Case study research explores a specific situation in a real world context. This paper presents a narrative exploring the practical challenges that were faced when conducting case study research for a qualitative PhD research project which investigated the experiences with and attitudes towards technology held by several groups of individuals. We describe the case study approach, and present the experience of implementing the approach within two real world organisations. We describe the two sites used and the challenges faced and outline the lessons we learned from this experience: that the case study site is an active participant in the research, that the personalities within the case study sites will in turn influence the conduct of the research, and that organisations (and individuals) are political.