MBA Case Reading Guide Template

Case Reading Guide: [Course and case title]

A guide to reading and preparing a business case in 90 to 120 minutes, and to taking part in a case discussion: how the case method works and where it came from, a five-step reading protocol (skim, find the protagonist and the decision, read the exhibits first, build the analysis, take a position), cold calls, preparation with a learning team, a practice plan and an original practice mini-case with four exhibits and a teaching note. It is for admitted students before the programme starts, first-year students in their first weeks of cases, and anyone preparing for a case competition. Source basis: the public history of the case method (Harvard Business School Baker Library, Garvin 2003), the student literature on case analysis named under further reading, and the learning-science evidence on retrieval and spacing (Dunlosky et al. 2013), all written up in original words. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example.

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Contents

• 1. How the case method works
• 2. Types of cases
• 3. The reading protocol: 90 to 120 minutes
• 4. Margin codes and the reading log
• 5. Building the analysis
• 6. Taking a position
• 7. In the classroom: discussion and cold calls
• 8. Preparing with a learning team
• 9. Practice mini-case: Northfield Outdoor Co. gear rental
• 10. Practice plan: 12 sessions
• 11. How case work is graded
• 12. Common struggles and mistakes
• 13. Self-test questions
• 14. Teaching note for the practice case
• 15. My notes and next steps
• Sources and further reading
• Answer key
• Revision history

1. How the case method works

What a case is. A business case is a written account of a real or realistic situation, usually ending at the moment a named manager (the protagonist) must decide something. It gives you the facts the manager had, often including irrelevant ones and leaving out others you would like, plus exhibits with financial and operating data. There is no answer at the back of the book. Class time is a structured discussion in which the instructor asks students to diagnose the problem, argue for options, test each other's analysis and commit to a decision.

Where it came from. The method came to business education from law: Harvard Law School began teaching from cases in the 1870s. Harvard Business School, founded in 1908, moved to case-based teaching in the early 1920s under Dean Wallace B. Donham (dean from 1919). Melvin T. Copeland's Marketing Problems (1920) was among the early business casebooks, and in 1922 the faculty voted to rename what it had called the "problem method" the "case system" (Harvard Business School Baker Library exhibit on the case method, checked October 2026; histories differ by a year or so on some dates). Garvin (2003) compares how law, business and medical schools use cases. Today the method is used, in different proportions alongside lectures, simulations, projects and experiential courses, across most leading MBA programmes; each school publishes how much of its curriculum is case-based, so check the programme's own pages.

Why it works. A case asks you to retrieve what you know, apply it to a messy situation, defend a choice in public and revise it when a classmate finds a flaw. Retrieval practice and spaced practice are among the learning techniques with the strongest evidence (Dunlosky et al. 2013), and a term of cases is several hundred rounds of both. The method also builds the competencies business-school accreditation frameworks emphasise:

What the instructor expects. You are expected to have read the case closely, done the numbers that matter, and arrived with a position you can defend. You are not expected to be right; you are expected to be prepared, clear and open to changing your mind for a good reason.

2. Types of cases

Most cases ask for one of four kinds of work. Some combine them; the assignment questions usually tell you which.

Decision cases dominate most core courses, so the protocol in section 3 is written for them. For a diagnosis case, replace "take a position" with "commit to the main cause"; for an evaluation case, state your standard before you judge.

3. The reading protocol: 90 to 120 minutes

Read in passes, not front to back. Each pass has a purpose and a time budget for a typical 10 to 20 page case.

Why exhibits before text. The text tells the protagonist's story, with the protagonist's biases. The exhibits are closer to evidence. Reading them first lets you notice when the narrative and the numbers disagree, which is often the point of the case. It also means you read the text knowing which facts matter.

When you are short of time. Do steps 1, 2 and 3, read the last third of the text closely, and take a position anyway. A clear, partly supported position contributes more to a discussion than a complete summary with no view.

4. Margin codes and the reading log

Use a small, fixed set of margin codes during step 4. On paper use letters; in a PDF reader use highlight colours.

Reading log. One row per case. After ten cases, look at the pattern: where do you overrun, which codes do you never use, which case types slow you down.

5. Building the analysis

Start from the decision, not the framework. Ask what you would need to know to choose between the options, then compute that. A framework earns its place only if it produces a finding (for example, a five forces view that shows supplier power will squeeze the margin the plan relies on, see mba/mba-five-forces-card).

The minimum analysis for a decision case.

1. Options. List every option the case names, plus "do nothing" and at least one option the protagonist has not considered (a phased, partial or staged version is often the best). Three to five options is typical.
2. Criteria. Three to five criteria that matter to the decision maker: value created (NPV, profit, payback), risk, strategic fit, feasibility, and effect on stakeholders. Write them before you score, so you do not pick criteria that flatter your favourite.
3. Key numbers. The two or three calculations that move the decision. In finance and operations cases this is often an NPV or a break-even (mba/mba-npv-irr-card, mba/mba-cvp-breakeven-card); in marketing a customer or segment economics figure (mba/mba-customer-lifetime-value-card); in strategy a margin or share comparison.
4. The swing assumption. The one assumption that would flip your answer if it were wrong. Compute the value at which it flips (the break-even). This single number is often the most valuable contribution you can make in class.
5. Evidence quality. Note where data come from: a pilot chosen by enthusiasts, a survey of current customers, a manager's estimate. Biased data are a finding.

Spreadsheet discipline. Put assumptions in one block with their source ("Exhibit 2", "my estimate"), keep calculations separate, and label units. You will reuse the model in class when someone asks "what if". The Excel drills in mba/pre-mba-excel-modeling-drills train this.

6. Taking a position

Write your position as a recommendation a busy executive could act on:

Recommendation template: [Protagonist] should [action, scale and timing] because [reason 1 with number], [reason 2] and [reason 3]. The main risk is [risk]; [mitigation]. I would change my mind if [evidence].

Example: Northfield should roll out gear rental to the 18 stores in the top two traffic quartiles next season, not to all 36 remaining stores, because those stores clear the break-even of about 30 rentals a week and add an NPV of about USD 0.49m, while the lower-traffic stores destroy value. The main risk is that the purchase "halo" from renters is smaller than the pilot suggests; a holdout test in the first season will measure it. I would change my mind if the halo turned out to be less than half the pilot estimate.

The opening. Instructors often open with "what should the protagonist do?" and ask one student to start. Prepare a two-minute answer: decision, recommendation, the two strongest reasons with numbers, the main risk. Do not retell the case: everyone has read it.

Counter-argument. Write the best case against your position in one sentence and your answer to it. If you cannot answer it, your position may be wrong; that is worth knowing before class.

7. In the classroom: discussion and cold calls

How a discussion usually runs. An opening (one student lays out the situation or a recommendation), then diagnosis, options and analysis, a debate between positions (sometimes a vote), and a wrap-up in which the instructor draws out the general lessons. Instructors use the boards to structure the discussion; watch which board a comment goes on to follow the plan.

Cold calls. A cold call is when the instructor asks a student who has not raised a hand, often to open the case. Some instructors warn students in advance ("warm calls"); many do not. Expect one, and treat it as routine.

Types of good contribution. Opening the case; adding a number that settles a dispute; spotting a contradiction between text and exhibits; building on a classmate's point and taking it further; changing your mind out loud when the evidence warrants it; linking the case to a concept from another course. Repeating a fact from the case, or summarising what has already been said, adds little.

After class. Write three lines in your participation log (mba/mba-class-participation-log): what you said, what the class concluded, what you would do differently. Note the general lesson the instructor drew; those lessons are what exams test.

8. Preparing with a learning team

Many programmes assign first-year students to a learning team (also called a study group) of five to seven people with different backgrounds. Teams typically meet before class for 30 to 60 minutes to discuss the day's cases. Set the rules in a team charter (mba/mba-learning-team-charter) in the first week.

Rules on materials and tools. Many programmes forbid using notes, analyses or teaching notes from earlier years of the same course, and treat it as an honour-code matter. Courses also differ on AI tools: some allow them for background reading or spreadsheet help, some forbid them for case preparation or graded write-ups. Read the syllabus and honour code, record the rules in the Document control table, and ask the instructor when in doubt. Whatever the rules, your class contribution must come from your own analysis: an argument you did not build is one you cannot defend under questioning.

9. Practice mini-case: Northfield Outdoor Co. gear rental

Situation. On a Monday in late September, Adaeze Mensah, vice president of stores at Northfield Outdoor Co., had three weeks to bring a recommendation to the executive committee. Northfield, a mid-size outdoor-gear retailer and brand, ran 40 stores and an e-commerce site. Its stores competed with online sellers on price and with specialist shops on advice, and store traffic had been flat for two years.

In March, Mensah had launched a gear-rental pilot in four stores: tents, backpacks, snowshoes and climbing packs rented by the weekend. The regional managers chose the stores; all four sat near popular trailheads and in the top quarter of the chain by foot traffic. The pilot ran for 26 weeks. Customers liked it: satisfaction scores for renters were the highest of any service Northfield had offered, and staff reported that renters often came back to buy the gear they had tried.

Mensah's head of finance, Tomas Lindqvist, had built the store-level economics (Exhibits 1 and 2). Each store needed a rental fleet costing USD 38,000, which would last about three years, plus a part-time rental associate for 30 hours a week. Rentals ran for about 40 weeks a year; the deep winter and the wettest weeks were quiet. Lindqvist used Northfield's 10% hurdle rate for store investments and, to keep the first pass simple, ignored taxes and any resale value of the used fleet.

The marketing team added data from the loyalty programme (Exhibit 3): 18% of renters bought something from Northfield within 90 days of their rental, spending USD 210 on average at Northfield's 45% gross margin. A follow-up survey asked those buyers whether they would have made the purchase without renting first; 40% said yes.

The debate in the executive committee had already started. The chief marketing officer, Lucía Ferreira, wanted to roll out rental to all 36 remaining stores before the spring season: "This is the first thing in years that brings people into the stores. If we wait a year, someone else will own rental." The chief financial officer, Kwame Asante-Boateng, was sceptical: "Four hand-picked stores near trailheads tell us nothing about a suburban mall store. And I am not paying for a fleet on the strength of a survey." He proposed extending the pilot to eight more stores, chosen to represent the chain, for one more season, which would cost USD 304,000 in fleets.

Mensah asked her analyst for a view of the rest of the chain. The analyst grouped the 36 remaining stores into four traffic quartiles of nine stores each and, using foot-traffic data and the pilot's ratio of rentals to visits, estimated the rentals each group could expect relative to the pilot average (Exhibit 4). One store in the pilot, Cedar Point, had disappointed: it sat in a smaller town and its rentals had stayed low all season.

Mensah thought about the three paths in front of her: a full rollout to all 36 stores, an extended pilot, or something in between. She also wondered how much of the case for rental rested on the purchases renters made afterwards, and how sure Northfield could be of that number. The committee would expect a clear recommendation, a number it could hold her to, and a plan for what would happen if the numbers disappointed.

Exhibit 1. Pilot results, March to August (26 weeks) (Example)

Exhibit 2. Store-level investment and cost assumptions (finance team) (Example)

Exhibit 3. Renter purchase behaviour (loyalty data and survey) (Example)

Exhibit 4. Remaining 36 stores by traffic quartile (analyst estimate) (Example)

Discussion questions.

1. Who is the protagonist, what exactly must she decide, and by when? What are her options, including any not named in the case?
2. What does one rental contribute, before and after the "halo" from later purchases? Which figure in Exhibit 3 do you trust least, and why?
3. What is the NPV of rental in each pilot store and in a store at the chain average? How many rentals a week does a store need for the fleet to earn the hurdle rate?
4. What does Exhibit 4 change about the full-rollout proposal? Is the pilot evidence biased, and in which direction?
5. What do you recommend to the executive committee, and what result in the first season would make you stop or expand?

10. Practice plan: 12 sessions

11. How case work is graded

In case-based courses, class participation often carries a substantial share of the grade, alongside written case analyses, group projects and exams; the weights differ by school and course, so check the syllabus. Instructors usually judge the quality of contributions over the term rather than their number. A typical participation rubric looks like this (Example):

Written case analyses (see mba/mba-case-write-up and academic/finance-case-analysis) are usually graded on the clarity of the recommendation, the quality and correctness of the analysis, the use of case evidence, the treatment of alternatives and risks, and the writing. Case exams give you a new case and a fixed time, so the speed you build with the protocol counts directly.

12. Common struggles and mistakes

1. Reading front to back, once. You reach the exhibits tired and with no time to compute. Use passes.
2. Summarising instead of deciding. The case is not a report to summarise; the deliverable is a decision.
3. Losing the protagonist. Analysing "the company" in general instead of what this person can do by this date.
4. Too many frameworks. A grid filled for its own sake; use a framework only when it produces a finding.
5. Taking the case's data at face value. Pilots chosen by enthusiasts, surveys of happy customers and managers' forecasts are evidence with a bias; name it.
6. No "do nothing" option and no hybrid. The best answer is often a phased or partial option nobody in the case proposed.
7. No swing assumption. Arriving without knowing which assumption would change your answer, so you cannot respond when a classmate challenges it.
8. Over-preparing one case and skipping the next. Consistent preparation across all cases beats perfection on one.
9. Waiting for the perfect comment. Early in the term, open with a modest, prepared contribution; confidence follows.
10. Talking at length. Long contributions crowd out others and are hard to follow; make one point, with evidence.
11. Ignoring stakeholders and ethics. A profitable option that harms employees, customers or the community needs that cost stated and weighed, not left out.
12. Not closing the loop. Not writing down the lesson after class, so the same mistakes recur.

13. Self-test questions

1. What is the difference between a decision case and a diagnosis case, and how does it change your preparation?
2. Why read the exhibits before the full text?
3. Write the five elements of a decision statement.
4. What is a "swing assumption", and why is its break-even value a strong class contribution?
5. Name three ways a case's evidence can be biased.
6. You are cold-called on a question you did not prepare. What do you do?
7. What should a learning team do before its meeting, and what should the meeting focus on?
8. Which two sources should you check before using AI tools or earlier-year notes for case preparation?
9. In the practice case, what does one rental contribute including the halo, and what is the break-even number of rentals per week?
10. In the practice case, why is the chain-average store a misleading basis for the rollout decision, and what is the NPV of rolling out to the top two quartiles only?

14. Teaching note for the practice case

Teaching objectives. (1) Practise the protocol on a decision case with consistent exhibits. (2) Show that a pilot chosen from the best stores overstates the average result. (3) Show that averages hide the distribution: a rollout that destroys value on average can create value when targeted. (4) Identify the swing assumption (the purchase halo) and design a test for it.

Decision statement. Adaeze Mensah must recommend within three weeks whether, where and how fast to roll out gear rental to Northfield's 36 remaining stores, within a 10% hurdle rate for store investments.

Unit economics. Contribution per rental is USD 34 - 9 = 25. The halo is $0.18 \times 210 \times 0.45 \times (1 - 0.40) = 10.21$ per rental (gross margin on purchases that would not have happened otherwise). Weekly store cash flow is rentals $\times$ (25 + 10.21) less USD 660 for the associate; over 40 weeks the associate costs USD 26,400 a year.

Store NPVs. Annual cash flow over three years, discounted at 10%, less the USD 38,000 fleet. Excel: =NPV(10%,CF,CF,CF)-38000, where CF is the annual cash flow.

Break-even. The equivalent annual cost of the fleet is USD 15,280 (=PMT(10%,3,-38000)). The rentals a week needed for NPV = 0 are $(15{,}280 + 26{,}400) / (35.21 \times 40) = 29.6$ with the halo, and 41.7 without it. The pilot average (41.5) does not clear the hurdle on rental income alone: the case for rental rests on the halo.

Rollout options.

By quartile, NPV is USD 375,153 (top, 41.5 rentals a week), 113,547 (second, 33.2), -148,059 (third, 24.9) and -409,665 (bottom, 16.6). The chain average of 29.05 rentals sits just below the break-even of 29.6, so an analysis on the average store says "slightly negative, do not proceed", while the targeted rollout is clearly positive.

Sensitivity to the swing assumption.

The targeted rollout survives a halo half as large as measured; it does not survive no halo at all. The halo figure is also the weakest evidence in the case: the 40% "would have bought anyway" comes from a self-report survey, renters in trailhead stores are likely to be keen buyers anyway, and the 90-day window may pull forward purchases that would have happened later.

One defensible recommendation. Roll out to the 18 stores in the top two quartiles before spring (Option C), keep a small holdout group of comparable stores or customers to measure the true halo in the first season, and set a rule: expand to the third quartile only if measured incremental purchases support a break-even below its expected 24.9 rentals a week; close rental in any store below about 30 rentals a week after two seasons (Cedar Point is the first candidate). This answers the CMO's concern about timing and the CFO's concern about evidence.

Discussion plan (80 minutes). Opening and decision statement (10); unit economics and the halo (15); store NPVs and the break-even (15); the pilot bias and Exhibit 4 (15); options vote and debate (15); lessons: pilots, averages, swing assumptions (10).

15. My notes and next steps

Sources and further reading

• Baker Library, Harvard Business School. Business Education and the Case Method (online exhibit), library.hbs.edu, checked October 2026.
• Barnes, L. B., Christensen, C. R., and Hansen, A. J. (1994). Teaching and the Case Method (3rd ed.). Harvard Business School Press.
• Copeland, M. T. (1920). Marketing Problems. A. W. Shaw Company.
• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., and Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.
• Ellet, W. (2018). The Case Study Handbook: A Student's Guide (revised edition). Harvard Business Review Press.
• Garvin, D. A. (2003). Making the case: Professional education for the world of practice. Harvard Magazine, September-October 2003.

Open resource: OpenStax, Principles of Management (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), openstax.org, for background on the management concepts cases draw on.

Answer key

1. A decision case asks what the protagonist should do, so preparation ends in a recommendation with options and criteria. A diagnosis case asks why something happened, so preparation ends in a causal explanation supported by evidence; forcing a recommendation onto it misses the task.
2. The exhibits are closer to evidence than the narrative, reading them first shows you which facts matter, and it lets you spot where the protagonist's story and the numbers disagree.
3. Who decides, what, by when, with what authority, under which constraints.
4. The assumption that would flip your answer if wrong. Its break-even value tells the class exactly how wrong it would have to be, which turns a debate of opinions into a test of evidence.
5. Any three of: a pilot or sample chosen by enthusiasts or from the best sites; self-reported survey answers; a manager's own forecast; survivorship (only successful units reported); a short or unusual time period.
6. Restate the question, say what you know from the case, reason aloud to a provisional answer, and give an estimate with its basis if a number is asked for. Saying how you would find out is better than silence.
7. Each member prepares the whole case individually and takes a position. The meeting focuses on positions and disagreements, especially the swing assumption, not on dividing up the reading.
8. The course syllabus (including its AI policy) and the school's honour code; ask the instructor when unclear.
9. USD 25 rental contribution plus a halo of USD 10.21 gives USD 35.21 per rental. Break-even is 29.6 rentals a week with the halo (41.7 without).
10. The average (29.05 rentals a week) mixes stores far above and far below break-even, and sits just below it, so it hides that the top two quartiles create value while the bottom two destroy it. Rolling out to the top 18 stores has an NPV of USD 488,699 at the measured halo.

Revision history

Standard and licence note

Structure aligned with the case method as described in the public history of business education (Harvard Business School Baker Library exhibit, Garvin 2003) and the student literature named above, with learning design from Dunlosky et al. (2013). The protocol, the examples, the practice mini-case, its exhibits and its teaching note are original; no published case, teaching note or textbook text is copied or paraphrased, and Northfield Outdoor Co. and every person in the case are fictional. Schools are named only to describe the history of the method; this template is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by any school or case publisher. Check your own course syllabus and honour code for the rules that apply to you. Template licence: MIT.