Ground Truth Solutions
Methodology
A. Taking accountability to the next level
Ground Truth Solutions (GTS) provides a performance management tool that combines
traditional social science models of participation with techniques adapted from the
customer satisfaction industry. It offers humanitarian agencies a light-touch, practical
way to both listen to the people supposed to benefit from humanitarian aid and, the big
innovation, to integrate what they learn into the design and implementation of their
programs. In other words, Ground Truth completes the cycle of accountability by
bridging the gap between listening to the affected populations and taking action on
what they say. The result is improved humanitarian outcomes for the beneficiaries and
greater efficiency for the system as a whole.
Capturing the perspective of those affected by a crisis
GTS’ starting point is that the best way to plan humanitarian programs and gauge their
impact is to include the perspective of people at the receiving end of aid. This theme has
become ubiquitous within the humanitarian space, yet practical, systematic methods to
capture the beneficiary perspective on an ongoing basis have yet to be developed. GTS
fills this gap by offering a methodology that allows aid providers to discover whether
beneficiaries trust them, if the humanitarian services they provide are relevant to their
needs, and whether their quality is adequate.
Mixed methods
GTS uses a mix of focus groups, face-to-face data collection, and cell phone surveys.
Feedback is relayed to the agencies responsible for the programs in real time so they
can decide how to act on it. Not only can the data help predict program outcomes but,
by using a standard methodology, it enables aid agencies to track their performance
against beneficiary perceptions and compare themselves to other agencies and
programs. Specifically:
Affected People are placed at center stage, empowered to express their
perceptions and engage as real players.
Agencies receive real-time actionable information about what affected people think
and how to respond to their concerns, thereby helping them make the shift from
well-intentioned listening to systematic tracking of beneficiary perceptions.
Donors receive a new measure of humanitarian performance based on a continuous
stream of perceptual information from the people they want to assist.
Innovation
GTS’ innovation is to make perceptions of affected people the touchstone and driver of
organizational efficiency and effectiveness, offering a system both to capture these
perceptions and manage to them. It does so through a continuous cycle of data
collection and response that guides supplemental beneficiary engagement, informs
program adjustments and enhances trust.
B. Social science meets customer satisfaction
GTS’ hybrid methodology combines traditional social science models of participation
with an approach adapted from the customer satisfaction industry. It has five stages and
all are important.
The first stage is to design the survey instrument based on what the agency or
agencies are trying to achieve, and then to cross check these goals with the affected
population through focus groups and interviews.
Second comes data collection. Ground Truth’s distinctive approach is to ask very
few questions (five maximum), and to ask them very frequently. ‘Frequently’ means
at least quarterly but preferably on a monthly basis. This makes it possible to see
how beneficiaries' perceptions change (or don’t change) as their views are (or are
not) factored into the design of humanitarian programs. Selection of beneficiaries is
random and based either on cell phone numbers provided by beneficiaries or, for
face-to-face collection, using standard sampling techniques.
The third stage is analyzing the data and building it into a dashboard that managers
in the field can easily understand and track.
Fourth comes 'closing the loop' with respondent communities within a couple of
weeks of data collection. This is when beneficiaries hear from the agencies about
what they have learned from the feedback and what the agencies propose to do
about it. They also get a chance to say whether they agree with the analysis of their
feedback and the proposed follow-up.
The fifth stage in the cycle is ‘course correction’ as operational agencies adjust their
programs to take account of the feedback and respond to it.
Once the course corrections have had time to get underway, the five-stage cycle begins
over again, providing a continuous stream of people-based intelligence against which
the agencies can manage their programs. During the pilot phase, Ground Truth provides
close support to operational agencies as they learn how to interpret the feedback data,
understand the beneficiary experience through dialogue, and agree on corrective
actions. The impact of course corrections is reflected in subsequent surveys.
C. Categories of questions
We create a blend of questions across 4 categories of questions to get the most
accurate picture of the respondents’ experience and attitudes towards the program and
the organizations running it.
The focus is on:
 Quality of the relationship between benefactors and beneficiaries based on
sense of trust, competence and responsiveness;
 Service relevance, quality and timeliness;
 Agency, by which we mean the extent to which beneficiaries are empowered to
contribute to their own self-fulfillment; and
 Outcomes – questions with a string predictive capacity in terms of the end
results of an intervention.