Methods & Tools
QA Resources
A client window is a tool for gaining feedback from clients about the products and services they use. It differs from a client survey in that a survey asks clients about product or service performance, based on the survey designer’s ideas about what clients want and need. A client window asks questions in very broad terms, letting the clients express what they need, expect, like, and dislike in their own terms and from their point of view.
A client window can be used to get information from clients, in their own terms, about what they want or what they like about the current service. However, this is really only one step in understanding what is most important to clients. Not all things listed will be of equal weight, and further discussion with clients may be needed to find which areas are true priorities. A client window can be used by itself, or as groundwork for more formal data collection through surveys; using it in this way can help design more relevant survey questions. Client windows can also be used when designing solutions, getting information that will make it easier to avoid repeating past mistakes in planning.
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Step 1. Determine the product, area, or service for which feedback is desired. Frame what kind of feedback is being sought. Is feedback desired on the whole range of products and services provided? Is the team more interested in specific areas? For example, clients could be asked to provide feedback on all health services they receive, or the team may want to focus on specific health activities, such as immunizations and curative care.
Step 2. Gather information from clients by asking them to respond to the following questions:
- What are you getting that you want? What are you getting that is meeting your needs and expectations?
- What are you getting that you really don’t want or need?
- What do you wish you were getting that you are not?
- What needs do you expect in the future?
- What suggestions do you have for how we can improve our products or services for you?
There are two ways to administer the client window: to a group of clients or to clients individually.
Group: Prepare a large client window framework (Table 9.17) on a flip chart or blackboard. When the clients are gathered, explain that the goal of this activity is to get honest feedback about how their needs and expectations are being met. Write the areas of focus on a flip chart or blackboard. Ask them to write individually the answers to the above questions on the client window. (It is best to leave the room at this point so that the clients have privacy to answer as honestly as possible.)
Individual: In this mode, ask each client to fill out the client window and return the responses (no names required). Prepare instructions, including how their feedback will be used, the areas of focus, how to fill out the client window, and where and when to return it. Clients write their responses to the above questions directly on the client window form.
Step 3. Compile the information. If the client window was administered in a group, record the answers on a separate sheet of paper as they were written for each section of the window. Review the answers and count how often the same feelings were expressed by several people.
Step 4. If the client window was administered individually, place all individual responses on a master sheet, and then count how frequently similar responses were given.
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Want |
Getting what you want (#1) |
Want, but not getting (#2) |
Don’t want |
Getting, but not wanted (#3) |
Don’t want, not getting (#4) (anticipated needs for the future) |
Caution
Be sure to have the correct people (the clients) present when completing the window.
Best practices benchmarking is a systematic approach for gathering information about process or product performance and then analyzing why and how performance differs between business units. In other words, benchmarking is a technique for learning from others’ successes in an area where the team is trying to make improvements. The term benchmarking means using someone else’s successful process as a measure of desired achievement for the activity at hand. Some sources of information for benchmarking include: literature reviews, databases, unions, standard-setting organizations, local organizations, universities, the government, staff or customer interviews, and questionnaires.
Benchmarking is most useful when trying to develop options for potential solutions. When trying to develop solutions, teams often have difficulty generating new ideas. People frequently do not know what others nearby are doing. Benchmarking helps stimulate creativity by gaining knowledge of what has been tried. It can also be used to identify areas for improvement by seeing what level of quality is possible.
Identify other groups, organizations, or health facilities that serve a similar purpose and that appear to work well. They do not need to be doing exactly what the team does, as long as it can be compared. For example, if the team is dealing with problems in hospital laundry services, the team could learn from hotels and dormitories that provide similar services, although they are not in the same field and/or do not provide exactly the same service.
Visit these sites and talk to managers and workers, asking them what they are doing, if they have similar problems, what they have done about it, and what levels of performance they have achieved. Ask as well what obstacles they have run into and how they have dealt with them.
Review how the situation and constraints for the process in question are similar to or different from theirs and determine if changes are needed in carrying out their plan.
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Caution
Be sure to understand fully how the process in question works before looking at others’ processes.
Be sure that the other facility’s process is fully understood before adapting or adopting it to the process in question.
A Gantt chart aids planning by showing all activities that must take place and when they are scheduled to occur. This tool helps planners to visualize the work that needs to be completed, the activities that can be overlapped, and deadlines for completion.
Gantt charts provide a graphic guide for carrying out a series of activities, showing the start date, duration, and overlap of activities. Gantt charts are most useful in the planning stages, to mark when each activity should start and to draw the linkages in timing between activities. Gantt charts are also useful for keeping track of progress and rescheduling activities if progress is slowed.
Step 1. List all the activities that need to be carried out to implement a solution.
Step 2. Determine when each activity must start and list them in chronological order.
Step 3. Draw the framework for the Gantt chart by listing the months of implementation across the top of a sheet of paper. List the activities down the side.
Step 4. For each activity, mark its starting date. Determine the duration for each activity and, using a horizontal bar, mark the duration on the graph. Continue this process for each activity.
Step 5. Review the chart and determine if it is possible to carry out all the activities that are to be conducted simultaneously.
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