The survey was designed to allow a discussion to evolve between the subject and the analyst, throughout the session. Each enterprise has a way of controlling key systems and the focus was to ascertain how and where SME ownermanagers
gather their information. A list of five hundred and sixty eight performance measures was presented to the survey participants; each session took between two and three hours. During this period the interviewer got a sense of the
organisation, the key controls and recorded various anecdotes. The initial questions helped the interviewer contextualise the company. The remainder of the questions involved the SME owner-managers going through a list of possible measures, and rating them as either important, very important or vital, no answer indicated no importance.