Give the research a bounded question
Instead of requesting “the best business strategy,” specify a decision, a setting and an uncertainty. For example: “Find cases where simplifying a product offer changed adoption. Compare the original problem, the action, the evidence and the conditions that might not apply to a small team.” This is a suggested research prompt, not a promise that every case will contain every field.
Ask for missing information to be stated explicitly. Request both useful analogies and counterexamples. A fluent answer can conceal the fact that the available records do not address your question closely enough. You should be able to say which part of the answer is grounded in a case and which part is an inference.
Check a citation for support, not just existence
Open the case and follow the sources for claims that affect your decision. Confirm that the source describes the same company, event and time period. Then check the exact assertion. A link can be real and still fail to support a number, a cause or a broad conclusion in the answer.
Record the publication date and what the source could have known at that point. A plan announced by a company is not the same as a completed result. A later update may change the interpretation. Keep disagreements between sources visible until you can resolve them.
Ask what would make the analogy fail
Turn each proposed lesson into a conditional statement: this action may help when these conditions hold. Then look for the missing conditions in your own situation. Distribution, regulatory context, operating scale, customer trust and timing can materially change the relevance of an example.
Do not count repeated retellings of one event as independent evidence. Multiple articles can trace back to the same announcement. Compare the underlying sources and look for cases with a different outcome or a different explanation. If all your examples support the first answer, inspect how you selected them.
Keep a small, auditable research record
Save the question, the cases you read, the claims you checked, the disagreements and the action you chose. A useful record distinguishes the source’s statement from the AI summary and your own judgment. Revisit important claims when new evidence arrives, rather than treating a saved response as permanently current.
In CaseStudies.Chat, start with a company or topic, read the relevant cases and their source links, then use follow-up questions to compare them. Keep your own decision note alongside the research. The app can help you explore; responsibility for the final interpretation stays with the person making the decision.
Use this worksheet for your decision
Copy this into your notes. Leave unknowns visible instead of filling gaps with guesses.
Research question and boundary: Cases and source URLs: Claim being checked: What the source actually establishes: Date and later updates: Independent evidence or repeated source: Counterexample and limits: Our inference and next action:Download the text worksheet ↓
Find evidence in the archives
Choose a supporting case and a counterexample with a different outcome. Read their sources and check whether their conditions match yours.
Cases to practice with (read and check the underlying sources):
Bring your question to the cases
Search a company or topic in the app, read the cases and ask follow-up questions to compare approaches.