers, the better. Sample questions might include:

• How is the product or service helping you save time and increase productivity?
• In what ways does that enhance your competitive advantage?
• How much have you increased metrics X, Y, and Z?

10. Lay out your case study format.

When it comes time to take all of the information you've collected and actually turn it into something, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Where should you start? What should you include? What's the best way to structure it?

To help you get a handle on this step, it's important to first understand that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the ways you can present a case study. They can be very visual, which you'll see in some of the examples we've included below, and can sometimes be communicated mostly through video or photos, with a bit of accompanying text.

Here are the sections we suggest, which we'll cover in more detail down below:

• Title: Keep it short. Develop a succinct but interesting project name you can give the work you did with your subject.
• Subtitle: Use this copy to briefly elaborate on the accomplishment. What was done? The case study itself will explain how you got there.
• Executive Summary : A 2-4 sentence summary of the entire story. You'll want to follow it with 2-3 bullet points that display metrics showcasing success.
• About the Subject: An introduction to the person or company you served, which can be pulled from a LinkedIn Business profile or client website.
• Challenges and Objectives: A 2-3 paragraph description of the customer's challenges, before using your product or service. This section should also include the goals or objectives the customer set out to achieve.
• How Product/Service Helped: A 2-3 paragraph section that describes how your product or service provided a solution to their problem.
• Results: A 2-3 paragraph testimonial that proves how your product or service specifically benefited the person or company and helped achieve its goals. Include numbers to quantify your contributions.
• Supporting Visuals or Quotes: Pick one or two powerful quotes that you would feature at the bottom of the sections above, as well as a visual that supports the story you are telling.
• Future Plans: Everyone likes an epilogue. Comment on what's ahead for your case study subject, whether or not those plans involve you.
• Call to Action (CTA): Not every case study needs a CTA, but putting a passive one at the end of your case study can encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

When laying out your case study, focus on conveying the information you've gathered in the most clear and concise way possible. Make it easy to scan and comprehend, and be sure to provide an attractive call-to-action at the bottom — that should provide readers an opportunity to learn more about your product or service.

11. Publish and promote your case study.

Once you've completed your case study, it's time to publish and promote it. Some case study formats have pretty obvious promotional outlets — a video case study can go on YouTube, just as an infographic case study can go on Pinterest.

But there are still other ways to publish and promote your case study. Here are a couple of ideas:

Lead Gen in a Blog Post

As stated earlier in this article, written case studies make terrific lead-generators if you convert them into a downloadable format, like a PDF. To generate leads from your case study, consider writing a blog post that tells an abbreviated story of your client's success and asking readers to fill out a form with their name and email address if they'd like to read the rest in your PDF.

Then, promote this blog post on social media, through a Facebook post or a tweet.

Published as a Page on Your Website

As a growing business, you might need to display your case study out in the open to gain the trust of your target audience.

Rather than gating it behind a landing page, publish your case study to its own page on your website, and direct people here from your homepage with a "Case Studies" or "Testimonials" button along your homepage's top navigation bar.

Format for a Case Study

The traditional case study format includes the following parts: a title and subtitle, a client profile, a summary of the customer’s challenges and objectives, an account of how your solution helped, and a description of the results. You might also want to include supporting visuals and quotes, future plans, and calls-to-action.

Image Source

The title is one of the most important parts of your case study. It should draw readers in while succinctly describing the potential benefits of working with your company. To that end, your title should:

• State the name of your custome r. Right away, the reader must learn which company used your products and services. This is especially important if your customer has a recognizable brand. If you work with individuals and not companies, you may omit the name and go with professional titles: “A Marketer…”, “A CFO…”, and so forth.
• State which product your customer used . Even if you only offer one product or service, or if your company name is the same as your product name, you should still include the name of your solution. That way, readers who are not familiar with your business can become aware of what you sell.
• Allude to the results achieved . You don’t necessarily need to provide hard numbers, but the title needs to represent the benefits, quickly. That way, if a reader doesn’t stay to read, they can walk away with the most essential information: Your product works.

The example above, “Crunch Fitness Increases Leads and Signups With HubSpot,” achieves all three — without being wordy. Keeping your title short and sweet is also essential.

2. Subtitle

Your subtitle is another essential part of your case study — don’t skip it, even if you think you’ve done the work with the title. In this section, include a brief summary of the challenges your customer was facing before they began to use your products and services. Then, drive the point home by reiterating the benefits your customer experienced by working with you.

The above example reads:

“Crunch Fitness was franchising rapidly when COVID-19 forced fitness clubs around the world to close their doors. But the company stayed agile by using HubSpot to increase leads and free trial signups.”

We like that the case study team expressed the urgency of the problem — opening more locations in the midst of a pandemic — and placed the focus on the customer’s ability to stay agile.

3. Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide a snapshot of your customer, their challenges, and the benefits they enjoyed from working with you. Think it’s too much? Think again — the purpose of the case study is to emphasize, again and again, how well your product works.

The good news is that depending on your design, the executive summary can be mixed with the subtitle or with the “About the Company” section. Many times, this section doesn’t need an explicit “Executive Summary” subheading. You do need, however, to provide a convenient snapshot for readers to scan.

In the above example, ADP included information about its customer in a scannable bullet-point format, then provided two sections: “Business Challenge” and “How ADP Helped.” We love how simple and easy the format is to follow for those who are unfamiliar with ADP or its typical customer.

4. About the Company

Readers need to know and understand who your customer is. This is important for several reasons: It helps your reader potentially relate to your customer, it defines your ideal client profile (which is essential to deter poor-fit prospects who might have reached out without knowing they were a poor fit), and it gives your customer an indirect boon by subtly promoting their products and services.

Feel free to keep this section as simple as possible. You can simply copy and paste information from the company’s LinkedIn, use a quote directly from your customer, or take a more creative storytelling approach.

In the above example, HubSpot included one paragraph of description for Crunch Fitness and a few bullet points. Below, ADP tells the story of its customer using an engaging, personable technique that effectively draws readers in.

5. Challenges and Objectives

The challenges and objectives section of your case study is the place to lay out, in detail, the difficulties your customer faced prior to working with you — and what they hoped to achieve when they enlisted your help.

In this section, you can be as brief or as descriptive as you’d like, but remember: Stress the urgency of the situation. Don’t understate how much your customer needed your solution (but don’t exaggerate and lie, either). Provide contextual information as necessary. For instance, the pandemic and societal factors may have contributed to the urgency of the need.

Take the above example from design consultancy IDEO:

“Educational opportunities for adults have become difficult to access in the United States, just when they’re needed most. To counter this trend, IDEO helped the city of South Bend and the Drucker Institute launch Bendable, a community-powered platform that connects people with opportunities to learn with and from each other.”

We love how IDEO mentions the difficulties the United States faces at large, the efforts its customer is taking to address these issues, and the steps IDEO took to help.

6. How Product/Service Helped

This is where you get your product or service to shine. Cover the specific benefits that your customer enjoyed and the features they gleaned the most use out of. You can also go into detail about how you worked with and for your customer. Maybe you met several times before choosing the right solution, or you consulted with external agencies to create the best package for them.

Whatever the case may be, try to illustrate how easy and pain-free it is to work with the representatives at your company. After all, potential customers aren’t looking to just purchase a product. They’re looking for a dependable provider that will strive to exceed their expectations.

In the above example, IDEO describes how it partnered with research institutes and spoke with learners to create Bendable, a free educational platform. We love how it shows its proactivity and thoroughness. It makes potential customers feel that IDEO might do something similar for them.

The results are essential, and the best part is that you don’t need to write the entirety of the case study before sharing them. Like HubSpot, IDEO, and ADP, you can include the results right below the subtitle or executive summary. Use data and numbers to substantiate the success of your efforts, but if you don’t have numbers, you can provide quotes from your customers.

We can’t overstate the importance of the results. In fact, if you wanted to create a short case study, you could include your title, challenge, solution (how your product helped), and result.

8. Supporting Visuals or Quotes

Let your customer speak for themselves by including quotes from the representatives who directly interfaced with your company.

Visuals can also help, even if they’re stock images. On one side, they can help you convey your customer’s industry, and on the other, they can indirectly convey your successes. For instance, a picture of a happy professional — even if they’re not your customer — will communicate that your product can lead to a happy client.

In this example from IDEO, we see a man standing in a boat. IDEO’s customer is neither the man pictured nor the manufacturer of the boat, but rather Conservation International, an environmental organization. This imagery provides a visually pleasing pattern interrupt to the page, while still conveying what the case study is about.

9. Future Plans

This is optional, but including future plans can help you close on a more positive, personable note than if you were to simply include a quote or the results. In this space, you can show that your product will remain in your customer’s tech stack for years to come, or that your services will continue to be instrumental to your customer’s success.

Alternatively, if you work only on time-bound projects, you can allude to the positive impact your customer will continue to see, even after years of the end of the contract.

10. Call to Action (CTA)

Not every case study needs a CTA, but we’d still encourage it. Putting one at the end of your case study will encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

It will also make it easier for them to reach out, if they’re ready to start immediately. You don’t want to lose business just because they have to scroll all the way back up to reach out to your team.

To help you visualize this case study outline, check out the case study template below, which can also be downloaded here .

You drove the results, made the connection, set the expectations, used the questionnaire to conduct a successful interview, and boiled down your findings into a compelling story. And after all of that, you're left with a little piece of sales enabling gold — a case study.

To show you what a well-executed final product looks like, have a look at some of these marketing case study examples.

1. "Shopify Uses HubSpot CRM to Transform High Volume Sales Organization," by HubSpot

What's interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. This reflects a major HubSpot value, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why Shopify uses HubSpot and is accompanied by a short video and some basic statistics on the company.

Notice that this case study uses mixed media. Yes, there is a short video, but it's elaborated upon in the additional text on the page. So, while case studies can use one or the other, don't be afraid to combine written copy with visuals to emphasize the project's success.

2. "New England Journal of Medicine," by Corey McPherson Nash

When branding and design studio Corey McPherson Nash showcases its work, it makes sense for it to be visual — after all, that's what they do. So in building the case study for the studio's work on the New England Journal of Medicine's integrated advertising campaign — a project that included the goal of promoting the client's digital presence — Corey McPherson Nash showed its audience what it did, rather than purely telling it.

Notice that the case study does include some light written copy — which includes the major points we've suggested — but lets the visuals do the talking, allowing users to really absorb the studio's services.

3. "Designing the Future of Urban Farming," by IDEO

Here's a design company that knows how to lead with simplicity in its case studies. As soon as the visitor arrives at the page, he or she is greeted with a big, bold photo, and two very simple columns of text — "The Challenge" and "The Outcome."

Immediately, IDEO has communicated two of the case study's major pillars. And while that's great — the company created a solution for vertical farming startup INFARM's challenge — it doesn't stop there. As the user scrolls down, those pillars are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and additional visuals.

4. "Secure Wi-Fi Wins Big for Tournament," by WatchGuard

Then, there are the cases when visuals can tell almost the entire story — when executed correctly. Network security provider WatchGuard can do that through this video, which tells the story of how its services enhanced the attendee and vendor experience at the Windmill Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

5. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Boosts Social Media Engagement and Brand Awareness with HubSpot

In the case study above , HubSpot uses photos, videos, screenshots, and helpful stats to tell the story of how the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame used the bot, CRM, and social media tools to gain brand awareness.

6. Small Desk Plant Business Ups Sales by 30% With Trello

This case study from Trello is straightforward and easy to understand. It begins by explaining the background of the company that decided to use it, what its goals were, and how it planned to use Trello to help them.

It then goes on to discuss how the software was implemented and what tasks and teams benefited from it. Towards the end, it explains the sales results that came from implementing the software and includes quotes from decision-makers at the company that implemented it.

7. Facebook's Mercedes Benz Success Story

Facebook's Success Stories page hosts a number of well-designed and easy-to-understand case studies that visually and editorially get to the bottom line quickly.

Each study begins with key stats that draw the reader in. Then it's organized by highlighting a problem or goal in the introduction, the process the company took to reach its goals, and the results. Then, in the end, Facebook notes the tools used in the case study.

Showcasing Your Work

You work hard at what you do. Now, it's time to show it to the world — and, perhaps more important, to potential customers. Before you show off the projects that make you the proudest, we hope you follow these important steps that will help you effectively communicate that work and leave all parties feeling good about it.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in February 2017 but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in July 2021.

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Showcase your company's success using these free case study templates.

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How to Write a Great Business Case

Explore more.

• Case Teaching

C ase studies are powerful teaching tools. “When you have a good case, and students who are well prepared to learn and to teach each other, you get some magical moments that students will never forget,” says James L. Heskett, UPS Foundation Professor of Business Logistics, emeritus, at Harvard Business School (HBS). “They will remember the lessons they learn in that class discussion and apply them 20 years later.”

Yet, for many educators who want to pen their own case, the act of writing a great business case seldom comes easily or naturally. For starters, it’s time consuming. Case writers can spend substantial time visiting companies, securing a willing site, conducting interviews, observing operations, collecting data, reviewing notes, writing the case, revising the narrative, ensuring that teaching points come through, and then getting executives to approve the finished product.

The question, then, becomes: Where do you begin? How do you approach case writing? How do you decide which company to use as the subject of the case? And what distinguishes a well-written case from a mediocre one?

We asked three expert HBS case writers—who collectively have written and supported hundreds of cases—to share their insights on how to write a great business case study that will inspire passionate classroom discussion and transmit key educational concepts.

Insights from James L. Heskett

UPS Foundation Professor of Business Logistics, Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Keep your eyes open for a great business issue.

“I’m always on the prowl for new case material. Whenever I’m reading or consulting, I look for interesting people doing interesting things and facing interesting challenges. For instance, I was reading a magazine and came across a story about how Shouldice Hospital treated patients undergoing surgery to fix inguinal hernias—how patients would get up from the operating table and walk away on the arm of the surgeon.

6 QUALITIES OF GREAT CASE WRITERS

Comfort with ambiguity, since cases may have more than one “right” answer

Command of the topic or subject at hand

Ability to relate to the case protagonists

Enthusiasm for the case teaching method

Capacity for finding the drama in a business situation and making it feel personal to students

Build relationships with executives.

“When writing a case, it’s helpful to start as high in the organization as possible. It helps assure mid-level managers that they can share the information you need with an outsider. It also helps when it comes to getting the case cleared for use. Serving on corporate boards can help in building relationships with senior executives, but there are other ways to make those connections. For instance, you can approach speakers at business conferences if you think their presentations could form the basis for a good business case. If you want to write about a company where you don’t have any personal connections, you can always check with your colleagues to see if any of them have a personal relationship with the CEO or sit on a board where they could introduce you to the right person who would be able to facilitate the case. My colleagues and I make a lot of these introductions for each other.”

“If you make the case into a crossword puzzle that takes five hours to solve, it’s not really fair to the students and will most likely cause them to lose focus.” James L. Heskett

Skip the curveballs and focus on key issues.

“Cases don’t have to be obvious. As a pedagogical objective, you might want students to look beyond a superficial issue to say this is the underlying topic that we need to address, and these are the questions we need to pose. Still, I think it’s unhelpful if cases contain real curveballs where ‘unlocking’ the case depends on finding some small piece of information hidden in an exhibit. Give students a break! They may have to read and digest three cases per day, so they probably won’t be able to devote more than a couple of hours to each one. If you make the case into a crossword puzzle that takes five hours to solve, it’s not really fair to the students and will most likely cause them to lose focus.”

Build a discussion plan while writing the case.

“In case method teaching, the teacher is not in complete control. Students teach each other and learn from each other. On any given day, there will likely be somebody in the room who knows more about the company featured in the case than the professor does. So a professor can’t walk into the classroom and expect to impose a lesson plan that goes in a strict linear way from A to B to C to D. The case ought to be written to allow students to jump from A to D and then come back later to B if that’s how the discussion plays out. At the same time, the case should be structured so that the instructor can collect student comments on a board, organizing them as a coherent set of related ideas, and then deliver a 5-to-10-minute summary that communicates whatever essential concepts the case has covered. This summation can be a very powerful teaching and learning experience.”

Focus on quality over quantity.

“Cases don’t have to be too long. Some good cases are only two or three pages. Students may give more scrutiny to these brief cases than they would a 20-page case.”

Advice from Benson P. Shapiro

Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Take out the chaff in advance.

“You don’t want students to spend too much time separating the wheat from the chaff. If a case has 12 pages of text and 10 pages of exhibits, even the smartest MBA students will likely lose interest. Writers who try to capture a situation from every angle and in every detail end up with sprawling narratives that usually do not make a good case. When writing cases, you need to set good, strong boundaries. Avoid superfluous, flowery, or poetic material that may contain interesting anecdotes or factoids, but that could distract readers from the case’s core topics. Include only those important and useful details that can help students make decisions and understand key issues that the case explores.”

Work in layers and metaphors—subtly.

“The best cases work on multiple levels. A case should focus on a specific situation—for example, whether or not to introduce a certain product. But it should also serve as a metaphor for broader issues in the background: How do we think about introducing new products? Are we introducing enough products? Are new product introductions a source of competitive advantage in our industry? How should we organize and manage new product development? You want the case to encourage students to think broadly about the various cultural, financial, and strategic impacts that managerial decisions have on a company.”

“Writers who try to capture a situation from every angle and in every detail end up with sprawling narratives that usually do not make a good case.” Benson P. Shapiro

Encourage emotional engagement.

“Case writing is an interesting literary form—it needs to be very engaging, but also educational. Great cases revolve around points of contention on which intelligent people can hold different points of view: What should you do? Why? How do you get it done? Ideally, students should have to choose between two very attractive alternatives or two terrible alternatives. The best cases involve questions that get students emotionally engaged so that they really care about choices and outcomes. When you see students physically leaning forward and following what their peers are saying, you know that they have a visceral feel for the importance of the subject. When you hear them debating after class— You were out in left field! You missed what was really important here! —that’s how you can tell you succeeded in developing a great case.”

Lessons from Carin-Isabel Knoop

Executive Director of the Case Research & Writing Group, Harvard Business School

Don’t forget the classroom component.

“Cases are deliberately incomplete documents. What a case writer leaves out of a case is often just as important as what he or she puts into it. Cases are designed to be completed through classroom instruction and discussion. While drafting the case, try to develop the classroom process in parallel. Work on the assignment questions and classroom content. Keep in mind that the case should be able to adapt to your classroom and course needs.”

Hone your elevator pitch.

“Before getting started, always have clear, succinct learning objectives in mind. Don’t start developing the case until you are able to summarize these objectives in less than five minutes.”

Case writing is a relationship, not a transaction.

When choosing a case site, be clear with executives that you are developing a teaching tool and that you will require their time and candor—and eventually their data. Put them at ease, and manage the authorization process, right from the start. Indicate that quotes will be cleared before publication and there will be time for individual review. During the creation process, ask their advice. This creates a process of engagement and helps bring home that this is a pedagogical tool, not gotcha journalism. At HBS, we oftentimes invite someone from the company to attend class. Finally, once the case is done, stay in touch with your case protagonists. They will move to other organizations and spread the good word about their experience with case writing.

Invite disagreement in case discussions.

“The case study method is based on participant-centered learning. The students all start from the same base of 11 (or however many) pages in the case, but they bring different knowledge and experiences into the classroom. So they can take the same facts and disagree about what course of action to pursue. We want students to behave like decision makers, and it can be painful to make decisions. Some critics deride the case teaching method as being unrealistic, but someone who just lectures about marketing doesn’t help students realize how difficult it is to choose between two plausible options to meet the same marketing objectives. For students, a big part of the education process is learning from discussions with classmates who think differently and advocate for different solutions. Witnessing a robust case discussion reminds us of the potential for collective learning to emerge from contrasting views.”

“Faculty don’t just write cases for teaching purposes, they write them to learn.” Carin-Isabel Knoop

The Case Writing Process Is a Worthy Effort

Researching, writing, and publishing cases is well worth the time and effort. “The case research and writing process is important for faculty development,” Knoop adds. “While developing field cases, faculty go to site visits and meet with decision makers. The case writing process helps connect scholars to practitioners and practitioners to the academic world. Faculty case writers get to explore and test how their academic theories work in practice. So faculty don’t just write cases for teaching purposes, they write them to learn. The case method is an integral part of faculty development.”

There’s another big bonus to becoming a case writer, especially for younger educators. “Young business instructors face a credibility gap with their students,” says Heskett. “It’s not uncommon to have MBA students in a class who have more experience than the instructor on a particular subject. Once you go into the field and write a case, you will know more about that subject than anyone else in the class. A primary way for professors to establish their credibility on a topic is to have written the case the class is discussing that day.”

James L. Heskett is UPS Foundation Professor of Business Logistics, emeritus, at Harvard Business School. He completed his Ph.D. at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and has been a faculty member at The Ohio State University as well as president of Logistics Systems, Inc. Since 2000, he has authored a blog on Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge website .

Benson P. Shapiro is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, emeritus, at Harvard Business School where he taught full time from 1970 to 1997. Since 1997, Shapiro has concentrated his professional time on consulting, giving speeches, serving on boards, and writing. He continues to teach at Harvard and has taught in many executive programs and has chaired the Sustainable Marketing Leadership for Mid-Sized Firms Program.

Carin-Isabel Knoop is the executive director of the Case Research & Writing Group at Harvard Business School. She is also coauthor of Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace .

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Case Studies in Business, Management, and Organizations

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• Kellogg School of Management Case Study Abstracts The Kellogg School of Management is making available to academic practitioners and corporate trainers selected cases and teaching materials, developed by Kellogg faculty and taught in the Kellogg classroom. Information on how to order the case studies is included on the web site.
• Stanford Graduate School of Business Case Studies Abstracts This database contains abstracts and ordering information for case studies written and published by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. You may search by authors name, title, keyword, etc. Most cases in this collection are distributed by Harvard Business School Publishing and you will find a link to the HBSP site to place your order. Contact them for availability of other cases.
• Case Research Journal Available in Print: Case research journal. Published: [United States] : The North American Case Research Association (NACRA), 1980--present. Availability: TC Wilson Periodicals --Basement The Index to the cases in the print journal is available at the link shown above. This site from the North American Case Research Association also shows how to purchase the cases available in the journal.
• NASPAA Publicases Publicases is an online repository and marketplace developed by NASPAA (Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration) as platform connecting students and faculty in public affairs schools around the world with simulations, case studies, data, and other experiential learning opportunities. Currently, case content is developed by the Evans School and the Humphrey School and is available without charge to member schools.

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Table of Contents

How to write a business case study , business case studies: examples, why case studies are important to business analysts, best business case studies to understand modern management techniques.

A case study is, broadly speaking , an “intensive, systematic investigation of a single individual, group, community, or some other unit” that’s used across numerous fields and subjects. 

Specifically, business case studies examine a challenge or situation involving a single player, which can be an individual or organization. Though the purpose may shift depending on the specific audience (such as customers, business students, decision-makers), they ascribe an analytical framework to a business-related situation, whether past or ongoing. 

Most importantly, business case studies are compelling and insightful narratives. They convey a firsthand account of real-world problem solving, whether successful or not, with implications for modern management. Regardless of the purpose, case studies are a crucial medium for communicating a business analysts’ skills to colleagues, potential employers, clients, and others.   

Step 1: Gather the Facts 

Effective business case studies convey information in a direct, structured manner. Before diving into writing, gather the main facts, data, and resources. 

Consider the “Who-What-When-Where-Why” of the situation you wish to illustrate. Business case studies should focus on a narrow problem and outcome (or potential outcomes) for one player, contextualized effectively.

Step 2: Outline 

After compiling information, the next step is to outline your case study. Planning will ensure that you’re prioritizing the most important details throughout the writing process. There’s no single formula, but the following structure by Express Writers can get you started: 

• Challenge: What was the complication, obstacle, or problem that needed to be solved? Offer context from within the company and, if appropriate, broader trends in modern management.
• Solution: What solutions did you explore? How did you choose your approach? Consider incorporating an effective business analysis technique to build a case.   
• Outcome: What were the results and what effect did they have? Use data to support what you claim the situation to be.

Step 3: Write the Case Study

As you write, consider three elements for each section: details, purpose, and style. Details are selected so that the reader has clear, concise information without feeling burdened. Facts are structurally introduced and explained so that readers can follow a clear timeline. 

Ensure that you’re writing purposefully through each section. All information should be included for a reason as fluff is an immediate red flag that can be considered unprofessional and distracting. Moreover, write with the audience in mind: Are you convincing leaders to make a certain decision, or are you persuading clients that your company has a proven track-record? The purpose will inform the work’s style and tone. Stylistic elements include writing in first or third person, emphasizing keywords and certain action verbs, and wielding persuasive material (such as quotes and graphics).

Step 4: Format, Proof, and Publish

The final phase is to format your case study. Consider the readability of your document. Break up blocks of text with quotes that crystallize compelling points (e.g., “The business saw a 90% reduction in waste.”). 

Ensure that titles, headings, sub-headings, and body text are distinct in size, color, and font without being distracting. The final look should be clean and professional. If your company has a communications team, you can inquire about in-house branding guidelines. 

Proofread your work multiple times before you publish or share business case studies. Copyediting errors are the quickest way to lose the readers’ trust. Ask an outside editor, writer, or colleague to proofread your work.

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Reading business case studies as you plan and write your own will mold your writing for the better. Leaders in modern management offer models for engaged, effective writing. 

One popular case study published by the Yale School of Management is Coffee 2016 . The report skillfully narrates the complexities of coffee’s global supply chain through the struggles of Andrea Illy, a CEO of the premium coffee company named after his family. The study is an excellent example of highlighting broader industry challenges while staying focused on the decision-making of a single individual or company. 

Another example of foregrounding a key player comes from MIT Sloan School of Management, titled Turnaround and Transformation: Leadership and Risk at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Arts . The authors show how Jillian Medvedow, a newly-hired director of the art institution, “was able to rebuild (literally and figuratively) a powerless organization.” The case study is powerful because it contextualizes the organization’s history in the Boston area while tracing her unique leadership.

Other studies focus on high-stakes decisions and their results, such as Netflix Goes to Bollywood , another piece by MIT. The authors analyze Netflix’s risks and strategy as it entered the Indian market. The study focuses on corporate culture and financial decision-making, relying on data and examples from Netflix.

Some famous business case studies document a company’s failures and theorize what could have been done differently, such as “ The Rise and Fall of Nokia .” Once a leader in telecommunications, Nokia sold its Device and Services business to Microsoft. The research focuses on Nokia’s missteps and imagines what the company could have done differently, thus demonstrating how case studies can also theorize alternative outcomes.

Lastly, another classic case focuses on how Starbucks undermined its own brand value through rapid, superficial growth. Professor John Quelch’s piece offers a model for concise, self-assured writing that communicates business analysis with confidence. 

Mastering case studies is crucial for business analysts , as their job description is to improve a company’s efficiency and performance by applying their analytical skills to company problems. Business analysts are researchers, problem-solvers, and architects of better management systems, all of which are aimed at improving a company’s bottom line.

In modern management, case studies are a relevant and powerful tool for demonstrating best practices and creating buy-in for new strategies. Business case studies, whether they highlight company successes or ongoing issues, are communicative tools for analysts to influence an organization’s decision-making processes, as well as demonstrate their value and competence.

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Case Studies in Business and Management is an international, peer-reviewed and open-access journal published by Macrothink Institute. It provides an academic platform for professionals and researchers to contribute innovative works in cases of business and management. The journal is only published online.

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Project Management

How to write a business case: the formula for getting project approval from stakeholders.

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

April 29, 2024

Do you feel you’ve found a solution to one of your company’s most pressing problems? Do you want to go straight to your seniors and tell them about your idea, basking in the glory of your eureka moment? 💡

Before you do that, take a deep breath and consider if your solution requires a significant financial commitment or a shift into critical business functions . If it does, you should learn how to write a business case to properly present your idea to the higher-ups.

Never done that before? No worries. In this article, we’ll explore:

• The concept of a business case
• The difference between a business case and a business plan
• The process of building a compelling business case
• Some real-life examples to understand how business cases help win project approval

Importance of a business case in project management

What is the difference between a business case and a business plan, 1. executive summary, 2. project definition, 3. financial appraisal, 4. project goals and success criteria , 5. project scope and schedule, 6. risks and mitigation strategies, step 1: problem identification, step 2: stakeholder identification, step 3: drafting background information and project definition, step 4: cost-benefit analysis and financial appraisal, step 5: evaluation of alternatives, step 6: describing the project scope and implementation approach, step 7: drafting the executive summary, step 8: putting it all together, lean startup example, venture capital funding example, outsourcing example, supply chain example, 1. drafting it alone, 2. not taking stakeholder feedback, 3. not reviewing or proofreading, create a compelling business case with clickup.

What Is a Business Case?

A business case explains how the rewards of investing in a business idea or initiative outweigh the risks and costs . 

It’s one of the many project management documents (like a project charter or a project plan ) you may have to create when seeking the green light to proceed with a project. A well-crafted business case can be crucial for obtaining approval from your client, management, or other stakeholders in the early stages of your project’s lifecycle . 🟢

The key role of a business case is to justify an investment . It plays other important roles that make project management more efficient . Some of them include:

• Providing clarity: Drafting a business case requires careful planning and research, which brings clarity of thought and improves your understanding of the initiative or project you’re going to propose
• Resource optimization: A business case helps ensure that the company’s resources are being used productively and contributing to its long-term strategic objectives
• Removing doubt: By comparing different solutions, the document eliminates any doubt that an alternative way to fix a business problem is better than what you’re proposing

Preparing a business case can take a lot of time and effort, so it only makes sense when a project or an initiative requires a significant financial commitment. For all other approvals, you can use the project charter. Some scenarios in which a business case can make sense include:

• A new project
• New product line
• Introduction of a new customer persona to your marketing strategy
• Major changes to the supply chain, like introducing new suppliers or distributors

While a business case may seem like a synonym for a business plan , based on its definition, content, and name, there are major differences between them. The most notable ones are:

• Use case: A business plan is made for an entirely new business, while a business case is created when asking for a substantial financial commitment within an existing business
• Purpose: A business plan aims to hammer out the complete business strategy, while a business case tries to explain the advantages of a specific initiative
• A company’s mission and vision
• Financial projections
• SWOT Analysis
• Market analysis
• Go-to-market strategy
• Team profile

A business case, on the other hand, includes only financial projections, risks, and costs of a project

• Level of detail: Given the scope of information they need to cover, business plans tend to be much more detailed than business cases

Key Elements of a Business Case

While the exact structure of a business case will vary based on a specific situation, here are some of the essential components: 

The executive summary provides a quick overview of the critical details covered in your business case. 

Given that managers and executives are usually strapped for time, the executive summary will often be the only part of the document they actually read. That’s why it’s crucial to get this part of the document right and leave a powerful first impression.

The project definition sets the context for your business case by explaining the problem you aim to solve. It highlights an unfulfilled business requirement, outlines why it’s not being met, and finally presents your solution for addressing the mentioned shortcomings.

This is the crux of the matter—the financial appraisal part outlines the ROI your proposed initiative or project will likely generate for the business. It also covers the expected cost of executing your project or implementing your solution.

This part of the business case defines all the objectives and key results (OKRs) you want to achieve through the proposed project or solution. It also explains how those goals align with the company’s short-term and long-term goals. Lastly, it establishes success criteria for your project in the form of KPIs and key metrics . 

The project scope sets limits and boundaries for your project by allocating resources and budgets and developing a schedule for completion.

A business case has to list all the risks associated with implementing the proposed solution and the mitigation strategies for dealing with them. It also weighs in on alternative approaches and their respective risks to explain why your initiative should be the preferred option.

How to Write a Business Case in 8 Steps

Writing a business case is an elaborate task that requires extensive research and numerous analyses, from SWOT and cost-benefit analysis to stakeholder analysis. It’s no walk in the park, but it becomes much easier with an exceptional project management platform like ClickUp .

ClickUp equips project managers and business professionals with all the tools they need to craft a business case that will win the hearts and minds of their superiors—from ready-made templates to AI-powered document management features. Let’s find out how to write a business case in eight steps with the help of ClickUp. 

Many business ventures fail because they create solutions to non-existing problems. To prevent this scenario, make sure you consider the following:

• Objective(s) your company wants to achieve. Examples include achieving a revenue target , meeting an unaddressed customer need, or achieving a competitive advantage
• Problem(s) holding your company from achieving its desired objectives. Examples include a lack of operational efficiency , incorrect customer targeting, and supply chain issues
• The solution you want to propose to solve the problem and meet the objectives
• Evidence and case studies to prove that your proposed solution can indeed solve the problem

A structured way to identify your business problems is to use the ClickUp Root Cause Analysis Template . Classify everything going wrong with your business into multiple “Why” columns and then add their root causes in the relevant color-coded blocks. Once you analyze the root causes, you can tailor your solution to target and fix them. 

After pinpointing the problem, the next step is identifying the stakeholders to whom you’ll pitch your business case. A stakeholder is anyone who has a say in approving your business case . Depending on the scope and complexity of your business case, one or all of the following stakeholders may play a role in its approval:

• The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company
• The head of the finance department
• The head of business operations
• The head of the marketing and sales department
• The representative of a client

Discuss your initiative with the stakeholders to see whether they’re interested in it or not. It can also help you understand their perspective on the problem you’re aiming to solve. After all, you don’t want to put your efforts into a full business case only for the stakeholders to reject it. 🙅‍♂️

The easiest way to identify key stakeholders is to leverage the ClickUp Stakeholder Analysis Template . This framework can help you gauge the influence and support level of all stakeholders who will play a role in approving your business case. This information can also come in handy when you want to collect feedback from a stakeholder.

Once you’ve identified your problem and the involved stakeholders, it’s time to start drafting your business case. 

The first part is the project definition section, which sets the background for presenting your case before stakeholders . It covers the problem your business case proposes to solve and explains why solving the problem is important. The section should cover the following:

• The problem you identified and its impact on business functions
• How your project or solution can fix it
• The goals your project or initiative wants to achieve
• How project goals align with the company’s near-term objectives 
• The success criteria for your project or initiative 
• How its success will move the company towards its long-term strategic goals

The best tool for drafting this part of the document is ClickUp Docs —ClickUp’s built-in text editor and documentation management platform. 

With ClickUp Docs’ collaborative editing possibilities, you and your stakeholders can work on the business case document in real time, ensuring its speedy and accurate completion. Stakeholders can also comment on areas for improvement . Finally, you can add a cover image to make your business case look more appealing or use slash commands to quickly add compelling blocks of formatted text. 

After setting the background, the next step is the financial appraisal part. This section will be examined carefully during your pitch and serves to capture the stakeholders’ interest in your business case. For maximum accuracy, consult with a colleague from the finance department while drafting this part of the document. 

Some of the information you may want to cover here includes:

• Projections about financial gains
• Costs to be incurred by the project
• Cash flow forecast
• Cost-benefit analysis and return on investment (ROI)
• Sensitivity analysis to explain the margin of error in your numbers

Besides the financial aspects, this section also deals with risk analysis . Information on all potential risk factors identified through SWOT analysis, Monte Carlo analysis, and other risk identification strategies are outlined along with their respective mitigation strategies . It’ll be best to discuss the project risks with stakeholders identified in the first step—they can often share hidden insights and perspectives.

ClickUp provides a number of tools to help you conduct each of these analyses. For instance, you can use the ClickUp Cost Benefit Analysis Template to complete your cost-benefit analysis. 

Similarly, the ClickUp SWOT Analysis Template can save you from jotting down rows of data to identify your initiative’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It is a visually rich template that lets you easily identify high-impact activities and functions.

In this section, you should evaluate the alternatives to your proposed solution in the business case. Highlight the pros and cons of each option so the stakeholders can have a complete overview of every possible solution. Make sure to include your proposed solution in the comparison as well to explain why it’s better than all the alternatives.

If you need help examining and comparing the alternatives, fall back on the ClickUp Comparison Matrix Template . Use it to record all the information about each possible alternative in different fields and then compare them on a Kanban board. Its visual format makes decision making easier, while its fully customizable fields allow you to record as many comparison parameters as you wish. 

After you detail all the financial aspects of your project and compare it to alternatives, define a project scope in your business case. This section sets boundaries for the pending work and limitations on resources needed to complete it. Crucial information covered in it includes:

• Budget and resource allocation: Financial and other resources, like team members, workspace, equipment, etc., that should be allocated to the project
• Deadlines: Time required to complete each part of the project
• Dependencies and relationships : Details of current business functions that may be affected by the project
• Deliverables: What you plan to deliver by the end of your project
• Exclusions: What’s not a part of your project

Once you define the project scope, outline the exact steps for implementing it. The easiest way to do this is to use the ClickUp Scope of Work Template . It allows you to record every aspect of the project scope in a well-organized manner to share with your stakeholders and get their opinions. 

Once all major sections of your business case have been completed, you need to draft an executive summary to digest the crucial details from each section. This summary should be concise, ideally no longer than two pages. It will appear as the first item in your business case, providing stakeholders with a quick overview of your proposed project.

If you need help drafting your executive summary, team up with ClickUp Brain , a neural network and AI writing assistant built into ClickUp Docs. In mere seconds, it can generate a pitch-perfect summary of any business case document prepared until now. 

Once you have your executive summary draft, use the ClickUp Executive Summary Template to format and organize it in a structured and presentable manner. 

Now, it’s time to put together and structure all the sections drafted to this point to finalize your business case. That’s where the ClickUp Business Case Analysis Template can be a lifesaver. 

The template includes dedicated sections to record each part of the business case. All sections are arranged in a structured manner to ensure that when you pitch your case, it makes a lasting impact on your stakeholders.

Real-Life Examples of Business Cases

Now that you know how to write a business case, let’s check out some real-life examples of how business cases allow companies to approve major projects and make strategic decisions:

A lean startup operating in the healthcare space is facing workforce issues, which are preventing it from launching its product on time. The head of the product development team wants to hire three more engineers to speed up the product development process . 

However, since it’s a lean startup with budget constraints , the team head needs approval from the startup founders before making the decision. So, the product team compiles a business case for hiring additional employees , and here are the main elements of their proposal:

• A brief overview of how insufficient staffing is delaying product development and pushing the product launch beyond the planned deadline
• Elaboration of how three new engineers can bring product development back on track
• Cost-benefit analysis of the move 
• Exploration of the involved risks
• Presentation of alternatives and their associated risks
• Scope of the change, like the nature of work the new engineers will perform

A venture capital-funded fintech startup decides to launch a new product line of credit cards . It will allow the startup to onboard a slew of new customers but will also require significant financial investment for marketing and lending purposes. So the company prepares a business case for this new product line in an effort to obtain funding for it. Here’s what they detail in their business case:

• The need for this new product line and how it complements the company’s other offerings
• The market opportunity with revenue projections and cost-benefit analysis
• Risks involved in the project, like competition, mass default, and regulatory scrutiny
• Alternatives available, like launching prepaid debit cards, which probably wouldn’t be as useful for customer acquisition
• Scope of the project, like team members working on it, the budget allocated, launch schedule, and timeline

A SaaS software vendor based out of Silicon Valley wants to reduce customer service spending without compromising service quality . The product manager of one of their leading products comes up with the idea of outsourcing customer service . So, they decide to prepare a business case before proposing the solution to the management. The business case outlines:

• The problem, which is a significant share of revenue going into customer service operations and how outsourcing can help bring it down
• Risks associated with outsourced customer service and mitigation strategies for them, like having an escalation mechanism for unresolved support tickets
• Alternatives and their risks, like using AI chatbots to automate customer service , which can be frustrating for customers who need human guidance
• Cost-benefit analysis of making the change
• Scope of change, like how many of the customer support employees will be laid off

A construction company in Virginia is facing raw material supply issues . The cement supplier they work with repeatedly fails to meet the demand, so the project supervisor decides to add some redundancy by onboarding a new vendor. 

This change can greatly influence the project, so the supervisor prepares a business case to propose the initiative to the management. The case addresses the following:

• How the new cement supplier can keep the project from being delayed
• The supplier’s reliability, as demonstrated by the years of industry presence, major companies for which they have supplied cement, etc.
• Alternative suppliers, their capacity, and reliability information
• Cost-benefit analysis of making the change, since the rates of this supplier are slightly higher than those of the existing vendor
• Scope of change, including how much of the supplies will be delivered by the new supplier, for how long, and at what price 

Potential Business Case Challenges and How to Overcome Them

There are a number of mistakes project managers make when drafting a business case, which can jeopardize the approval of the entire project or initiative. Now that we’ve covered the complete process of writing a compelling business case, let’s look at the most common pitfalls and explore ways to avoid them. 

The details of a business case require extensive research and knowledge of different business functions. No project manager can do it all alone without making mistakes or errors of judgment, so look for help from different departments in your company, whether it’s finance, marketing, or operations. 💁

Another crucial mistake when building a business case is presenting the document to stakeholders out of the blue. When you don’t involve relevant stakeholders at any stage in your business case development process, you increase the risk of it being rejected. That happens because:

• You don’t know their expectations
• They didn’t have any role in your business case, which keeps them detached from your work

To avoid this scenario, involve stakeholders at different stages of your business case drafting process and get your progress reviewed regularly.

The last thing you want when pitching your business case is a typo or a misrepresentation of facts. That can leave a bad impression on the stakeholders listening to your pitch. They may not take you seriously and ultimately reject your project proposal . 

To ensure a bulletproof document, you should always review and proofread your entire business case before submitting it . Pay special attention to numbers and facts and double-check that they’re correct. Then, go ahead with your pitch.

A solid business case is the first step to getting project approval from your stakeholders. However, building it requires careful planning and the right tools to streamline the entire process. Fortunately, ClickUp equips you with everything you need at each step of building your business case—from ready-made templates and documentation tools to AI-powered writing assistance.

Sign up for ClickUp today and write a business case that will earn support and trust for your project or initiative.

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College & Research Libraries ( C&RL ) is the official, bi-monthly, online-only scholarly research journal of the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association.

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Anne Jenner is Curator of the Pacific Northwest Collection at University of Washington Libraries, email: [email protected] .

Emily Dominick is Manager, Puget Sound Branch, Washington State Archives, email: [email protected] .

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Leaning Into the Future, Together: Applying Business Process Management to Increase Efficiency and Manage Change in Archives and Special Collections

Jodi Allison-Bunnell, Anne Jenner, and Emily Dominick *

The time and resources required to prepare archival collections for use by researchers is a source of constant frustration in archives and libraries. Almost always, aspirations and collections exceed limited resources. The last fifteen to twenty years have seen archivists and librarians putting great effort into increasing standardization and efficiency. However, there are few examples of applying techniques from other fields that are proven to increase productivity. This dual case study shows that applying Lean techniques, which were originally developed for automobile manufacturing, yields significant results: measurable reductions in processing time and resource use; increased adherence to standards; increased engagement in and willingness to change by staff; effective coordination across departments; and increased ability to meet the needs of stakeholders.

Introduction

The time and resources required to prepare archival collections for use by researchers, usually referred to as “processing,” 1 is a source of constant frustration in archives and libraries. Nearly every repository contends with unprocessed backlogs and struggles to meet administrator and donor expectations. All have many aspirations; All have limited resources. Compounding these challenges, they may struggle with staff who resist changes to processes, standards, technologies, and the workplace. Over the last fifteen to twenty years, archives have put great effort into reconsidering processing and making it more efficient. However, the profession has few examples of applying techniques from other fields like business, manufacturing, and engineering that are proven to increase productivity and better match aspirations to resources.

At the University of Washington’s Special Collections, starting in 2014, and Montana State University Library’s Archives and Special Collections, starting in 2021, they applied a suite of techniques from manufacturing called Lean to revise their approaches to processing. They found that this technique applied to their organizations yielded significant results: measurable reductions in processing time and resource use; increased adherence to standards; increased engagement in and willingness to change by staff; effective coordination across departments; and increased ability to meet the needs of their stakeholders. As there are no other published examples of applying Lean in archives, and few on applying related techniques, the authors aim to share the results and to suggest that these techniques can yield similar results for other institutions.

Literature Review and Background

Because Lean is not well known in archives or libraries, a few key concepts and terms will be defined. Lean is a sub-discipline of Business Process Management (BPM), 2 which is “the art and science of overseeing how work is performed in an organization to ensure consistent outcomes and to take advantage of improvement opportunities.” BPM focuses on managing “entire chains of events, activities and decisions that ultimately add value to the organization and its customers”; those “chains” are collectively known as “processes.” 3 Nearly everything an organization does is a process that enables it to provide products or services for customers or clients. The way that processes are designed and performed in an organization affects both the quality of products or services and the speed at which they are delivered. Lean itself emerged from the 1930 “Toyota Way,” which has two pillars for organizational excellence: 1. continuous improvement and 2. respect for people. 4 From the “Toyota Way,” James Womack and Daniel Jones defined “Lean” in 1996 as five principles that focus on specifying value for each project, identify how value is created, avoid any interruptions in creating value, let customers pull (identify) value from the producer, and pursue perfection. 5 Lean focuses on the elimination of anything that does not add value to the customer, which is termed “waste.”

Lean in Academic Libraries

Even though other methodologies for evaluating workflows from a user-centered perspective are quite common, there are few articles describing applications of BPM in libraries. In their article on implementing Six Sigma (a specific sub-discipline of BPM closely related to Lean) at Sungkyunkwan University Library in South Korea, Dong-Suk Kim observed that at that time (2010), not many academic libraries had applied Six Sigma or similar frameworks to improving their processes. They reported that the process was successful and well suited to the work of academic libraries. 6 Around the same time, Sarah Anne Murphy concluded that libraries benefit significantly from the structures of BPM:

Libraries can customize and borrow a number of quality management systems and tools from the business community to both assess their service process and continuously improve their operations. By adopting an approach like Lean Six Sigma, a library can respond better to changing customer needs and desires by creating an infrastructure that supports, nurtures, and sustains a culture of assessment and change. 7

In her 2015 article, Elizabeth Nelson articulates how Lean Six Sigma can be applied in academic libraries and suggests that the most strategic use may be in reducing errors in service and in increasing service satisfaction. 8 She also observes that these tools have been used to improve technical services workflows, including purchasing and processing books and reducing time needed to re-shelve materials.

Some examples focus on transformative outcomes in customer-facing operations. A case study from the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Ohio has compelling examples of reducing wait times for telephone reference (detailed inquiries of process improvement revealed that using a single button on the phone, not increasing staff, vastly reduced caller wait times) and increasing on-time delivery for internal duplication orders to 100%. 9 The Columbus study, together with another case study from the University of Arizona’s interlibrary loan service, provides examples of the ways in which Lean aids in identifying and addressing the root cause(s) of quality deficits and delays. 10 Other examples include using Lean to improve email reference and for general process improvement for a large library system facing dwindling resources. 11

A book-length treatment of a case study from the University of Maryland’s University College examines in detail the application of Lean to managing electronic resources. 12 In that study, Nelson observes that rather than adopting an all-or-nothing approach across the library, these techniques and their many tools and approaches work well when applied to specific processes and scenarios. In most cases, library staff make significant discoveries about the actual origins of waste; challenging assumptions proves to be very powerful. However, Nelson also notes that in some cases, libraries have referred to “process improvement” rather than naming specific methodologies because library employees are naturally suspicious of “managerial names” of techniques from the business world. 13

The archives literature has just two articles related to BPM, both case studies from Brigham Young University: Gordon Daines’ 2014 article (and a closely related 2009 article) on applying BPM to processing workflows. Daines describes applying process modeling to help department staff adopt new practices and workflows around preparing collections. The group had used a project management model but moved to process analysis and revision based on a fundamentally important insight: processing archival collections is not a one-off, unique activity that must be defined anew for each project. Instead, there are so many strong similarities across projects that many aspects of the work should be standardized and done the same way for every collection. 14 Process mapping helped the department visualize and understand how these processes needed to work. It helped the department implement systems well and has driven continued change and adaptation in the organization in the years since. 15

Why Lean for Archives?

Despite the dearth of specific applications in archives, Lean is closely related to changes in processing workflows and a systematic re-thinking of archival description over the last fifteen to twenty years. That re-thinking, in turn, has two threads: an increasing emphasis on user needs and the reality of scarce resources for processing.

The call to focus on user needs arose in the 1980s with Mary Jo Pugh and Elsie Freeman calling for a reorientation of description toward users. 16 Paul Conway amplified those ideas, suggesting that archives should and could seek out information on user needs. 17 In subsequent decades, the emergence of the term “hidden collections” focused on the most basic user need: easily discovering where collections were held. In discussions between 1998 and 2008, stakeholders asserted that outdated practices for cataloging and processing collections for use were a major factor in creating unacceptable backlogs and lack of access to collections. 18 Following on these findings, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) launched the Cataloging Hidden Collections regrant program in 2008. That program, which continued until 2014, focused on developing and implementing efficient practices—including collection-level description, re-use of finding aid data, using slightly augmented accession records for public access—to challenge traditional notions of processing. 19 It formed a strong underpinning for the CLIR regrant program that continues today: Digitizing Hidden Collections. 20

Closely related, and driving the promulgation of revised practices, was Greene and Meissner’s seminal 2005 article “More Product, Less Process.” 21 Their work was transformative because it redefined processes based on documented needs of end users, eliminating work that was tangential to the needs of those users. Their work is thus consonant with the Lean concept of letting the customer pull value from the provider.

Other essential works and standards are consistent with this strategic focus on end users. In its introductory principles, Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) version 2019.0.3.1 states:

Because it facilitates use, archival description is a user-centered product and process.… It is imperative that repositories identify, engage, and seek to understand the motivations and needs of their users, which may include but are not limited to scholarly production, collection care and control, institutional knowledge, connection to family ties, artistic endeavors, government accountability, justice-seeking endeavors, and symbolic purposes of holding records. 22

DACS also states that description beyond the minimum should at all times be user-driven. At this point, the profession can leave behind any idea of slavishly following old procedures and the notion of “the right way,” without giving thought to the functional and real requirements of users.

More recently, OCLC Research’s Total Cost of Stewardship report (TCS) moves beyond the focus on reducing backlogs that is part of the “hidden collections” concept to provide means to potentially prevent the accumulation of backlogs in the first place. By addressing the organizational gap that often exists between collection development and collection stewardship, it is part of an overall trend to strategically re-focus the work of archivists, librarians, and other cultural heritage professionals. 23 It provides a toolkit for estimating and articulating the total cost of stewarding collections throughout their lifecycle so that repositories can better match ambitions with available resources.

Even with all of these advances, institutions and their staff continue to struggle with processes and tools that may not be producing the results they and their users need. It can be difficult to help individuals and teams understand where established practices are or are not beneficial. As a grassroots process that fundamentally respects the individuals that do the work, Lean and other structures like it can help individuals (and thus organizations) to see past personalities, territories, and incidents or conditions long past to develop new and more effective approaches to collection preparation.

Case Studies

University of washington.

The University of Washington is the flagship institution of six public universities in Washington state and includes one of the largest library systems in the world. Special Collections is situated on the Seattle campus of the University in the Suzzallo & Allen Library. Holdings in Special Collections include over 70,000 cubic feet of archival collections and nearly 200,000 non-circulating titles. 24

The division has seen a steady reduction in the number of staff over the last two decades, but the volume of acquisitions has increased, creating a notable imbalance of acquisitions and resources. Their current staff structure is the result of a merger of Manuscripts & University Archives with Special Collections in 2000, forming a single division named Special Collections. Merging the two service desks into one resulted in reduced staffing. The 2008 recession further reduced staff numbers, including three key technical services positions, the Head of Special Collections Technical Services, the Processing Specialist, and eventually an Accessioning Specialist. 25 The backlog of un-accessioned and unprocessed collections grew. When the economy recovered, Special Collections hired more curatorial staff positions but did not fill vacant Technical Services positions. 26 Seven curators acquired collections without shared collection development goals or awareness of Technical Services capacity to handle the quantity of acquisitions. The backlog continued to grow and conversations regularly ended in frustration because of ineffective accessioning and processing systems. Technical Services staffing declined through attrition and by 2012 it consisted of two part-time accessioning staff members with on-the-job training in collections management and one full-time computer/database support staff member. In the absence of a Head of Technical Services, the University Archivist supervised this three member team. Collections work—accessioning, processing, collection records maintenance, and finding aid 27 changes—was activated and tracked with paper forms, but each curator used the forms differently. The lack of standard practices was confusing and caused rifts among staff and between departments. While they agreed on the key steps of the accessioning process (acquisition, logging collections information, preparing materials for the storage and access, and creating and uploading the Encoded Archival Description [ EAD ] finding aid), they could not agree on who was responsible for each step. Curators were aware that they had developed distinct accessioning workflows and standards but were unsure of a way to resolve the differences.

Special Collections learned that the University Records Management Services department went through a Lean process improvement exercise and successfully developed more efficient work processes. Hoping that they could have similar success, the curators and Special Collections leadership turned to the University of Washington’s Lean Process, a program managed loosely through the university’s Finance and Facilities Department. The university supported the Lean Process by providing a gathering space for Lean launches, a Lean facilitator, and organizational assistance. They were assigned a facilitator from a corps of University of Washington volunteers who guide other departments through their Lean redesigns. Their facilitator was a staff member from the University Records Center who held a library degree and understood some aspects of their work. Her primary role was to give them direction, keep them focused on particular tasks, lead them to key milestones, and then step back so they could do the work.

The Lean Redesign

Project scope.

Once they decided to take the Lean leap, key team members met with their facilitator to begin working on a scope statement. That statement stated the problem they wanted to solve:

There is a large and steadily growing backlog of un-accessioned acquisitions, and the current accessioning process is cumbersome and prone to stalling. Staff have differing understanding and expectations of what work is to be done during accessioning, by whom, and when.

The Statement connected the Lean effort to the unit’s organizational goals: to make materials discoverable by and accessible to the researchers, and to be accountable to its donors.

The Statement focused on three areas of accessioning:

• Identifying necessary, unnecessary, and desirable elements in the accessioning process;
• Eliminating stall points to make time-to-completion predictable;
• Reducing the accessioning backlog month to month.

Success was defined as:

• Producing a revised accessioning manual;
• Reducing the time needed to move materials from intake to completion;
• Regular monitoring of backlog numbers shows a reduction in size.

The scope statement also listed the team members who would gather for a collaborative three-day Lean launch. The ten-member Lean team consisted of curators (archivists and librarians), Technical Services staff, and the director of Special Collections. Aside from the director, every person on the team was directly involved in some way with the accessioning process.

Current State

The University of Washington provided an ideal space for their Lean launch: It was across campus and away from the library; had rolling office furniture to quickly gather, disperse, and re-convene; and had blank walls to cover with butcher paper and sticky notes of all sizes and colors. The team began documenting the current state with sticky notes on the wall, mapping the accessioning process from the beginning (when the new acquisition is delivered to the workroom) to the end, (when the collection is staged for shelving). The intervening steps included logging preliminary information about the new accession into the collection management database, rehousing the collection if needed, creating or updating an EAD finding aid, creating or updating catalog records and authority records, and locating an appropriate storage location.

Finding Pain Points

By mapping their processes in detail, they revealed a workflow with 86 steps, 26 stall points, process times ranging from 77 to 466 hours of touch time; 88 to 244,131 hours of process time; and 33 to 130,482 hours of wait time. They identified and addressed 31 ideas for improvement as they tweaked the process. They also found four shortcuts or “ghost processes” that staff developed to overcome accessioning barriers. One example: incoming visual materials collections were temporarily staged on shelves apart from other materials awaiting accessioning. These collections were recorded and tracked in a spreadsheet accessible only to the visual materials curator and kept in that state for an undetermined period of time because the accessioning staff were unable to allocate sufficient time to address the materials.

Future State and Initial Redesign

The team’s next focus was envisioning a future state. Here, they faced a challenge: focusing on the “happy path” of finding a workflow for the 80% (the most common situations) while accepting that less common situations will make up the remaining 20%. Their second challenge was to set a goal for improvement. The Lean facilitator urged them to make an audacious goal: a 50% improvement. To fulfill this goal, they would need to dismantle current processes and build a common workflow that worked for every member of the team. The process stopped from time to time for the team to step back and resolve disputed perspectives or settle on a shared definition of terms, like, “what is the definition of accessioning or hand-off?” Unresolvable issues were added to a list of projects to address back at the shop.

They also developed a larger goal: to continue to pursue the ideal future state. They understood that the team would remain empowered to implement improvements and make their work lives better and their communication smoother, while also receiving support from leadership for their efforts. The Lean process is more than a set of tools and techniques. It is meant to have lasting organizational impact by building a culture where staff identify and fix problems collectively, work with a sense of urgency, purpose and teamwork, think creatively, learn, grow, and share lessons learned with others.

New Processes through Kaizens

The Lean launch concluded with the framework of a single common accessioning workflow and four kaizens. Kaizens are simply short-term projects undertaken by a subset of the team with the aim of improving one element or aspect of the overall process. They are designed with an expectation of group-wide report-outs at 30, 60, and 90 days. The team agreed to complete four kaizens:

• Flesh out Future Process: The entire team would work together toward a goal to resolve 26 pain points and test the new common workflow.
• Create Queue Management: Three team members would test electronic tools to replace paper forms and make a recommendation to the team.
• Address Backlog: Three team members researched and documented backlogs and established new norms for recording incoming acquisitions to facilitate discoverability and prevent the backlog from increasing.
• Space Management: Three team members examined storage capacity to prepare for space challenges.

After committing to a new common workflow, the team overhauled their pre-Lean accessioning manual. The new manual was designed as a living document to be continually updated with efficiencies as they were developed and adopted. Eighty-six steps in the workflow were reduced as practices were consolidated using shared project management software, while paper accessioning forms and other redundancies were eliminated. Upon eliminating paper forms, they turned to managing the accessioning queue with Asana project management software. As a web-based system accessible to every member of the staff, Asana allowed them to track each collection through the workflow with transparency and improved command over the workflow. Like many project management tools, Asana’s templates and task lists can include mandatory and optional steps as the workflow requires. The templates ensured consistent processes for all curators while allowing each person to assign tasks to colleagues or to student assistants on their teams. Using Asana created consistency but also still allowed for flexibility.

To address the backlog and prevent new backlogs from accumulating, Kaizen 3 examined each curator’s undocumented or alternately documented collections. They identified the minimum level of work needed to record materials in the collections management and project management databases and provided training and coaching to adopt the new practices. They suggested approaches to continuously monitor activities aimed at reducing and eliminating the backlog.

Kaizen 4 members researched the current spaces and space management databases. The work prepared the team for an eventual shelf reading project and a revamp of the existing database that tracks space availability.

Beyond the four kaizens, the team immediately adopted different and more productive ways to work together. Daily “huddles” (also known as stand-up meetings) began the day they returned to the office after the Lean launch. They committed to weekly one-hour meetings to track progress and followed through on kaizens and their 30, 60, and 90 report outs. During daily huddles and weekly meetings, they refined their approaches to complete tasks and negotiated changes in their collective workflow. Rather than selecting one or more test projects, they simply applied the new processes to all the work. As a relatively large organization, they receive new collections weekly if not daily. Incoming collections, along with the identified backlog, were excellent test cases for the improved process.

Team communication improved right away with daily huddles, weekly meetings, and shared goals and continued to improve with the addition of project management software and a revised accessioning manual. Having one queue for accessioning that was available and visible to all team members immediately cut out the problems created by shadow systems. Curators could trust that their collections were being addressed and successfully churned through the workflow. Accessioning was now commonly understood to be a series of discrete steps agreed upon by the entire team, Bottlenecks that inevitably cropped up were brought to a huddle or the longer weekly meeting.

Measuring quantitative improvements is often the driving force behind implementing the Lean process, because better numbers can be equated with cost savings by management. Common metrics to consider are the time-to-completion, the number of completed accessions per week/month, the number of workflow stall points, and quantifying and reducing the backlog of unaccessioned collections. The scope document was vague on some of these points. The team aspired to “improve the accessioning process to eliminate stall points and make time to completion predictable,” and “to continuously reduce the backlog month to month.” Even with this lack of clarity, it did not take long for the new accessioning system to show marked quantitative improvements in productivity. The number of accessions completed doubled in the first year, from about 150 accessions completed to more than 300.

Relationships

Although the quantitative improvements were impressive, the team improved qualitatively, as well. They found it easier to communicate and build stronger working relationships. Because Lean focuses on the process instead of the person doing the work, Lean was a key factor in that change. Each team member’s voice and perspective had equal value in building workflows, tracking progress, and implementing changes. Each curator had equal access to technical services, common communication tools, and a commitment to using shared standards.

Lean requires willing participants across the board. Some team members were not ready or willing to make changes. Although the team determined it necessary for Technical Services staff to work full-time, two part-time accessioning staff members did not want to increase their hours. Feeling no longer suited to the work, both opted to retire. The team adapted and hired a full-time Technical Services Archivist a year after the Lean launch. She was charged with managing the workflow, leading daily huddles and weekly hour-long meetings. With a functioning common workflow, she could move collections from the hands of curators through the accessioning process and make them ready for researchers. The Technical Services Archivist was a neutral position on equal footing with all curators.

The success of this new approach to queue management prompted them to use tracking systems within other areas of their library work, such as using the library management system Alma to barcode archival materials. Barcoding allowed for location information on a per-item basis to be centrally tracked, which prepared the collections for eventual circulation to the reading room. It also enabled them to track materials that were routed from the department to Preservation for treatments or to curators for exhibits. They added partners from the Preservation and Cataloging departments to their Asana workspace so they could also participate in the workflow.

They grew confident enough with the Lean process that they held subsequent Lean launches to redesign their digital collections accessioning and processing and to manage the cross departmental work of Special Collections library materials acquisitions and cataloging. While these Lean processes were helpful, they did not work with the outside facilitator or do the full three-day redesign, and therefore saw less success and impact than they did with the first Lean process. Neutral facilitation, support, and substantial time away from the shop to build new processes are important elements of success in the Lean redesign experience.

Montana State University

The Archives and Special Collections (ASC) department of the Montana State University Library has significant primary and secondary source materials in its focus areas. 28 With significant recent acquisitions, the department has a strong mandate from library administration to continue to build its collections. 29 The library hired a new department head in 2020 to lead two and one-half paraprofessionals (Curator, Archives Technician, and Digital Production Manager) and four full-time faculty librarians (Special Collections Librarian, Data Librarian, Outreach and Humanities Librarian, and Archivist).

Like their peer institutions, they face constraints on their ability to efficiently and promptly prepare new acquisitions of unique materials—archival, bibliographic, digital, or a mix—for use by researchers. Before 2020, processing was done primarily by the Curator, the Head of Special Collections, and occasional temporary faculty, staff, or interns. Workflows developed within each of those positions with little coordination or knowledge of those workflows by the remainder of the department members. Processing techniques, though very solid from a traditional standpoint, were centered on manually producing HTML and EAD finding aids and MARC records. Accession records and locations were managed in an aging ProCite database that was inaccessible to all but the department head and the curator. 30 In general, the department operated very separately from the rest of the organization.

Preparation of collections for use in analog or digital form also involves not only ASC, but also Digital Library Initiatives (DLI) and Cataloging, Access and Technical Services (CATS). CATS does subject analysis and name authority work for EAD and MARC records; creates metadata for digital collections; and advises on metadata structures for description and management. DLI builds and maintains the library’s digital collections; manages in-house and outsourced digitization with ASC; and oversees technical infrastructure for the library that includes the digital collections system. While the working relationships among the three departments were reasonably good, there were few routine processes established for collection processing. Instead, each project was treated as unique, with little clarity about who initiated and oversaw projects; whether digital projects and metadata were part of routine work or were an “extra”; and who was empowered to determine or adjust timelines and deadlines. Each time a project transitioned from one department to another, individuals had to schedule meetings in order to discuss next steps. Frequently, projects would stall for weeks or months because they were handed off to the wrong person or because individuals lacked adequate information to do the next step in a project. Project documentation was uneven, requiring repeated decision making and making it difficult to declare successful outcomes because not everyone agreed on end products. Re-starting stalled projects took time and fueled frustration between departments and individuals, and library administration often had to get involved to satisfy promises made to stakeholders.

The combination of all of these factors resulted in great difficulty predicting processing times and introduced difficulties for both staff and collection donors. Without predictability, making promises to donors about the availability of their materials was risky and tended to create unsustainable timelines and overwork. For instance, processing and digitizing the initial deposit of the Ivan Doig papers resulted in significant stress and overwork even as it produced an opportunity for library staff to meet a new challenge and exposed the library’s premier literary collection. 31

ASC staff, their colleagues in CATS and DLI, and library administration were dissatisfied with the status quo and were ready to find a way to distribute processing among existing positions, promote high-quality standards compliant work, support coordinated teamwork within ASC and across the organization, and enable better awareness of capacity. Luckily, they had several key components in place that made success more likely based on Lean in Higher Education expert William Balzer’s measures: Desire to change that aligned with the library’s strategic plan and its support for employee development and continuous improvement; department leadership change that brought new communication practices; and an acknowledgement of and support for needed changes in position descriptions. 32

Inspired by their colleagues at the University of Washington, who presented about their Lean redesign at a Northwest Archivists meeting in 2016, 33 they conducted a Lean redesign in 2020–2021. The staff of ASC, along with eight colleagues from DLI and CATS, planned and carried out the redesign, and the Head of Archives and Special Collections was the project director. A Faculty Excellence Grant from Montana State University’s Office of the Provost funded Lean consultants Irene Mauch (The Mauch Group) and Megan Mozina (Cresta Solutions) (hereafter Mauch/Mozina) to facilitate the process. 34

Mauch/Mozina facilitated a series of whole-group and small-group workshops in March-June 2021 to introduce the team to the Lean methodology and to define the breadth and depth of the project, the roles and responsibilities, and the end user’s value proposition; to analyze current state, gaps, and opportunities; to create a high-level implementation plan; to frame the new process tools; and to provide post event coaching and support. They worked with library administration, the project director, and the CATS and DLI department heads to develop a high-level understanding of the need for the project, define the project charter, and help the redesign team engage with and commit to the project. 35 Because this redesign was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was done entirely online.

Current State and Pain Points

Like their Washington colleagues, they began by defining the customer, the customer’s needs, and then mapping the current state. Mauch/Mozina led the entire group in creating an overview of all the steps involved in preparing a collection (archival, bibliographic, digital, or all three) for use by researchers, from intake to availability. In additional small group sessions, team members described each part of the process in detail. Other team members asked questions to clarify meaning, challenged some assertions, and looked for missing pieces. During these sessions, individuals were more able to describe a single process in detail than they were to participate in a group description of a series of processes, so a rewarding by-product was that participants and departments learned a great deal from one another. Team members struggled to describe all the processes at a similar level (e.g. how do we label boxes? How do we find space on the shelves? How do we decide what level of processing to apply?). Individuals were challenged to describe the most common scenarios—the 80% rather than the 20%—and required support to redirect their thinking from unusual situations to more routine ones. The project director checked in with individuals throughout the current state workshops and found that individuals reported that the workshops were positive and that they were learning a great deal from one another. For most team members, the current state map was the first time they saw the process from end to end. The current state was documented, and seventy-five pain points were identified where the current processes were not working well. Because this was an overwhelming list that could not be addressed in a single redesign, the list was narrowed to sixteen items that ranged in scope from identifying department roles and responsibilities to a standardized process for labeling boxes.

Small Groups on Pain Points

The next phase of the redesign was to address the identified problems. They created sixteen small project groups of varying sizes according to topic and group members’ strengths and expertise. (These projects were kaizen events, though that term was not used.) Over the course of two weeks, each group examined the pain point, identified an approach to relieve the pain, outlined the steps needed, and produced a draft of the essential elements of a new approach. Each group met with Mauch/Cresta for support, coaching, and coordination with the project as a whole. 36 They also formed a coordination group (composed of the project director, CATS and DLI department heads, and the Digital Production Manager) that met frequently during the two weeks that the small groups were working to integrate that work into the main flowchart, to observe where groups or individuals needed additional support, and to consider new issues as they emerged.

During the future state planning OCLC Research released its TCS report and tools at precisely the moment that the team needed them. Specifically, they adopted the project plans for archival, bibliographic, and digital as well as the quick cost calculator. With well-considered and field-tested models for collections consideration, project plans, and calculating capacity, the team was able to create stronger processes.

Redesign Close

At the end of the small group work, the project had drafts of new practices that addressed critical pain points, a revised overall flowchart, and a clear sense of where to adopt the existing tools from the TCS Toolkit. Mauch/Cresta met with the entire team to show the revised flowchart and how the mini-projects fit in and how they laid the groundwork for continuously testing and revising processes. They also met with library administration to show the results to date, to emphasize the critical role that executive support plays in a successful redesign, and to clarify that the team needed to focus considerable energy on implementation for the coming four months with minimal distractions. 37 This represented the end of Mauch/Cresta’s direct work on the redesign. The redesign coordination group became the Cross-Functional Group (CFG), responsible for identifying and managing capacity and the preparation of all unique collections—archival, bibliographic, digital, or a mix—for use by researchers. This group now meets twice a week for 10-30 minutes to provide consistent oversight for all current and upcoming projects. 38 They also established the Technical Review Committee (TRC), which meets weekly to plan and carry out digital projects specifically. The Digital Production Manager serves on the CFG and leads the TRC.

Prototyping Tools

Lean relies heavily on trying new processes, rapidly assessing how well they work, and making revisions—all of which enable continuous improvement. The team emerged from future state planning with workflows and tools that were deliberately in draft form so they could make changes before they were over-invested in particular approaches. The first month of implementation consisted of taking the tools that were in draft form and refining them to a usable state. Members of the CFG met with the individuals who worked on the mini-projects by workflow (archival, bibliographic, digital) to step through the workflows and tools in detail so that the group members could clearly understand how each tool functions in the greater whole and could see the gaps between the draft form of each and a form ready for implementation. The CFG prioritized the tools most critical to all processes along with those in the most incomplete form.

The whole team met again for a workflow-specific review of the flowchart, a view of the draft project tracker, and articulation of plans for training for both small groups and the whole team. They celebrated the work done during the first month of implementation and recognized groups and individuals for their contributions. During that meeting, they reinforced the idea of prototyping the new processes and documentation and making notes on needed changes in a shared document rather than getting caught up in details. This is an essential underpinning for continuous improvement in the short and long term.

Implementation: Test Projects

With those tools and mindset in hand, the team moved to test projects, each of which used one or more specific components created during the redesign. All of them also tested the overall workflows and structure for project planning and tracking and were the focus of all the work; other collection preparation stopped in order to fully embrace the new processes. Over the course of three months, the team completed one archival, one bibliographic, and the end of two digital projects. 39 The two digital projects proceeded smoothly with clear project plans, templates for metadata, and project tracking. The bibliographic project enabled student assistants to accurately search the library’s catalog to identify duplicate and unique items which addressed a major pain point for the CATS department. The archival project tested the use of a number of components, including inventory spreadsheets for import into ArchivesSpace, exporting MARC records from ArchivesSpace, and using digital-on-arrival processes.

After these test projects were completed, the project director and all involved staff conducted a review of the initial implementation. Persons involved in each workflow met as a group to step through the process and note where there was insufficient information, missing steps, or flaws in the tools. The review processes uncovered elements that needed improvement, specifically the project tracker, specific uses of ArchivesSpace, and the review of digital collections. Also marked for discussion was initial curation of bibliographic collections and whether unnecessarily complex processes had been implemented. Small groups then made changes and improvements to the tools and processes.

During the review period, the project director also met individually with all involved individuals for 30-minute structured interviews. Interview questions addressed the experiences of each individual and areas of change or continuity in both their work and the work of the organization (See Appendix B for questions). The project director took notes during each interview, invited every participant to review and correct those notes, summarized both the interview notes and the workflow-specific sessions, and performed analysis of keywords and themes. The summary was shared with and discussed by all Lean participants in a celebration, and with the entire organization in an all-staff meeting.

Participants reported that the work completed during the test projects was more consistent and of higher quality. Project plans meant that the overall information on a project was easily available, and decisions were made just once rather than several times. Because individuals had clear roles in the processes, their work felt more relevant and appreciated. And even though work stopped on other projects in order to focus on and measure the results of the test projects, the quality of the test projects meant that the overall impacts were positive.

At this stage of the project, there was still insufficient data to assess whether the new processes increased the quantity of collections that could be prepared for researchers. Considering they went from having no idea how long work took to having some means to estimate it through the TCS toolkit, it is an improvement, nonetheless. With the new processes, participants stated that the work felt faster because of having increased clarity and fewer bottlenecks. Continued data collection will show whether this perception is quantitatively supportable.

Improvements in quantity and quality were important, but somewhat unsurprising. The most significant change seen in the initial implementation was in relationships. The keywords used most frequently during the interviews described increased understanding, collaboration, clarity, communication, and transparency. Participants reported an increased sense of responsibility toward one another, and an increased sense that all roles are clear and valued. They reflected that ASC is much more connected and integrated with the rest of the organization, rather than operating as a distinct and siloed entity. Several participants discussed the experience of talking openly about the pain points, which they felt were previously taboo in the organization, and expressed gratitude and support for being encouraged to have these discussions and to seek solutions together

The Lean redesign processes at the University of Washington and Montana State University occurred at very different organizations and more than five years apart. However, both processes share some common themes: collections stewardship, the function of standards compliance, and fomenting and sustaining organizational change. For both organizations, having permission to discuss pain points was not only needed, but was an entryway to creating solutions. In both cases, the Lean redesign resulted in significant positive outcomes along with challenges that should inform similar projects at other institutions.

Stewardship

Both institutions faced slightly different versions of the same challenge: responsible stewardship. For the University of Washington, a backlog of material lacking even basic metadata meant that a large number of collections were completely inaccessible. Montana State University lacked the same degree of backlog, but was challenged to meet donor and administrative expectations without either making promises that could not be fulfilled or keeping promises while significantly overtaxing library staff. As the TCS report observes,

Archives and special collections are charged with collecting materials that document our society and its institutions as well as with the ongoing, responsible stewardship of these records. Yet many archives and special collections struggle to manage the volume of materials under their care. Accumulations of inaccessible, poorly described collections and inadequately preserved materials can create a breach of the trust we hold with collection donors and users. Matching collecting activities to resources is fundamental to stewardship. 40

The TCS authors also observe that archives and special collections have given significant focus to reducing backlogs and preparing collections more efficiently. They propose a new approach that uses a constraint model for collecting so that libraries collect within their capacity and make promises to stakeholders that they can keep. 41 That model builds on existing efficiencies and adds a measured approach to calculating and communicating capacity. These experiences suggest that processes redesigned using Lean support both approaches. The Lean redesign at the University of Washington fit, chronologically and theoretically, into the “increase efficiency” trend. It fulfilled that goal: quantitative measures showed a marked increase in the number of collections accessioned each year. The redesign at Montana State University, with its twin focus on increasing efficiency and understanding and articulating capacity for preparing new collections, was parallel with the framework of TCS and “responsible stewardship.” While the quantitative data is still emerging, the improved communication lays firm groundwork for responsible stewardship.

However, the calculation and communication tools provided by the TCS toolkit are just one part of responsible stewardship. The other part, which both institutions confronted, is creating and supporting a team rather than an individualistic approach to special collections work. University of Washington Lean team members were not unanimous in their support for the process. Some reluctantly participated, convinced that their voice would not be heard. The Lean process is designed to address this issue: team members incrementally and collectively document the current state and imagine the future state point by point and moving forward only when all are in agreement, turning the skeptic into a big supporter of the process. For Montana State University, departments and individuals had no real understanding of how the library prepared unique collections for use. Lean current state process mapping helped every member of the team understand where their work fit in. One team member observed, “every piece of this flowchart represents a promise that we make to one another.” 42

Standards Compliance

The “special” in “special collections” meant, for decades, unique approaches for processing every collection; it is a legacy of the profession that is difficult to move past. 43 The emergence of DACS as a descriptive standard just eighteen years ago counters that legacy. With the developments of the last twenty years—EAD, DACS, standardized rights statements, and all of the advances in name authority work including the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) and Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC)—practitioners in unique collections increasingly understand and see both the advantages of standardization and the limitations of customization. Both institutions used Lean processes to significantly enhance their ability to create consistent metadata for use and re-use and to move that metadata through systems.

For MSU, standardization was one approach to relieving pain points uncovered during the Lean redesign. These changes—metadata templates for digital collections, ensuring that bibliographic searching was done consistently by student assistants, clearly defining levels of physical processing for archival collections—made immediate and tangible differences in how the work was done. They represent a move from a completely customized process to one with the right level of routine and room for appropriate customization. However, this change was difficult: for some staff, standardization felt like moving toward a “cookie cutter” process. The current state mapping process provided an opportunity for the project leader and the consultants to key in on individuals’ expertise and perspectives and to carefully consider how to draw on it to create balanced approaches.

For both institutions, revising processes also included ensuring that the metadata created during them was both consistent across the organization and compliant with national standards. Inherent to the process was engaging the role of accessioning in establishing consistent bibliographic control. For the University of Washington, the Lean process forced a reckoning about the meaning of accessioning—once everyone agreed on the definition and what they wanted out of the process, it was easier to move forward and engineer the process to check all of the boxes. They realized they wanted each accession to have at least a minimum level of description. They identified all of the fields in their collection management software that were essential at each level of the process. In some cases these fields corresponded to fields that would be displayed in their finding aid and their MARC record (the outward facing manifestations of the invisible accessioning work). In this way they baked standards compliance into their everyday expectations of what accessioning is and always strove for the “golden minimum.” They agreed that all accessions would be made discoverable by the end of the accessioning process whether or not any detailed processing had been done or was planned. They embraced the “accessioning as processing” framework out of necessity. 44

For Montana State University, the Lean process established a clear practice of doing fully standards-compliant minimal description on accessioning, and in ArchivesSpace, so that the metadata could be re-used for as many outputs as possible: EAD finding aid, MARC record, digital collections metadata, and a variety of administrative reports, including those for donors. This eliminated both tedious cut-and-paste work across multiple systems and the re-creation (often in different forms) of metadata for those outputs. For ASC staff members, learning and practicing standards-compliant basic description was a hurdle but ultimately achievable for most.

Managing Change

Fundamentally, Lean redesign is about people embracing the changes they identified, implementing the solution they have formulated, and tracking progress toward goals they have established. It is a bottom-up, grassroots process that respects the people who do the work. This makes it a powerful approach to creating and sustaining change in an organization, so long as there is also continuous support and expectations for sustaining new processes. Absent that support, new processes will lose steam.

At the University of Washington, the Lean process was supported through their department administration and encouraged in general at the University. 45 Within this context, each team member was expected to be motivated to participate and commit to new and more efficient practices. They learned from their facilitator that it is common for team members to not find themselves in the new work, so the retirements of the accessioning staff were unsurprising. The changes also set up the new Technical Services Archivist for success: they joined an already motivated group that had adopted new processes and wanted to continue to improve them.

However, over time enthusiasm waned for the idea of continuous improvement at the University of Washington. Some staff were, if not resistant then, more likely to fixate on the extra effort to master new tools and less committed to a common workflow. In the end, a uniform workflow was not adopted by all curators. The director did not manage the process, failing to insist on the need for adherence to common/shared practices and workflows and failing to assign the authority to enforce it to another person in the department.

At Montana State University, the project director and Mauch/Cresta closely monitored the level of engagement and skills evidenced by members of the team throughout the process. Some individuals were expected to be strong contributors to this work, either directly by contributing knowledge of specific processes or more indirectly by asking questions of colleagues. Some individuals emerged as strong contributors unexpectedly, proving themselves strong systems thinkers and reliable collaborators. Some demonstrated that they were less engaged by not following agreed-on project norms or contributing to discussions. And some individuals had struggled more than others to articulate how work might be done differently and why. Sharing these observations allowed the project director and Mauch/Mozina to shape individuals’ places in the project and identify both those who could contribute a great deal, those who were likely to contribute more to very specific topics, and those who would need additional support and encouragement to contribute well.

One of the roles the strong contributors began to play was to provide peer support. A few team members expressed concern that the new processes were overkill, and that they were documenting and planning at the expense of actually accomplishing the work. This is a reasonable concern and a reflection of what a profound change this was. This type of skepticism can emerge because it is hard for people to see how the work they do fits into the process: they are simply doing the work in the way that seems best to them, sometimes in the way that is most expedient or convenient. Stepping through the Lean process enhanced everyone’s understanding of how and why their work impacts others. For example, a new process at Montana State University ensured that donated bibliographic materials were accurately searched in the ILS before being selected for the collection was one of the most impactful. When one team member expressed their reluctance about changing processes, another team member described how inaccurate searching wasted their time and made it harder to do their job. Yet another team member stated to the resistant one, “[name], [they] need you to do this in order to do [their] work!” 46 After this discussion, one of the test projects that used the new processes yielded significant change. While CATS had in the past received 100% of bibliographic materials with unclear selection criteria or that lacked other key information, the new processes meant that none of the materials had those issues. 47 This, in turn, made the CATS team members whose work was improved even more enthusiastic about the new processes. The individual who was resistant is willing to continue to follow the new processes as a courtesy to their colleagues.

Managing change and supporting individuals is also an ongoing process that takes considerable time and attention from leadership. At Montana State University, Mauch/Cresta provided both intensive support during the redesign and supported the project leader in sustaining support for managing change. Mozina observed that when people are used to doing something a particular way, the easy path will be to do it the same way. Deviating from the old way can arouse emotion and stress, and people will naturally resist the additional effort associated with the new practice. 48 Countering this natural tendency requires significant effort by individuals, peers, and organizations. 49 Team members needed to acknowledge the urge to fall back into old habits, remind themselves of the rational path, and use the new practice. Manager expectations and peer support play essential roles in supporting these changes. Balzer acknowledges this reality in his observations about an institution’s readiness to undertake a Lean redesign: “Major institutional change is an ambitious undertaking, and university leaders should be fully cognizant of the sustained commitment needed to implement LHE [Lean in Higher Education].” 50 Indeed, some observe that many Lean redesigns fail in the long term because of lack of leadership support and because employees just don’t want to change. 51 Additionally, staff turnover and changes in leadership introduce both challenges and opportunities. Onboarding new employees, or even new student assistants, gives the team a chance to introduce the improved workflows to colleagues unfettered by the “old way” of doing things. Furthermore, new team members are good at exposing points in the process that need more clarity or refinement.

The University of Washington Special Collections is a standalone department in a relatively large organization where, historically, most of the work has been done within the department rather than across the organization. Montana State University had the same situation despite its much smaller size and sought better integration across the three departments. For both organizations, the Lean process resulted in better integration both within the department and across the organization. For instance, during the qualitative assessment at Montana State, one of the most frequently cited advantages was a better understanding of others’ work. The process built better relationships across departments. For the University of Washington, attempting standardized work has necessitated partnerships with other departments. With the realization that SC can’t do the work alone, they looked to other experts including Acquisitions, Cataloging, and Preservation.

Advocacy and Administration

Process redesign, continuous improvement, and managing change may be grassroots in nature, but they also require substantial support from leadership in order to be successful. 52 Responsible stewardship is not in itself the focus that upper administration may gravitate toward! But it enables the higher visibility things that administrators want, including exposing high profile collections, enabling impactful scholarship, and supporting transformative learning experiences for students.

For MSU, library administration enthusiastically supported the Lean process, including advocating for the grant that supported it and providing encouragement throughout the initial redesign. The results of the redesign increased library administration’s understanding of responsible stewardship. Acquisition of prestigious collections that raise the library’s profile and support transformative learning experiences for students was already a priority, but an understanding of what is required for responsible stewardship was less so. By articulating the steps involved, using well-formed tools from the TCS kit, and showing a determination to improve both quality and quantity, they were able to increase the understanding of those requirements. Over time, they anticipate they will learn more about how well they are able to match aspirations and resources to complete collection preparation within predicted timeframes.

Assessing Success

For both institutions, carrying out a Lean redesign advanced both efficiency and responsible stewardship. The most immediate results were improved communication and relationships both within the departments and across the organizations. For the University of Washington, the redesign measurably increased the amount of work done. For both organizations, the redesign increased standards compliance and the ability to re-use metadata.

For the University of Washington, with eight years passed since the Lean redesign, they can now see both success and failure. The director was thrilled with the initial outcomes and because the process had improved so dramatically, it seemed by all accounts that “accessioning was fixed.” Everyone involved in the Lean launch and the subsequent activities–including daily huddles that continued for several years and weekly meetings that continue to this day—understands how crucial an improved accessioning process is to every other part of our work. In addition to permanent “fixes,” they hired a temporary accessioning assistant for backlog management for 22 months. Using the new processes and concentrated staff time to attack the backlog, they moved 545 collections through the accessioning process, effectively cutting their “hidden collections” in half. It was due to the Lean process mapping that they were able to get a handle on the steps needed to daylight collections that hadn’t yet gone through the accessioning process.

In spite of these successes, they still have a substantial backlog. Why haven’t they obliterated it by now? It turns out that they aren’t alone. TCS reasons that continuing backlogs “cannot be addressed solely through increased efficiency in technical services and infusions of extra labor”; capacity constraint must be considered as well. 53 Capacity constraints, defined as “factors that limit production, performance, or output,” are at the heart of the TCS framework and surrounding tools. 54 At the University of Washington, while accessioning was improved and continued to evolve, no amount of efficiency in that realm could get at the underlying issues surrounding the lack of sustainable stewardship of collections. Leadership (deans and directors) are encouraged to engage in process improvement by providing leadership support and developing an overarching collection management policy that embraces the TCS framework and thoughtfully considers staffing and space constraints.

A Lean redesign also requires significant time and energy to support it. In both cases, the departments needed the help of skilled consultants to design and carry out the redesign. For the University of Washington, that expertise was available in a unit on campus; for Montana State that expertise required an internal grant to support Mauch and Cresta’s work. Both entities found that after conducting a successful redesign, it was challenging to sustain change and make continuous improvement part of the culture. Successfully sustaining change requires substantial support that begins at the highest level in the organization and continues throughout the hierarchy, down to individuals who are invested in the work and can also contribute to peer support. Balzer elaborates on all of these points. 55 Last, the constant change in any organization, including gaining or losing positions, key staff moving to other organizations, and special projects that take precedence over day-to-day work, makes continuous improvement difficult to sustain as a single unit. Instead, the enthusiasm for and commitment to sustaining change needs to be supported across the organization. Middle managers (e.g. department heads for archives and special collections) must be prepared to not only continuously support their and other department members, but to engage administration and solicit ongoing support.

Lean Principles for Archives Collection Preparation

For the special collections units in the libraries at the University of Washington and Montana State University, a Lean redesign for portions or all of collection preparation processes had transformative impacts on quality and quantity of work. Both institutions learned valuable lessons about what is necessary to initiate and sustain change, to support team- and standards-based approaches, the key benefit of responsibility to each other, and the value of a framework that is not commonly used in special collections and archives. Both institutions increased their capacity for responsible stewardship. Most importantly, Lean’s grassroots approach and respect for people allowed all staff, particularly those resistant to change, to engage with both the process and to carry through on changes to the work. With sustained administrative support and attention, archives and libraries can benefit from implementing Lean or other BPM approaches. Doing so is consistent with recent moves toward standardization, efficiency, and collecting within constraints. It is a substantial effort and an ongoing investment, but the ongoing results are worth it!

Acknowledgment

The work at Montana State University described in this paper would not have been possible without the work of Irene Mauch and Megan Mozina, of The Mauch Group and Cresta Solutions respectively, a dynamic duo who facilitated a really transformative project despite a global pandemic! The project was also a success because of the engagement and thoughtful contributions from the project team: Doralyn Rossmann, Amy Foster, Jan Zauha, Sophia Phillips, Sara Mannheimer, James Thull, Gary Barnhart, Brandon Watson, Anne Stefani, Molly Arrandale, Rhonda Borland, Jim Espeland, Jakob Schultz, and Anika-Anzum Prima. The author additionally appreciates the steadfast support of Associate Dean Brian Rossmann and Dean Kenning Arlitsch.

The University of Washington Libraries Special Collections Lean efforts were coordinated within the greater campus Lean program and led by volunteer launch facilitator and coach Cara Ball, compliance analyst at UW Records Management. The Special Collections Lean team was composed of Technical Services and Curatorial staff members: John Bolcer, Nicolette Bromberg, Mark Carlson, Conor Casey, Nan Cohen, Anne Jenner, Susan Kemp, and Sandra Kroupa. The team was sponsored by Paul Constantine, Associate Dean of UW Libraries and Director of Special Collections.

Appendix A: Lean Background and Terms

The following are some common terms used in Lean. Montana State University and the University of Washington did not use these terms in precisely the same ways; these definitions reflect the common and variant uses.

Current state : The process “as is” today. Articulated and analyzed through a variety of means, including flowcharts, spaghetti diagrams, and others.

Future state : What processes will look like in the future, after redesign. Articulated through a flowchart or value stream diagram. 57

Huddle or cross-functional group: A short, frequent, meeting of people who play roles in a workflow. Also known as a standup, these can be daily or another interval.

Lean launch: A cycle with a defined beginning and end devoted to designing or redesigning a process 58

Process Redesign: Re-engineering a business process so that it delivers greater value to the customer(s). 59

Lean Redesign : The active work of using Lean tools to reduce waste, increase value to the customer, and improve efficiency and quality. 60

Respect for People : A focus on valuing the contribution and opinion of those involved with the work. A fundamental value of Lean. 61

Report Out : Describing expected results and how the process must operate to deliver them. 62

Kaizen : the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, applied in a short, intense, focused workshop that redesigns a sub-process. 63

Appendix B: Montana State University Project Assessment Questions

• Describe your role in processes (e.g. which new or revised processes did you “touch” the most?)
• What do you think has changed about your work as the result of having new processes?
• What hasn’t changed about your work?
• What do you think has changed about us as an organization as the result of having new processes?
• What hasn’t changed about us as an organization?
• What do you think needs to change?
• What are you most pleased about?

As part of planning for this assessment, the Project Director confirmed requirements for IRB review. She determined that, as an internal improvement/quality assessment initiative, IRB approval is not required ( https://www.montana.edu/orc/irb/human_subjects_research.html ). In reporting on this assessment, she is following best practices, e.g. not identifying individuals and seeking permission for any quotation.

1. See https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/processing.html .

2. Other sub-disciplines include Total Quality Management, Operations Management, and Six Sigma.

3. Marlon Dumas, Marcello La Rosa, Jan Mendling, and Hajo A. Reijers, “Introduction to Business Process Management” in Fundamentals of Business Process Management (Springer Berlin, Heidelberg 2013): 1.

4. William K. Balzer, Lean and Higher Education: Increasing the Value and Performance of University Processes, 2nd Edition (New York: Routledge, 2020): 15.

5. James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, “Beyond Toyota: How to Root out Waste and Pursue Perfection,” Harvard Business Review, vol. 74, no. 5 (1996): 140.

6. Kim Dong-Suk, “Eliciting Success Factors of Applying Six Sigma in an Academic Library: A Case Study,” Performance Measurement and Metrics 11, no. 1 (2010): 25–38, https://doi.org/10.1108/14678041011026847 .

7. Sarah Anne Murphy, “Leveraging Lean Six Sigma to Culture, Nurture, and Sustain Assessment and Change in the Academic Library Environment,” College & Research Libraries 70, no. 3 (May 2009): 215.

8. Elizabeth Nelson, “Using Six Sigma and Lean in the Library,” College & Undergraduate Libraries, 22: 3–4 (2015): 312–324, https://doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2015.1070701 .

9. Shaunessy Everett and Marihelen Hatcher, “Do More, Better, for Less,” Library Journal 131, no. 15 (September 15, 2006): 28.

10. Jeanne F. Voyles, Linda Dols, and Ellen Knight, “Interlibrary Loan Meets Six Sigma: The University of Arizona Library’s Success Applying Process Improvement,” Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve 19, no. 1 (January 2009): 75.

11. Sarah Anne Murphy, “Leveraging Lean Six Sigma to Culture, Nurture, and Sustain Assessment and Change in the Academic Library Environment,” College & Research Libraries 70, no. 3 (May 2009): 218.

12. Lenore A. England and Stephen D. Miller, Maximizing Electronic Resources Management in Libraries: Applying Business Process Management (Witney: Elsevier Science & Technology, 2015).

13. Elizabeth Nelson, “Using Six Sigma and Lean in the Library,” 319.

14. J. Gordon Daines III, “Aligning Customer Needs: Business Process Management (BPM) and Successful Change Management in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections,” Library Leadership & Management 29 no. 1, http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/llm.v29i1.7101 ; J. Gordon Daines III and Cory L. Nimer, “Integrating Process Management with Archival Management Systems: Lessons Learned,” The Code4Lib Journal 6 (2009), http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1016 .

15. Daines, personal communication with Jodi Allison-Bunnell, 2020 October 2.

16. Mary Jo Pugh, “The Illusion of Omniscience: Subject Access and the Reference Archivist,” The American Archivist 45, no. 1 (1982): 33–44; Elsie T. Freeman, “In the Eye of the Beholder: Archives Administration from the User’s Point of View,” American Archivist, 47 (Spring 1984): 111–123.

17. Paul Conway, “Facts and Frameworks: An Approach to Studying the Users of Archives,” The American Archivist 49, no. 4 (1986): 393–407.

18. ARL Research, Teaching, and Learning. Exposing Hidden Collections Conference Summary, 2003. http://www.arl.org/rtl/speccoll/hidden/EHC_conference_summary.shtml ; ARL Special Collections Task Force Final Status Report July 2006, https://www.arl.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/special-collections-task-force-final-status-report-july2006.pdf ; both accessed 2021 January 11.

19. “Program History,” https://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/program-history/ , accessed 2021 January 11.

20. “Digitizing Hidden Special Collections & Archives,” https://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/ , accessed 2021 January 11.

21. Mark A. Greene and Dennis Meissner, “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing,” The American Archivist 68, no. 2 (2005): 208–63.

22. “User-centered Archival Description,” in Describing Archives: A Content Standard, https://saa-ts-dacs.github.io/dacs/04_statement_of_principles.html#user-centered-archival-description , accessed 2020 December 11.

23. Chela Scott Weber, Martha O’Hara Conway, Nicholas Martin, Gioia Stevens, and Brigette Kamsler, Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections , (Dublin, OH: OCLC Research, 2021), https://doi.org/10.25333/zbh0-a044 , accessed 2021 September 23.

24. Collecting areas include a rich Pacific Northwest Collection and other special collections including architecture, 19th-century and 20th-century American and English Literature, Book Arts Collection, the Labor Archives of Washington, and the University Archives.

25. In archives, “accessioning” refers to the steps taken by staff to establish preliminary physical and bibliographic control over an analog or digital acquisition. Although a standardized process is only just emerging, accessioning usually involves a minimal-level DACS description, rehousing, and a shelf or digital location. See https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/accession.html .

26. Traditionally at University of Washington, curatorial staff are primarily responsible for acquiring materials whereas technical services staff accession, arrange, describe, and make materials discoverable using library systems. Curators are more public-facing while technical services staff are involved in hidden labor.

27. See https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/finding-aid.html .

28. Collecting areas include agriculture; architecture and engineering; Montana and western history; Native Americans; Montana State University; politics and government; Montana history; and regional writers.

29. Since 2015, these have included collections from renowned writer Ivan Doig, scientist Frank Craighead, writer and filmmaker John Heminway, and modern artists Bob and Gennie deWeese.

30. ProCite was first released in 1983 and was popular in many industries, including libraries. It has been unsupported since 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCite , accessed 2021 October 25.

31. Kenning Arlitsch et al., “Digitizing the Ivan Doig Archive at Montana State University: A Rise to the Challenge Illustrates Creative Tension,” Journal of Library Administration 57, no. 1 (January 2, 2017): 99–113, https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2016.1251251 .

32. William K. Balzer, Lean Higher Education ; Montana Library Strategic Plan, https://www.lib.montana.edu/about/strategic-plan/index.html , accessed 2021 June 7.

33. Cara Ball, Nicolette Bromberg, and Emily Hughes Dominick, “Accessioning All-Stars: Turning our Dysfunctional Process around Using Lean, A Process Improvement,” Northwest Archivists Annual Meeting, Seattle, Washington, May 2016.

34. Center for Faculty Excellence, Montana State University, https://www.montana.edu/facultyexcellence/grantsawards/feg/2020feg-Rd2.html , accessed 2021 October 25. The Lean Redesign for Archives and Special Collections at Montana State University was facilitated by the partnership between Mauch Group LLC and Cresta Solutions LLC. Irene Mauch, principal of the Mauch Group, has over thirty years of experience with Lean and Six Sigma in a variety of industries, including higher education. Megan Mozina, principal of Cresta Solutions, has fifteen years of developing leaders and supporting strategic changes in higher education. In combination, they bring strong experience in process improvement in higher education, complementary skills, and extensive experience in online workshop facilitation. https://mauchgroup.com ; https://www.crestasolutions.com , both accessed 2021 June 14.

35. As part of this process, the team members also agreed to a set of ground rules for the process that described shared expectations for attendance, engagement, timelines, video conferencing, and mindset.

36. In order to support the work of many small groups, the project director created an additional page for the main flowchart to document metadata and information flow among all the processes the group was developing. For instance, the overall description of a collection that is created in the process of working with a donor or seller becomes the basis for both the preliminary scope and content note in the accession record, which in turn appears in final descriptions like the finding aid. This allowed groups to see where information could be collected once and re-used, with or without modifications, and where standards-compliant forms needed to emerge.

37. Montana State University Library, Executive Team minutes, 2021 April 19 (not publicly available).

38. Adopting daily stand-up meetings with this group, or even with the entire group involved in the redesign, might be more typical. These twice-weekly meetings were more organizationally viable.

39. The two digital projects were completed by a vendor but needed to be integrated into the library’s systems and made available to researchers. Two additional projects anticipated had unexpected issues with previous processing that made them unsuitable as test projects.

40. Chela Scott Weber, et al., Total Cost of Stewardship .

41. Ibid., 3–4.

42. Paraphrase, 2021 April. Used by permission.

43. Jodi Allison-Bunnell, Megan Mozina, Irene Mauch, “Your Work is Special! Lean Makes it Repeatable,” Lean in Higher Education Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, 2021 October 21.

44. Christine Weideman, “Accessioning as Processing,” American Archivist 69 (2): 274–283.

45. Washington Lean is an official administrative program offered through the University of Washington Finance division. A case study, ”Transforming Higher Ed: Implementing a Culture of Continuous Improvement at the University of Washington,” was winner of the 2019 Shingo Research and Publication Award, https://finance.Washington.edu/lean accessed 4/13/2022.

46. Paraphrase of team member, 2021 March. Used with permission.

47. Interview with KC and MA, 2021 November 4. Used with permission.

48. Mauch and Mozina, Full Team Meeting presentation, 2021 April 28.

49. https://dictionary.apa.org/plan-continuation-bias , accessed 2022 January 7.

50. William K. Balzer, Lean Higher Education, 102.

51. Lynn Kelley, “The ‘Playbook’ of Sustaining Change.” https://www.lean.org/the-lean-post/articles/the-playbook-of-sustaining-change/ , accessed 2022 October 21.

52. In the kickoff meeting with the library’s administration, Mauch and Cresta stated that leadership support is the single biggest factor in the success of a redesign.

53. Chela Scott Weber, et al., Total Cost of Stewardship .

54. Ibid, 15.

55. William K. Balzer, Lean Higher Education , 259–262

56. As per Womack et al., 1996.

57. https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/glossary/value-stream-map/ , accessed 2021 December 10.

58. 10 Steps to a Lean Launch, https://www.lean-labs.com/lean-launch , accessed 2022 February 25.

59. https://www.leanblog.org/2017/01/lean-redesign-continuous-improvement-organizations-blog/ , accessed 2021 December 10.

60. https://www.leanblog.org/2017/01/lean-redesign-continuous-improvement-organizations-blog/ , accessed 2022 February 25.

61. Glossary of Lean Production Related Terms, All About Lean, https://www.allaboutlean.com/lean-glossary/#r, accessed 2021 October 4.

62. http://theleanthinker.com/2011/03/04/the-report-out/ , accessed 2022 February 14.

63. Glossary of Lean Production Related Terms, All About Lean, https://www.allaboutlean.com/lean-glossary/#k, accessed 2021 October 4.

* Jodi Allison-Bunnell is Head of Archives and Special Collections and Assistant Professor at Montana State University Library, email: [email protected] ; Anne Jenner is Curator of the Pacific Northwest Collection at University of Washington Libraries, email: [email protected] ; Emily Dominick is Manager, Puget Sound Branch, Washington State Archives, email: [email protected] . ©2024 Jodi Allison-Bunnell, Anne Jenner, and Emily Dominick, Attribution-NonCommercial ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) CC BY-NC.

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