Case Studies, Biographies
Case Studies, Biographies
- Case definition clarity: What is the unit of analysis—person, team, firm, event—and why it matters.
- Context completeness: Industry, time period, constraints, macro conditions, starting position.
- Decision chronology: What decisions were made, when, with what information.
- Counterfactual plausibility: What could reasonably have happened otherwise.
- Outcome attribution: Distinguish skill, luck, timing, environment, and external forces.
- Selection bias awareness: Why this case exists (success bias, survivorship).
- Evidence grounding: Primary sources vs recollection; corroboration level.
- Perspective limitations: Single-voice narrative vs multi-stakeholder views.
- Failure and error disclosure: Mistakes, reversals, blind spots, near-misses.
- Causality discipline: Avoid post-hoc fallacies; separate correlation from cause.
- Transferability limits: What elements are context-bound vs portable.
- Practitioner intent: Whether the narrative aims to inform, teach, justify, or rehabilitate reputation.
- Ethical representation: Fair portrayal of others; power dynamics acknowledged.
- Temporal distortion: Hindsight clarity vs contemporaneous uncertainty.
- Learning extraction method: How lessons are derived—explicitly and cautiously.