Have these killer questions to hand when setting out on your next case study mission

Case studies are great ways to share real world learnings – and that makes for great B2B content. They can also be effective ways to highlight your own services and successes.

The questions below are tailored to producing insightful case studies that focus on a particular project. The subject could relate to your own business, an external organisation or client, or a combination of the two.

• What were the issues driving the project?
• What were the key considerations ahead of the decision to go ahead?
• Who were the key advisers? How did they choose them? Then get the best out of them?
• How did they ensure they understood what they were doing well enough to remain in control?
• What were the main challenges for them? Did other people look to them to provide any specific guidance or information?
• Why/how did they make the choices they did?
• What were the implementation milestones?
• What did the client/business gain? (Supply metrics if possible, they’re usually not given.)
• What did the client/business learn?
• What would the client/business do differently now?
• What advice would the client/business pass on?
• Any war stories? Funny anecdotes? Strange comments or reactions from colleagues, staff or customers?
• At what point did they feel they’d ‘done it’? What constituted success?
• Had they done something like this before? If not, what was the learning curve like? If so, what new things did this particular activity teach them?
• What were the biggest pitfalls – and how did they get over them?
• What are the shortcuts that other clients should know about?
• What was the process like for them personally? How much sleep did they lose? (Never forget the human side when telling business stories.)

Thanks to Richard Young, case study maestro, for these suggestions.