The Success Case Method: Find Out Quickly What's Working and What's Not

Organizations today are in a constant struggle to renew themselves
and their processes, continuously trying out new ways of
being more effective and competitive. People at all levels are
faced with an endless parade of new technology, new ways of organization,
new tools, new methods, new training programs, new jobs, and so on.

How successful these innovations will be is anyone’s guess, but
what is always known is this: Some parts of these new initiatives will
work some of the time with some of the people; other parts will work
barely at all. Some people will experience success, and others will be
frustrated and fail. Almost never will any of these changes work perfectly
well with everyone. On the other hand, it is also unlikely that
these changes will be a total failure—someone, somehow, will make at
least some of them work.
Those whose job it is to make them work have a daunting challenge.
They must have some ways of finding out—as quickly and easi-
What Is the Success Case Method and How Does It Work? 3
ly as possible—which things are working and which are not; what parts
of new innovations are working well enough to be left alone, which
need revision, and which should be abandoned.
The Success Case Method (SCM) is designed to confront and leverage
this reality. The partial success of a new initiative, no matter how
small it is or how few are able to make it work is, nonetheless, success,
and success is what we are aiming for. The SCM searches out and surfaces
these successes, bringing them to light in persuasive and compelling
stories so that they can be weighed (are they good enough?),
provided as motivating and concrete examples to others, and learned
from so that we have a better understanding of why things worked, and
why they did not. With this knowledge, success can be built on and
extended; faltering efforts can be changed or abandoned, and premising
efforts can be noticed and nurtured.