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VFM Methods

Typically, each study will use a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. Each has strengths and weaknesses, but are necessarily complimentary approaches to unravelling the nature of institutional processes, programmes, activities and working life. Typical methods include:

interviews
surveys
focus groups
benchmarking
cost benefit analysis
case studies
analysis of financial and performance data
multi-criteria decision analysis.

The fieldwork stage of a VFM study must be well planned. It is very important that the data collected is robust, necessary and sufficient to answer the questions raised at the start of the study, and to support the conclusions and recommendations in the report. If too little data is collected it is unlikely that it will be possible to support conclusions and recommendations appropriately. If too much data is collected, time and resources will be unnecessarily wasted.