International Case
Method Institute
Enhancing the future of business education
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ICMI is committed to helping global institutions improve their work through interactive analysis of the challenges they face in the 21st century.
ICMI uses the Harvard Business School model to develop tailored case studies for our clients based on their individual learning needs.
ICMI works with educators of all kinds to to develop teaching plans for tailored cases, improve their classroom skills, and train them on the case method and other types of interactive learning.
The case method of instruction was begun in the late 1800’s by Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell at the Harvard Law School. Langdell believed that cases were a better way to teach law than were textbooks: “Textbooks explicitly state the rule of law and explain why it exists. Cases however are the stuff of real life.”
The case method was later adopted at the Harvard Business School (HBS) and is practiced in much the same way today as it was nearly 100 years ago.
With case learning, participants cannot help but be engaged. The situational analysis involved in dissecting each case study helps to building problem solving and critical thinking skills while the dynamic classroom discussion forces participants to clearly verbalize their conclusions and provide data to support their answers. This in turn improves their verbal communication skills and their ability to persuade others of the merits of their well-reasoned arguments.
Founder and Principal
Led by Dr. Susan Harmeling, a Harvard-trained expert in innovative business curriculum design, the professionals at International Case Method Institute LLC (“ICMI”) are dedicated to a threefold mission.
First, we work to improve global business education, making it more effective, more interactive and more relevant to a changing international marketplace.
Second, we help a wide range of institutions to improve their own work through guided learning that challenges established processes and practices.
Finally, we develop tailored case studies and other interactive materials that play an important role in any institution’s arsenal of teaching tools. These materials can also help investors, donors and employees alike to evaluate the institution’s work from various points of view.
ICMI’s experienced team has provided top-quality service to a wide range of clients including Booz Allen Hamilton, Harvard Business School, McKinsey Consulting, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the Advisory Board Company.
Let us do the same for you.
Clients hire the International Case Method Institute (ICMI) to improve both the content and the process of learning within their organizations.
Simply put, our clients’ current training is at best nowhere near as effective as it could be and at worst, an exorbitantly expensive waste of time. We cannot tell you how often we have heard from managers, training directors, and college students about ineffective, uninteresting or outright boring classes or training sessions.
They will often tell us that the lessons are not relevant to their jobs, their careers or their lives. Skilled case instruction inevitably leaves participants wanting more of this type of training and less of the passive, Power Point lecture-style instruction to which they have become all too accustomed.
ICMI develops custom case studies for our clients through data extensive data gathering, field research, and other qualitative and quantitative research methods. Cases are based on real-world experiences of global practitioners in many fields from business to economic development to health care to insurance.
ICMI offers one and two-day seminars in the case method of instruction and other interactive modes of learning. Topics include the background of the case method, how to research and develop case studies, adult learning styles, and how to incorporate role plays and Socratic discussion into the learning experience.
ICMI will “train your trainers” on how to teach by the case method. Using custom cases developed for clients, we will help you develop teaching plans, and coach your staff on how to best present the cases we have developed together.
ICMI trains executives through tailored seminars based on the cases developed by our team. Using the case method and other interactive learning techniques, we enlighten managers and top executives on the problems and challenges facing their organization, and on ways to remove obstacles, create value and develop innovative plans for future growth.
ICMI has worked with universities across the globe to develop a more interactive and innovative curriculum. From Lagos to Innsbruck, from Geneva to Kampala, from Budapest to London, ICMI has helped a wide range of educational institutions and professional organizations develop a 21st century classroom experience for their clients worldwide.
Researched and wrote a four-case series on three managers at the Bank of Montreal for McKinsey’s corporate training program
Wrote dozens of case studies at Harvard Business School on a range of companies from E*Trade to Eli Lilly, Mexico to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Taught five sessions of the Kendallville Bank case study on accounting fraud to hundreds of young AY4 audit managers at Deloitte University in Dallas
Completed a wide range of case projects for international institutions such as the IFC and the World Bank on topics ranging from municipal simplification in Latin America to the energy sector in West Africa to furniture production in Vietnam to procurement in India
Wrote two cases and teaching notes on Southern California entrepreneurs for the Greif Center as part of a case series on California businesses published jointly with Harvard Business Publishing
5335 Wisconsin Ave, NW, Suite 440 Washington, DC 20015
Office: (202) 274-4766
susan@casemethodinstitute.com