The Case Method at IIMA

The IIMA Pedagogy is something that sets it apart significantly from other management schools. Most business schools of recognition have adopted this method over the years but IIMA has a differentiator in the execution. IIMA is known to have adopted this from Harvard at inception.


The case method is a very powerful, practical and simulating way to get students to learn real situations faced by organizations, relate associated concepts to the case and most importantly, discuss their viewpoints in the class letting themselves assume the roles of case characters facing the situations. It is very beneficial to the entire class when students try to present their understanding and ideas about the case. In order to promote active, experiential learning, students are grouped and groups are required to make submissions ahead of the class and to do presentations during the class to set the context and open the case for discussion.

An important tool employed to enhance sharing of views and ideas amongst students in class is inclusion of ‘Class Participation’ as part of the grading system.

I must say, this approach works exceptionally well from two important aspects. The first is that students are forced to read the cases, which are interesting in themselves being actual experiences of organisations in various situations. The cases are drawn from diverse industries with elaborate explanation about the industry/frim and its functioning and a specific situation it was faced with. Cases have ranged from laboratory tests by Bio-Tech companies to McDowell’s aircraft manufacturing. The other aspect is that it allows students to learn in groups and from peers.

I have experienced enormous learning from the cases learning about different aspects of diverse industries and organisations and a plethora of situations covering almost all aspects of business management. I have gained greatly from class discussions and instructors expositions in many courses.

However, I have been very uncomfortable when instructors have administered the case method as an entirely student driven learning in class. That has resulted in very little take-away from the instructors who are very learned, experienced and have current knowledge about business management issues. As an experienced candidate looking to learn business management theories and application, I have been left wondering after many course classes as to what more than that I read and understood from the cases did I gain sitting in the class.

Another peculiarity of the case method is that no conclusions are drawn on the case issues. This is deliberate so as to let the students take-away concepts and apply those to situations as and when they are faced with issues in their professional life. Since no two situations are exactly the same, the idea is to let the person in thick of things to make decisions and drive actions that suit that situation than pick a solution from a case done at IIMA.

It is obvious that issue raised in the cases do not necessarily have ‘A’ solution. Still, a summary of the case issues and possible approaches based on associated theories will provide a structured process tool to the students without imposing a particular framework/approach as the best/ideal one to be adopted. This again is missing in many courses. It should be left to the students to develop their own ways of applying the appropriate theory and framework as they deem fit as and when they confront an issue.

In my opinion, if instructors apportion class time between student presentations, their own exposition and participant class participation, it will serve the students well, especially in the PGPX program, which has a fast-paced learning schedule in its 1 year duration. Other things, we could learn anytime, anywhere but from the great IIMA faculty only while here at IIMA.