The Success Case Method

Each year, organizations spend millions of dollars trying out new innovations and improvements-and millions will be wasted if they can't quickly find out what's working and what is not. The Success Case Method offers a breakthrough evaluation technique that is easier, faster, and cheaper than competing approaches, and produces compelling evidence decision-makers can actually use.

Because it seeks out the best stories of how real individuals have actually used innovations, The Success Case Method can ferret out success no matter how small or infrequent. It can salvage the few "gems" of success from a larger initiative that is not doing well or find out how to make a partially successful effort even more successful. The practical methods and tools in this book can help those who initiate and foster change, including leaders, executives, managers, consultants, training directors, and anyone else who is trying to make things work better in organizations get the greatest returns for their investments.

Robert O. Brinkerhoff, Ed.D. is Professor of Counseling Psychology at Western Michigan University, where he coordinates graduate programs in human resources development. He also serves as principal consultant for Triad, Inc. in Farmington Hills, Michigan, a firm that designs and develops learning and performance improvement initiatives. His prior work experience includes a five-year stint as an officer in the U.S. Navy, a carpenter, charter-boat mate in the West Indies, grocery salesman in Puerto Rico, and factory laborer in Birmingham, England where he saw the original Beatles. He earned a doctorate at the University of Virginia in program evaluation where he also directed the Evaluation Training Consortium, an eleven-year project funded by the U.S. Office of Special Education that provided training in program evaluation to several thou- sand USOE grantees nationwide.