Free Online Technical Writing (McMurrey, author): Case Studies & Use Cases (System)

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Case Studies

A case study focus on a problem or situation and has at least two types:

Case study for training. The training version presents a problem or situation and challenges readers, typically trainees, to find a solution or improvement. Strategies or principles to address the problem or situation are presented in a training session or in information contained in the case study or elsewhere. This type of case study asks the question "Here is a problem; what are you going to do about it?"
Case study for presentation. This version presents the problem or situation but then also presents the strategy or principle for the solution or improvement, and then the solution or improvement itself. This type of case study answers the question "how did I (or we) solve this problem?" and can also be considered a white paper. It is commonly used as a promotional tool for a product or service

In both cases (pun not intended), the main contents are the situation or problem, or more solutions to the problem or situation, one or more applicable principles, one more solutions, and one or more results—not necessarily in this order. Consider this simple example:

Situation: we want to camp out this weekend, but the forecast is for heavy rain.
Principle: It's not good to camp out in heavy rain.
Solution: We'll not go camping this weekend.
Result: We'll be sad but dry.

But think how the princple and solution would change if the forecase was for possible rain this weekend. Now, the principle would be two if-statements: one for no, don't go campijng; the other for yes, go camping.

Case study for training

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As mentioned above, training case studies often include a question—essentially, what would do in this situation?

Here's an introduction to this type of case study:

To Ship or Not to Ship

—Clare Bartlett

Rachel works as a Quality Assurance Engineer at a large electronics company. She is responsible for the final testing of her company’s servers and is part of a team which decides when new products will be shipped to distributors for sale.

Rachel’s company has a contract with another company which makes the chips which are incorporated into the servers Rachel’s company makes. The business model for this product is to release a new generation server approximately every six months, meaning Rachel has a limited timeframe to conduct her Quality Control tests.

Because there is such a short amount of time between the release of each next new product, the Quality and Assurance department cannot perform every possible test on the servers to ensure they are defect free. Rachel will not ship a product if there is any possibility that the server could malfunction and cause physical harm to the customer. However, she will ship a product that has a higher likelihood of failure resulting in data loss for the customer, because she knows that if she doesn't, her company's competitor will.

Is this an ethical way to conduct business? How should she determine when to ship a product with known defects?

—Clare Bartlett was a 2014-2015 Hackworth Fellow in Engineering Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, August 2015

The to-ship-or not-ship raises the possibility of multiple solutions based on multiple principles:

Ship: the principle—really, the "consideration"—might state things like customers will not notice, the problem is minor, other manufacturers do it.
Do not ship: the principal states that we do not ship products with know defects.

Thus, you can have multiple, conflicting solutions based on multiple, conflicting principles.

Case study for presentation

investpedia.com makes this point about white paoers—and therefore about presentational case studies:

Here's an introduction to this type of case study:

Note:

Terminology also used in this context, a journey map describes the customer's journey that defines all the points where customers and prospects interact with your brand, what they want to accomplish at each one, and the path they take from point to point as they move toward a purchase
— Jodi Harris https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/analytics-data/a-4-step-customer-journey-map-process-for-better-content-results-template

Use Cases

justmind.com makes a distrinction between use cases and user stories:

A user story is a short, simple description of what a product should do, who it’s for, and why it’s needed. It’s usually just one or two sentences long and uses an easy-to-understand format so everyone can quickly grasp and act on it.
On the other hand, a use case is used in software development to describe functional requirements of a system as well as interactions between users nd the system itself. Moreover, it guides the development by managing scope, establishing requirements, outlining the ways users winteract with the system, depicting system architecture, and communicating technical requirements to business stakeholders.

Use case diagramming best practices and examples