Tools & Methods

TOOLS & METHODS

Intervention & Commissioned Studies

Aside obtaining evidence-based information for our clients, we translate these into strategies to enable better operations, and efficiency at the workplace and in the management of projects. We design the best possible strategies for our clients keeping in mind their philosophy, short-term and long-term goals and objectives. Intervention strategies are implemented at each stage of a project’s life to ensure maximum outcome at all times. Also, we undertake commissioned studies in various aspects of governance including public sector management, service delivery, and value for money, party politics, voting systems, social exclusion, ethnicity, private sector finance initiatives and so on. We deliver timely reports with specific recommendations for remedial action.

Segmentation Analysis

At MMC, we provide more understanding and insights into data through segmentation analysis looking at changes in project indicators with respect to key categories. Some of the segmentation analysis that we have conducted at MMC are:

Demographic: Categorizing a population into characteristics such as age groups, gender, education, socioeconomic status, religion, residence, ethnicity, and so on.

Geographic: Categorization according to space and physical boundaries such as state, region, province, and local government authority.

Psychological: Categorization according to lifestyles, value, personality, affiliations, and attitudes.

Behavioral: Categorization of people according to actions and intentions.

Market: Categorization according to types of users of products and services such as loyalists, switchers, and potential users.

Quality Assessment & Control

Quality assurance is a guiding principle entrenched in all MMC work processes. It must be an essential in-built feature of an establishment that has quality as a prime objective. At MMC we help our clients integrate quality assurance and control in every step of their project implementation right from the planning stage. In a good management process, quality assurance will show logical inconsistencies, and red-flag stages in the process that do not meet required standards. Aside from in-built, in-house quality checks, we provide external quality checks on a continuous basis to our clients to validate internal control. Quality controls are embedded into operations as a form of monitoring mechanisms through routine data collection on key indicators, resources, time, and expected outcomes. Our clients benefit from quality control mechanisms designed specifically to meet their needs.

Quantitative

An important distinction from our competition is the approach we adopt in doing business at MMC, which includes an array and combinations of tools, techniques and methods to attain the best possible quality of services. We employ a good synergy of both quantitative and qualitative paradigms in our approaches. Some of the key quantitative tools that we employ are:

Community Based Survey: Method locating community as the primary source of data on issues and challenges e.g. access to social facilities like hospitals, clinics, schools, churches, and markets.

Household Based Survey: Household is the primary source of data on attitudes and behaviors on social products and services like bed-nets, multivitamins, contraceptives, and others.

Individual Based Survey: Focus is on individual as the primary unity of data collection on opinions, attitudes, and behavior on social products and services.

Impact Evaluation Survey: Method is designed to provide information on the changes resulting from program intervention. It usually involves baseline and follow-on studies.

Knowledge Evaluation Survey: Method collects data to evaluate knowledge in its additive and cumulative form in other to distinguish between correct and incorrect knowledge and how these affect attitudes and behavior change.

Panel Survey: Market study tools used to examine, over time, consumption pattern of household products and services.

Opinion Polls: Used to understand individual political preferences, private polling for political parties, tracking, potential voting patterns and dynamics in the polity.

Exit Polls: Method for estimating voting patterns of the electorate for candidates and their political parties on an election day.

Special Population Survey: Method designed to elicit information from harder to reach (due to stigma or frequent mobility) sub-groups like truckers, sex workers, same-sex couple, uniformed men, and the adolescents.

Mystery Clients Survey: Data collection method using respondents as clients in order to have first-hand experience on purchase of goods and services with a prime aim of evaluating quality and availability.

Project Efficiency Survey: Method examines how and when resources are used; the how addresses judicious use of resources while the when deals with timeliness of use with respect to expected outcomes.

Hospital Based Survey: Focus is on hospitals as the location of study and data collection which can be on individual patients, health professionals, and hospital facilities in the delivery of health products and services.

Consumer-Based Survey: Method used to elicit information on patterns and use of social goods and services with an objective of increasing clientele.

Distribution & Logistics Survey: Method used to collect data on distribution of goods and services with respect to types of outlets, market concentration, and accessibility diagnostics with the aim of increasing access.

Needs Assessment Survey: Conducted to ascertain the viability of a project or the justification and potential demand for a product or service.

Qualitative

Observation: Method using the human senses to obtain information on a phenomenon or event through notes, tapes or videos.

Participant Observation: Method combining observation with actual involvement in the phenomenon or event studied.

Focus Group Discussion: The act of eliciting information in a group discussion format that includes participants knowledgeable in the topics or issues of interests.

In-depth Interview:Method of obtaining detailed information on a phenomenon or subject of interest in a one-on-one fashion through phone calls or by face-to-face.

Case Studies: Method of obtaining detailed holistic information, that includes several dimensions of the subject of interests from individual or group referred to as a case.

Archival Studies: Method of extracting and reviewing information from historical and dated sources to illuminate issues and phenomenon.

Biographical Studies: Method of obtaining information about vital events in people’s lives from recorded sources like daily diaries, or written work.

Participatory Action Research: Empowers benefactors of the research outcomes by involving them in simulating problems and challenges that they encounter in their daily lives right from the start of the research process and in proffering solutions that are beneficial to all. The key elements of participatory action research are reflection on the problems and challenges, planning on line of action, implementing plans, observing and reflecting on outcomes.

Participatory Rapid Appraisal: This is a technique employed in participatory action research to gather information by triangulating between various methods of data collection within a short period. This technique may use a combination of in-depth interviews, focus groups, observations, and small sampled surveys methods to obtain information from the benefactors who are active participants in the research process.