Case studies are overrated

Case studies are a convenient tool for both educational and business case purposes. But in the digital economy they really provide an illusion of truth. 

With increased market volatility and technology change case studies are really a snap shot of what happened to one particular organisation faced with a unique set of circumstances at a particular point in the evolution of technology. It is amazing how some people can elicit general principles from an isolated situation at a given point in time.

The case study model is also an innovation killer. The CIO suggests harnessing a ‘new’ new technology to give the organisation a competitive advantage. The CEO asks whether there are case studies to prove this will work.

The very nature of innovation is that you are doing it for the first time so of course there are no such case studies.

In my view case studies are over rated and increasingly irrelevant in the digital economy.