How Does the Case Method Work?

Every week, our MBA students pore over fourteen or so cases, which usually include a range of financial and other supporting data. After spending a couple of hours studying each case on their own, and conducting quantitative analyses as appropriate, they test their thinking before class in small study groups.

From years of previous educational experience, most people are accustomed to large, passive lectures, amidst faces they barely know, and problem sets with an unclear relationship to actual business situations. At HBS, first-year sections of about ninety students share an amphitheatre-style classroom, designed expressly for the case method, for about four hours a day for the entire year. By working together daily on a wide array of real cases, they not only learn the lessons of business and management, but they often forge relationships that last a lifetime.

Almost inevitably, class begins with a "cold call," a provocative question the professor poses to one specific student to open the case and ignite the thinking of the section as a whole. In the course of a year, every MBA student is cold-called at least once, and you never know when it will be your turn—a powerful incentive to come to class prepared.

From the springboard of this opening question and the response, the class collectively dives into a riveting eighty minutes of analysis, argument, insight, and passionate persuasion. In more traditional classrooms, practically the only voice you hear is the professor's. HBS professors aren't soloists, but rather conductors who every day orchestrate a stimulating rapid-fire discussion, playing off all ninety minds in the room to analyze and synthesize the situation. Since 50 percent of each student's grade depends on class participation, everyone is inspired to contribute.

It's commonplace at HBS for your professor to be the author of the case under discussion. It's also not unusual for the actual case protagonist to participate in the class or arrive via live video to answer questions and explain how things finally turned out—a powerful adjunct to the lesson. Increasingly, professors also enrich their teaching through technology, using everything from real-time simulations of dynamic inventory management to live video tours of the factory floor.

Class rarely ends with a tidy solution to the protagonist's dilemma, but more often with a deep appreciation of the complex factors at play, a clear idea of how to apply appropriate techniques to analyze and assess the problem, and new insights into how to deal with the untidy uncertainties of real business.