The study is laid out as four case studies of five organisations (two organisations in Croatia are described in one case study). A commentary is included in each case study as a discussion, and summarising comments are made in the final chapter.

Readers will recognise that each case study is essentially a snapshot of the operational structure of the organisation at the time that the study was done. Each study took about a month to complete (including report writing) and seasonal and other limitations meant that it took several years to complete the series of studies. In each case, the organisation used the results of these case studies to review and tune their operational systems. Thus, changes were frequently implemented a short time after the study was completed.

MDD technology is still in development and all MDD systems are constantly being reviewed and updated. Several of the programmes studied here have undergone significant restructuring since the study was done. Thus it should not be assumed that the description here portrays the programme as it is today.