The Success Case Method

Table 5.1 (continued)

Some Useful Success Case Identification Methods

Success Case Examples

Identification Method

Word of mouth and reputation In a school district, we asked school

(continued) principals which teachers had the

greatest reputation among parents

for sensitivity and caring.

Analysis of usage records To identify the most successful per-

and data formers in a call center, we analyzed

call data to see who completed the

most calls per hour.

In a high school library, we analyzed

checkout records to identify those

students who checked out the most

curriculum-related materials in the

past semester.

The “grapevine” In a welfare agency, we asked a few

managers to tell us who among their

staff were the most informed and

up-to-date on current office affairs.

We then asked these people to tell us

who were the two best welfare

service workers. We kept asking until

no new names arose and chose for

our interviews those workers whose

names were referenced the most often.

The Formal Success Case Survey

There are two fundamental types of SC surveys. One is the survey with

the single intent of identifying the most likely potential success cases.

This type of survey is intended only to “sort out” from among all the

participants in a program those who report the most, and the least, suc-

cess with that particular intervention or program. This single-purpose

survey can be very brief, because it is not intended to gather informa-

tion other than the minimum needed to discriminate highly successful

Using a Survey to Search for Best and Worst Cases

101

The Success Case Method

102

and highly unsuccessful users or participants from all of the rest. In a

study of the success of an initiative that introduced new software for

service technicians, for example, the survey had only four items corre-

sponding to the four possible applications of the software. Each item

asked the respondent to check the item if that particular application

had been used, then to rate on a five-point scale how successful the

application had been (from “very clear success with a measurable out-

come” to “no noticeable success at all”).

The second type of survey has an extended aim of gathering addi-

tional information about the nature and scope of success and may seek

further information as well. In a recent SC study for a large automobile

producer, for example, we were attempting to gauge the success of a

program that provided training and professional assistance to auto deal-

erships via a dedicated satellite television network. The survey in this

example was fairly extensive and had the following parts:

1. Demographic items to describe the role and other characteris-

tics of the respondent

2. Items to report which of the several categories of television

services offered respondents had actually used

3. Rating of the success respondents could report based on their

usage of each service

4. Reactions about the user-friendliness of the service system

5. General attitudes toward the helpfulness or lack of helpfulness

of this and other corporate services

Which type of survey to use depends, of course, on the purpose

of the SC study and the scope of the questions it is seeking to

answer. We begin our discussion of SC survey methods with the single-

purpose survey.