The Case Study Blueprint: How to Narrow Down on What Matters the Most

It's not enough to simply write a case study about how an IT company helped its client. It's crucial that the story you write is not only interesting and useful but also effective. Good case studies generate leads, increase brand awareness, and turn a product into a valuable example.

I will explain how to write an effective case study and how to tell the client's story, his problem and its solution with the help of an IT product.

The First Stage of Working on a Case Study: Gathering Information

Gathering initial information involves collecting details about the company, its product, comparable solutions from other developers, and its users.

Preparing Questions for Internal Experts. Prepare interview questions that will help you effectively highlight the key points of the case study and provide answers that will be interesting to readers. Here are some basic questions we use:

• Key points to clarify: "Why did you decide to implement a new product? How were these tasks handled previously? How important is this product (e.g., software) within the overall processes of the organization?" These questions help to uncover the problems the client faced and why they chose this solution.

• Next Step: Understanding how the implementation process went: "Can you describe the key stages of the implementation? How long did it take?" The answers will provide insights into how the process was organized, the stages involved, and the time required.

• Crucial aspect — the decision. Clarify why the client chose this specific product: "Why did you choose this particular software? What alternatives were considered?" It's important not to criticize competitors; it’s better not to mention them directly but to explain why this software was chosen and why others weren't suitable. For example, this software might have unique functionality that others lack, or the developer is committed to assisting at all stages of implementation, etc.

• Next, understand how the client uses the product: "What specific delivery option was chosen? On which platforms or operating systems will it be used?" These questions help understand the technical aspects of the implementation and assess how well the product integrates into the client’s existing infrastructure.

• Project implementation stages. "When did the work start? How complex was the deployment process? At what stage is the project currently? How many employees are already using the product, and how many will be using it in the future?" The answers will give an idea of the project's progress, how many people are involved, and how actively the new product is being used.

• Assessing product suitability. "What tasks were assigned to the new software, and what functions was it supposed to perform? How successfully is the chosen product handling these tasks? Were there any aspects that turned out to be a 'pleasant surprise' for users?" Here, it's important to hear real examples of usage.

• Integration and limitations are another important aspect that helps evaluate how the product interacts with other systems and how convenient it is to use it within a complex environment. "With which existing information systems did the product need to be integrated? How complex was the integration? What is the architecture, and how easy is it to work with the API, for example?"

• Any implementation of a new product inevitably faces difficulties. Don’t forget to find out what these were and how they were resolved: "What challenges had to be overcome during the implementation? Was the transition process a problem for users — did they need additional training?" Don’t be afraid of criticism here. If there were any challenges, issues, or incompatibilities during installation, deployment, or implementation, they should be discussed, with special emphasis on how they were resolved. This way, when the next client implements your solution and encounters similar issues, they’ll know that it's normal, manageable, and doesn't affect long-term use.

• Mandatory Question — Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Implementation and the Results Obtained. "How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation overall? By what metrics? How has the implementation contributed to productivity?" It would be very useful to mention specific numbers related to cost savings or productivity gains — for example, after industrial implementation, task processing time was reduced by 30%.

• Final Question About the Future: "What are the plans for scaling the use of the implemented solution?"

After gathering responses from experts, it is advisable to conduct fact-checking, at least of complex IT terminology. Searching open sources for information about the subject area can be helpful.

Second Stage: Choosing Where to Publish the Case Study

It's not enough to write an effective text; it's crucial to publish it where it will be effective.

Where Is Your Target Audience?

You should place the case study not where it's free or easy to get published, but where your target audience is. The choice of publication channel depends on the goals of the text. Ideally, it should not be on the client's or developer's website (unless it's a blog with a large number of active readers who are part of the target audience) but on independent, broad-reach, well-visited platforms, with further distribution through your own channels.

It's also important that the chosen online publication or blog platform covers similar topics, has appropriate reach, and allows you to track the effectiveness of the text—such as the number of reads, reading time, click-through rates, etc.

When selecting publications for placement, you can rely on analytics from sources like Medialogia. You can also observe where competitors are publishing. Pay attention to thematic and industry-specific publications. For example, if an IT developer creates a product for the chemical industry, it’s important to closely consider industry media focused on chemical production.

Important! Choose the publication channel before writing the case study, so you can review and adjust to the format of the publication in advance: using its writing style, design, and text length. This will help avoid the need for rewrites later.

Third Stage, Creative: How to Write a Case Study

Writing a case study involves more than just creativity and writing for the sake of writing. It's important to methodically follow several steps when crafting a case study.

Creating a Plan or Structure for the Case Study. The reader should receive a story that includes the context of the client’s work and their partnership with you.

Key Point: The case study should focus primarily on the client, their challenges, solutions, and successes, with minimal mention of the vendor or integrator. In other words, the goal is not to praise the developer company; the case study is not about the service provider but about solving a problem. Potential clients read case studies because they want to understand the provider's approach to work. You need to show the reader how you can help them.

A case study is built on the following principles:

• Introduction: What work was done — an overview of the problem that needed to be solved.
• Development: The progression of the story.
• Conclusion: The results of the work.

Choosing the Format of the Case Study. Decide on the format: interview, text with images, or video.

Brief Overview of the Case Study Structure

1. Introduction to the Company:
   Start by introducing the company, its industry, and the scale of its business. For example:

   • "Our client (or we) is a large construction company operating in several regions. They have 10 branches and over 500 employees."

2. Description of the Problem:
   Outline the problem that needed to be solved, the issues before implementing the new product (or process), and why a new solution was sought. For example:

   • "The company faced project management issues. The old system couldn't handle the data volumes and lacked the necessary functions [details here about the data and functions]. They decided to implement new software to optimize processes."

3. Implementation Process:
   Describe how the implementation was carried out, the stages involved, and how long it took. For example:

   • "The implementation process took six months. We began by analyzing the current processes, then selected the software. The deployment went smoothly, and all stages were completed on time [include details about integration, systems, testing scale, etc.]."

4. Results:
   This is the most important part of the case study. If possible, present figures — savings, reliability, productivity improvements, market share, traffic, revenue. If numbers aren't available, highlight the main benefits of the work done. For example:

   • "Thanks to the changes in architecture and increased performance, the client's IT systems became more reliable. Certain systems showed a 1.5–2 times improvement in performance after the architecture was updated."

5. Conclude with the client’s plans for the future:

   • "In 2023, a large-scale deployment of the product began. As of July 2023, about 30% of the organization’s employees (approximately 1,500 people) were using it. By the end of 2023, this number is expected to increase to 70–80%."

Common Mistakes

• Lack of Numbers: Not including metrics is a significant oversight.
• Overuse of Flowery Language: Avoid terms like "unique," "the best," or "flawless" unless you can substantiate and explain them.
• Complex Sentences: Steer clear of overly complex sentences, long participial constructions, and lengthy paragraphs.

Consistency in Terms. If you refer to "MongoDB databases" in the first paragraph, don't later switch to the Russian transliteration "МонгоДБ." This is more about maintaining overall accuracy in the case study. Don't explain every term if you're writing for a professional market, but do explain if you're discussing something new to the market.

Everything is under an NDA or is it possible to write an anonymized case study? Yes, it’s possible to write an anonymized case study. You don’t need to mention the client's company name; all other details of the case can be described.

Text Approval Stage: How to Negotiate and Approve a Case Study

During the contract stage for writing the text, it’s crucial to clarify with the client and experts that the editor will not interfere with the technical aspects of development or question the correctness of the chosen IT solutions. Similarly, the experts should not interfere with the text's style. This means that we don't teach them how to program, and they don't teach us how to write. This agreement helps avoid endless stylistic edits.

Stage of Revisions and Editing

After the experts provide their feedback, the text should be checked for accuracy in spelling and punctuation, uniqueness, spam levels, fluff content, and readability.

Timeframe for Working on a Case Study

There are constants and variables in this equation. The constants include:

• Preparation of Questions: 2 days
• Draft Writing: 3 days
• Editorial Approval: 1 week

The variable is the approval process with the client’s internal experts.

It’s important to consider that IT experts are often busy, with their schedules planned out in task managers. They usually allocate time for questions and text approval on a leftover basis, which can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks or even months. Depending on this variable, some case studies might not be published until six months after the work on them began.

Second Wind for the Text

After the text is published in the main outlet, it should be distributed further:

• Post on Company and Speaker Social Media: Share the content in its original form, or expand on it if the publication format was restrictive and didn’t allow for all interesting facts to be included.
• Repurpose the Text: Break it down into smaller pieces if possible. Use these smaller pieces as informational content, describing events, technical solutions, and solved problems separately. These smaller pieces can be published on other platforms.
• Use Case Study Excerpts in Targeted Advertising: Apply them in targeted, selective ads aimed at the target audience.
• Submit the Case Study for Awards and Competitions.
• Present the Case Study at Events: Use the case study as material for presentations at relevant events.