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David Pitre leads Davis & Company’s consulting team, which provides clients with support in employee communication and change management. Since joining the firm in 2005, David has helped leading organizations—such as Dun & Bradstreet, New York Public Library, PepsiCo, Regeneron, Rogers Communications, Sanofi, Sun Life Financial and Xylem—reach, engage and motivate their employees. As the firm’s measurement practice leader, he developed Davis & Company’s communication effectiveness model that helps clients demonstrate the value of their work. An experienced speaker on communication issues, David has conducted workshops for The Conference Board, the International Association of Business Communicators, Society for Human Resource Management and the Institute of Communications and Advertising. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Instructional Media from Ryerson University (Toronto) and an MBA in Design Management from the University of Westminster (U.K.).

My first focus group

My first experience was as a participant. The focus group was run by an ad agency to learn about people’s banking experiences. I can still recall how the line of questioning created a very dynamic discussion.

During one section, the moderator asked us to tell the story of our worst banking experience. Participants were tripping over each other to share tales of banking nightmares. It seemed like each of us was trying to trump the other—who would have the worst story?

It was a lot of fun for participants and I’m sure the ad agency got some valuable insights to share with its client.

Since I was a recent university graduate on a fixed budget, I also vividly recall the crisp $50 bill I received as payment for participating!

Contents

1)  Understanding employees’ needs and preferences

Why you should consider focus groups

2)  Learning about employee focus groups

What is a focus group?

Origins

Group dynamic

When to use focus groups

Employee groups versus consumer research

Focus group or survey?

3)  Setting objectives

To set objectives, start with a thesis

A process for setting objectives

4)  Planning your study

A. Create an action plan

B. Gain buy-in from key stakeholders

C. Develop a project summary or proposal

5)  Determining scope and managing logistics

What is the right number of focus groups?

A “purposively selected” sample

Where to hold focus groups

Length of focus groups and scheduling

Additional things to know/prepare

6)  Getting employees to attend

Recruit participants

Other stakeholders

7)  Developing a discussion guide

Why do you need a discussion guide?

How to build a discussion guide

A. Draft questions

B. Add interaction

C. Add introduction and conclusion

D. Structure the session

E. Test and refine the guide

8)  Moderating focus groups

How to manage moderating

A. Understand the moderator’s role

B. Decide who should moderate

C. Prepare for the upcoming focus group

D. Moderate the group

E. Handle challenges

F. Debrief after the focus group

9)  Conducting virtual focus groups

A. Choose your virtual location

B. Select a teleconference service

C. Record your session

D. Set up your virtual focus group

E. Conduct your session

10)  Interviewing one on one

When to use interviews

How to develop an interview guide

Tips for conducting interviews

After you’ve completed the interviews

11)  Analyzing the findings

A. Revisit your objectives

B. Capture the big ideas from each session

C. Mine the data for answers to your questions

D. Build detailed findings

E. Decide on key findings

12)  Reporting results

A. Create the report

B. Customize and share results

13)  Conducting a fast focus group project

A. Establish a thesis

B. Manage logistics

C. Recruit and invite participants

D. Develop questions

E. Conduct the focus group(s)

F. Analyze notes

G. Summarize your findings

14)  Solving common challenges

Learning about employee focus groups

Setting objectives

Planning your study

Determining scope and managing logistics

Getting employees to attend

Developing a discussion guide

Moderating focus groups

Conducting virtual focus groups

Interviewing one on one

Analyzing the findings

Reporting results

Conducting a fast focus group project

Index

This book is perfect if you:

Need to find out what employees believe about an issue

Have just conducted an employee survey, which yielded findings you’d like to explore further

Held successful focus groups in the past, but would like to make improvements for next time

Would like to learn about focus groups because you think they would be useful in your work

Do you need to know more about what employees are thinking or get their insights about an upcoming change? Although surveys can yield interesting data, if you need insight into employee perceptions, consider focus groups. This proven research method—widely practiced by marketers, scientists and other professionals since the 1930s—can help you:

• Explore an issue

• Test a concept

• Follow up on the launch of a program to see how well it was understood or received

• Find out the why behind survey responses

As you can tell, I’m a big fan of employee focus groups. At Davis & Company, we have found them to be a flexible, useful research tool and have used them for decades to help our clients get the information they need to reach, engage and motivate employees.

Why seek employee feedback? The answer is simple: The more you know, the more you can create solutions that meet employees’ needs. And that helps you accomplish your objectives, whether you’re an HR professional, a communicator, an IT leader, or anyone running a program or leading an initiative.

What is a focus group?

The Oxford American College Dictionary defines it this way: “A demographically diverse group of people assembled to participate in a guided discussion about a particular product before it is launched, or to provide ongoing feedback.”

That’s a great definition for marketing, but for employee research, I’d amend it to this: A group of employees assembled to participate in a guided discussion about a particular program or issue.

In a company setting, focus groups can explore a variety of topics, from benefits to performance management, from corporate strategy to safety programs, from how leaders inspire to how managers provide direction.

In the process of conducting hundreds of focus groups for our clients, I’ve learned what makes these sessions successful—and what makes them flop. As a result, I’ve developed ways to make them more effective—for instance, to elicit a productive response even when employees are cynical. I’ve also created methods to make focus groups more efficient to save time and effort.

My objective is simple: To give you what you need—advice, tools and techniques—so you can successfully conduct employee focus groups in your organization. These chapters contain the knowledge I have collected over the years.

Focus groups are hardly a new form of research—see Chapter 2 for more about their origins and the science behind them—but they’re still a valuable technique used by marketers and academic researchers alike to glean information about what people are thinking and feeling.

Plus, this form of qualitative research (using discussion to understand why and how) is ideally suited for employee research, since the group dynamic replicates the collaborative environment of the workplace. Employees are accustomed to working together: They gather for meetings, they collaborate in teams, they huddle in a group to fix a machine or solve a problem. So they’re comfortable with the interaction of the group experience.

Your opportunity is to leverage that dynamic to explore a topic you need to learn more about. This book is designed to be your guide for conducting employee focus groups, whether you do so on your own or get help from professional researchers or moderators.

Why you should consider focus groups

Focus groups are an effective form of research when you need to know:

• Why employees are behaving in a certain way (for example, failing to enroll in a short-term disability program or avoiding the company cafeteria)

• What’s behind the numbers from an employee survey (for example, “75% of managers don’t provide employees with feedback about their jobs”)

• What ideas employees might have for solving a problem or making a program successful

• Whether a proposed approach (for example, to introduce a new retirement program) will be well received by employees

• When communication has been successful, but you want to understand what to do next

• How employees really feel about an important topic, such as strategy, mission, values or a change initiative

Are focus groups a legitimate form of research?

Yes, as long as you follow a few critical guidelines when conducting your groups. For example, you can’t simply ask people you know to gather in a conference room and answer three or four casually written questions. For your research to be valid, you must assemble objective, representative groups; prepare how the discussion will be conducted, so you have a consistent set of questions across groups; and have an experienced moderator who can encourage participation and candor.

Tip

Explore open-ended issues

One of the best reasons to use focus groups is when you need to explore a topic in an open discussion, where you can dive deeper and ask follow-up questions. Focus groups are the right research method if you need to ask: Why is this true? What does this mean?

Example: Getting ready for change

The manufacturing division of a pharmaceutical company was about to undergo tremendous change. To prepare, the division decided to conduct a comprehensive audit that included eight focus groups, a survey of 3,000 employees and interviews with 14 senior leaders. The audit was designed to assess existing communication vehicles as well as understand employees’ communication preferences.

The focus groups were held at four of the division’s major locations: two inside the United States and two outside, in order to ensure that global employees were represented. We conducted two groups at each location—one with managers and one with non-managers—since some of the questions had to do with how well middle managers communicated. It was fascinating to get the results back from all three elements of the audit and see consistency across the findings.

We learned:

• Communication was overly complicated and repetitive

• Senior leaders recognized their important communication role

• Middle managers were not well informed and did not communicate effectively

• Employees did not know how they impacted the strategy because it was not “real” to them

• Employees craved communication that was sincere and informal versus polished and scripted

• Uncertainty about the future contributed to low morale

What is a focus group?

Picture a conference room with an oval or rectangular table. At the end of the table sits the moderator, the person leading the discussion. Around the table are eight to 12 people, each answering questions posed by the moderator or remarking on something another participant says. In addition to talking, participants might answer a written poll, review material the moderator provides or even play a game.

Why are they called “focus” groups?

Because the session focuses on a specific theme or issue and is guided by a moderator.

On the surface, a focus group is just that simple—people sitting around talking—and doesn’t look much different than a meeting. But behind the casual conversation is more than 80 years of research science about how to best encourage participants to share their perspectives.

Origins

Since the beginning of time, humans have gathered together—initially around a campfire—to discuss important issues. We are comfortable in a group (We used to call it a tribe.), sitting shoulder to shoulder and chewing the fat.

Understanding this dynamic helped researchers develop a form of research called “the focus group.” First developed in the 1930s, the focus group was then refined during the 1940s by social scientists exploring human dynamics. They discovered that by facilitating a group discussion in certain ways, they could encourage participants to share feelings and opinions quite openly. The discussion could then be observed and recorded, yielding valuable information.

Over the years, marketers discovered the value of focus groups to find out consumers’ innermost thoughts about products, services or experiences. Even today, when sophisticated methods of testing people’s responses (such as brain scans) are available, companies still use focus groups to test product concepts or get feedback on advertising campaigns.

Focus groups, a form of qualitative research, are designed to explore an issue in depth, creating a space for open dialogue and opinions about a specific topic. Unlike quantitative research (such as surveys), qualitative research does not provide statistical data. Yet it is considered a scientifically valid research tool that yields valuable insights into what people perceive and believe. Other types of qualitative research include:

• One-on-one interviews (see Chapter 10)

• User testing

• Observation

Tip

Use focus groups to test an idea

Focus groups are an effective way to get employees’ reactions to a specific concept—for example, a wellness program, a benefits plan feature or a proposed work schedule.

How focus groups are used with customers and others

Today, focus groups are widely used by marketers, nonprofit organizations, social scientists, universities and corporations. A few examples:

• By a telecommunications company to examine how audience members interpret media messages

• By university researchers to explore the effectiveness of an anti-obesity education program

• By a public health organization to understand people’s knowledge, attitudes and practices about contraception

Group dynamic

Focus groups are unique among research techniques because they create a group dynamic. Participants not only reply to questions posed by the moderator, they also respond to each other. This group interaction encourages employees to:

• Add their own perspectives

• Set the record straight and correct fallacies

• Try to persuade others

• Play devil’s advocate

• Build on concepts and ideas

When to use focus groups

According to David L. Morgan, author of Focus Groups as Qualitative Research (SAGE Publications, 1997), focus groups are typically used in one of four ways:

• As a stand-alone research method.

• As a source of preliminary data in a quantitative study. For example, researchers often use focus groups for an open-ended exploration of a survey topic, so that they can understand what issues are paramount in people’s minds.

• As a way to explore survey results in more detail. Survey data reveal what employees think, but don’t tell you why they think it. For example, a consumer products company conducted an annual communication survey. One finding was that managers at headquarters met with employees much less often than managers at manufacturing facilities. Why was this the case? What was going on with those HQ managers? Focus groups helped get to the bottom of the issue.

• As part of a multi-method study, which could include a survey, observation, individual interviews and user testing.

An in-depth perspective

Focus groups allow a thorough exploration of an issue. They are great for:

• Clarifying survey results

• Generating ideas

• Assessing knowledge level

• Getting a fresh perspective

• Interpreting facts

Employee groups versus consumer research

The research science is the same, as are many of the techniques. The differences lie in how the groups are conducted. Here are two of those differences:

• Consumers are given incentives—usually a fee of $75 to $200 (or more)—to participate, while employees are asked to give their time (which they’re compensated for as part of their regular pay) to help a group solve a problem.

• Consumer groups are typically held at research facilities, which have two-way mirrors so marketers can observe the group. Employee groups are usually held at the workplace in a conference room or virtually, via a web meeting.

Focus group or survey?

Thinking about whether to conduct a focus group, a survey or a combination of the two? It’s a tough decision, isn’t it? Start with two fundamental questions: What are you trying to learn? What do you hope to change? The answers will usually fall into one of four categories. I’ve captured them here and included my recommended approach:

• You want to understand if your employee communication program is effective. Does the work you’re doing have an impact?

A survey is the way to go in this scenario. I think of surveys as a diagnostic tool to identify successes, problem areas and gaps. I recommend testing satisfaction with main vehicles (such as the weekly e-newsletter and the intranet), knowledge of key topics, and communication from leaders and managers.

For example, my firm works with a telecommunications company to field an annual employee communication survey, supplemented by spot surveys to test knowledge of key topics and assess progress with communication vehicles.

One of the benefits of a survey is that you can repeat it (or portions of it) to understand if the changes you made are having an impact. A quick tip: keep questions consistent, so you can track progress.

• You want to understand if communication for a specific initiative was successful or if a program is meeting employees’ needs.

In this case, focus groups are the perfect way to uncover why, gather ideas for follow-up communication and/or make changes to a plan design (such as benefits).

For example, a financial services company needed to assess the effectiveness of an internal launch for a new brand positioning. My firm conducted two focus groups (one in-person session and one web-based) to assess reaction to the launch, knowledge of the new brand positioning and information needs.

• You want to understand how a specific communication vehicle is performing.

I like spot surveys (short, five- to seven-question surveys) for this situation.

For example, after a town hall meeting, it’s the ideal time to assess if attendees are more knowledgeable about key topics and feel motivated to take action.

• You want to make changes to your employee communication program (such as saying goodbye to the e-newsletter), but you’re not sure what to do.

I prefer to use a one-two punch to tackle this challenge:

1) Start with a survey to identify successes and problem areas

2) Follow up with a few focus groups (and/or interviews) to understand the challenges and collect ideas for improvement

Here’s an example: Communicators at an industrial manufacturing company sought to understand why articles on their intranet home page weren’t getting many hits. After my firm conducted a short eight-question survey and two web-based focus groups, our team learned that employees relied on the weekly email summary. The headlines and two-sentence descriptions in the summary did the trick for employees, but many employees still followed links when a topic was of interest.

Tip

Solve a problem

Use focus groups for ideas about how to resolve an issue or meet a challenge.

Here’s a helpful comparison to understand the key attributes of focus groups and surveys:

Attribute

Focus groups

Surveys

Format

Group discussion

Individual answering questions online (or on paper)

Feedback process

Open-ended; questions designed to elicit dialogue

Closed-ended; questions designed to produce data

Participants

Few participants; 10 to 12 per group

Many participants; can poll all employees or sample a representative population

Product

Produces detailed discussion that can be analyzed for common themes and uncover other issues of interest to participants

Produces data that can be tabulated for statistical analysis

Analysis

Focuses on what people said and what it means

Focuses on what the numbers say, using data to compare one question to another or how results compare with earlier surveys

Value

Great for uncovering the “why” and exploring issues in depth

Great for establishing a baseline, tracking trends and measuring progress

You’ve decided to move ahead with a focus group study. Since you’re under a tight timeline (as usual), you want to jump in and get everything done as quickly as possible. But please, I implore you, before drafting the discussion guide, arranging logistics and doing all the other things you need to do, pause. Take a deep breath. And invest the time in setting objectives.

What’s the ideal number of objectives for a focus group study?

Three. If you have any more objectives, you will be taking on too much to effectively cover in one group or accomplish in the study.

Objectives articulate—in a disciplined, focused way—what you’re trying to accomplish as a result of your focus group research. They provide a framework to answer the questions: What do I need to learn? What am I willing and able to change as a result of this research?

While it’s tempting to pile your research plate high with a mix of topics, this overindulgence makes it difficult to cover issues adequately and more challenging to analyze the data. Objectives help you avoid the temptation to overdo it by limiting the scope of your study.

Setting clear objectives isn’t easy. But investing the time pays off, since clear objectives:

• Set parameters for the discussion guide

• Provide a framework for analyzing and reporting results

• Manage stakeholders’ expectations

• Make it easier for employees to provide meaningful feedback, since they can more easily follow the line of questioning

How do I know if my objectives are on target?

Use the same criteria for evaluating objectives that you would use to create a communication plan. Ask yourself: Are my objectives specific? Are they clear? Do they help define boundaries? Will I know when I’ve accomplished them?

To set objectives, start with a thesis

The first step is to establish the central thesis for your study. The thesis is a single statement that summarizes what you’re trying to accomplish.It captures what you need to learn.

Sometimes the thesis is expressed as a statement:

• The annual employee attitude survey tells us that employees don’t understand our competition, but we don’t know why

• Employees seem to be just going through the motions in the performance management program, instead of fully participating

And sometimes the thesis can be articulated as a question:

• How will employees react to the new retirement program?

• Do employees know how their jobs support the company strategy?

With either approach, the thesis provides a foundation to keep your research within clear boundaries.

A process for setting objectives

Once you’ve figured out your thesis, use it as the basis for objectives. Here are two methods to follow when building objectives:

If you’re working with a team, the best way to develop objectives is by facilitating an idea session with team members:

• Start by discussing why you’re undertaking this focus group study

• Ask team members to brainstorm possible objectives

• Capture each idea separately

• Invite feedback from team members to consolidate ideas and decide which objectives are a priority

• Leave the session with agreement on up to five objectives (you’ll narrow these down next)

After the session (preferably the next day, so you have perspective), work alone to refine the draft objectives into three targeted objectives. Get feedback from the team, but resist the temptation to add objectives—try to stick to no more than three.

If you’re working alone, you can follow the same type of process:

• Free associate to create a list of objectives

• Combine similar objectives and decide which three to five are most on target

• Come back to that list later and refine it into three targeted objectives

How many topics can I cover in one focus group?

Keep it to one main theme. Don’t try asking the same group about proposed work–hour changes, safety poster designs and knowledge of consumer-driven health plans all in the same hour. Instead, spend the time to dive deeper on a single topic and ensure all participants get time to speak.

Here’s a set of objectives that we developed with the marketing group at a global corporation. The team was about to launch a new brand position for the company, but before it was introduced externally, the group planned to preview it for employees. Before the preview, focus groups were held.

Objectives of the study:

• Assess employee reaction to proposed messages/phrases

• Gauge current understanding of the company’s brand

• Determine information needs and preferences

Example: Setting objectives for a study about pay

An HR team sought to learn how well leaders understood their pay and what they thought about the current pay program.

Objectives of the study:

• Determine how well leaders understand the compensation program overall

• Assess perceived value of specific components

• Test/validate new plan concepts

Example: Developing objectives for research with managers

During a financial services company’s annual communication survey, employees consistently rated manager communication as a strength. Armed with this data, the Internal Communication team decided to conduct focus groups to shape a formal manager communication program.

Objectives for the study focused on the idea of helping managers with their communication role:

• Determine how managers define their communication role and their readiness to take on that role

• Identify the information managers need to fulfill their communication role and understand when and how managers prefer to receive this information

• Outline the tools and resources managers believe are necessary or helpful for their role as communicators

Tip

Keep it simple

If you try to take on too much in a focus group study, you increase the degree of difficulty in almost every stage: developing the discussion guide, moderating the session and analyzing the results.

Before you create an action plan, step back and visualize where you’re heading and which roads you must take to get there.

For starters, you need clear objectives to define what you’re trying to accomplish. Setting objectives is often found to be the toughest part of the project, but taking the time to make them clear and concise is critical since they influence key considerations, such as: How many groups to hold? Which locations to visit? Hold separate manager and employee sessions? So, before you begin planning your focus group study, refer to Chapter 3 and nail down your objectives.

What is the right number of focus groups?

There’s no magic answer to this question—it varies depending on your organization and goals. Refer to your objectives, consider how much time and budget is available, and focus on how much segmentation is really necessary (as opposed to what would be nice to have). See Chapter 5.

From here, you can begin the process of figuring out how everything needs to work together in order to achieve your intended outcomes. Start with key decisions about the scope of your project.

Key scope decisions

• Who (in a broad sense) will participate in the groups? (See Chapter 5)

• How many groups should you conduct? (See Chapter 5)

• Where will you hold the groups? (See Chapter 5)

• What’s the time frame? (See Chapter 5)

• Will you conduct face-to-face groups? Virtual? A mix? (See Chapter 9)

• Will you conduct just focus groups, add one-on-one interviews or do both? (See Chapter 10)

Here’s an example of the decision process for a typical focus group project:

The director of philanthropy wanted to determine how employees view the company’s community outreach programs.

His goal was to get feedback from employees in each of the company’s three major business areas:

• Headquarters (located in the northeastern U.S.)

• Distribution centers (five located in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest)

• Retail stores (located in 12 states)

The director needed to hold enough groups to make sure all employees were represented, but not too many that the study got unwieldy. Therefore, his biggest challenge in scoping the study was determining which locations would provide the best representation of the employee population. He used the following parameters for guidance:

Organizational diversity. The director decided it was critical to talk to people in each of the three primary business areas (headquarters, distribution centers, retail stores). He recognized that employees have diverse needs and expectations depending on their business area. For efficiency, he looked for similarities among locations in each of these three areas, such as size, location, number of employees, functions, etc.

Job levels. Considering the nature of his research topic, the director felt it was OK to mix manager and non-manager level employees in the same groups without influencing participants’ responses. This would be a big time saver, as separating them would double the number of groups to conduct.

Regional considerations. Because the director needed to hold groups at headquarters, he wanted to make sure he visited other locations as a way to gauge geographical differences.

After the director carefully considered these parameters and identified the right mix, he decided to hold a total of nine focus groups:

• Headquarters: two groups

• Distribution centers: two groups (one at Southeast and one at Midwest locations)

• Retail stores: five groups (one at Northeast, two at Southeast and two at Midwest locations)

Tip

Emphasize results

When you’re seeking buy-in on your focus group plan, emphasize the benefits to the company—and what actions/areas might be improved as a result of getting employees’ feedback.

After you make key scope decisions, you can move on to the other steps in the planning process:

A. Create an action plan

B. Gain buy-in from key stakeholders

C. Develop a project summary or proposal

A. Create an action plan

Conducting employee focus groups is more than just getting people together to have a chat. It’s a structured, rigorous process that requires careful planning. Regardless of whether you hold one focus group or 15, it’s critical that you create a project plan to help you stay on track.

What every plan should include

While you can customize your plan to meet your organization’s needs, there are three basic elements every focus group plan should include:

• Actions: Key deliverables to be accomplished

• Timing: Due dates/milestones

• Roles/responsibilities: Individuals assigned to specific tasks

Tip

Create a one-pager

No need to create a complicated action plan. A one-pager is all you need to stay on track, without getting bogged down in too much detail.

Action plan template

Here’s a typical project plan that outlines the major activities required for a focus group study. While you don’t need to accomplish every task in the exact order it appears, I recommend you include all of these elements in your plan.

Action plan

Issue

Actions

Assigned to

Timing

Set objectives
See Chapter 3: Setting objectives

Determine what you want to learn

Plan your study
See Chapter 4: Planning your study

Make scope decisions

Build an action plan

Get buy-in/develop a project proposal

Choose your locations
See Chapter 5: Determining scope and managing logistics

Set number of sessions

Set dates and locations for focus groups

Recruit and invite participants
See Chapter 6: Getting employees to attend

Develop recruiting parameters

Select participants

Draft invitation letter

Finalize and send invitation

Develop a discussion guide
See Chapter 7: Developing a discussion guide

Draft discussion guide

Review (test) and finalize guide

Conduct the focus groups
See Chapter 8: Moderating focus groups

Select moderator(s)

Coordinate room logistics: recording equipment, supplies, food and beverages

Moderate the sessions

Debrief with moderators

Coordinate transcripts of recordings

Analyze data
See Chapter 11: Analyzing the findings

Review transcripts

Determine key findings

Create the report
See Chapter 12: Reporting results

Draft report

Meet with key stakeholders to share findings

B. Gain buy-in from key stakeholders

Depending on your organization, you may need support and/or approval for your focus group project. Either way, it’s a best practice to communicate with key stakeholders about why you’re conducting the focus group study and how it will benefit the organization. This helps to manage expectations, as well as garner support for participation.

A written proposal or project summary is one of the most effective and commonly used strategies to communicate about your study. Consider it an executive summary of your approach.

Who needs to see my focus group proposal?

Provide this document to anyone who may have a stake in the project or will need to give you a thumbs-up. Review your proposal with key constituents in a face-to-face meeting or by phone to address questions and concerns.

Do I need to run a focus group at every location in my company?

No. Since focus groups are designed to produce insights instead of numerical data, your objective is not to obtain a statistically valid sample. Instead, choose as many sites as needed to provide a diverse range of viewpoints from across your organization. See Chapter 5.

From whom might you need buy-in?

Immediate manager

Department head

Human Resources

Union/shop steward

Leadership team

Site/plant managers

Team members

People who will help you recruit participants

C. Develop a project summary or proposal

Focus group proposals can take on different shapes and sizes depending on the needs of your organization and the magnitude of your study. For example, if you’re only conducting three sessions at one location, your proposal will probably look different than if you’re conducting 24 sessions in eight countries. Regardless, the purpose of this document is to help you manage others’ expectations about why you’re conducting the study, what approach you’re taking, key roles and timing, as well as how the company will benefit from this effort.

Here are the key components to include in your proposal:

Objectives. What do you hope to accomplish?

Situation analysis. What are the main reasons for conducting this research? Why is it important to conduct this research now? How does this fit with the current business environment?

Recommended approach. How do you plan to manage the project?

• Sample size

• Location(s)

• Topics to address

• Timeline

Information about the research team. Do you plan to get help on this project? Who is on the team? What are their qualifications?

• Internal resources

• Consultants

• Research firms

• Freelancers

• Temps

Fees/cost of project. How much will this project cost?

• Time

• Money

• External resources

• Freelance or temporary help

Example: Creating proposals

Although most of your attention in a focus group project is on the focus group itself, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes as well. Here are the key logistical details you need to manage:

• Number of focus groups

• Selection of participants

• Location(s)

• Timing

• Preparation

What is the best way to avoid scheduling conflicts?

Allow enough time before the session. In some cultures, it’s customary to schedule meetings weeks in advance, so give yourself extra time when scheduling a focus group.

What is the right number of focus groups?

Three. That was simple, wasn’t it? But research is rarely that straightforward.

Unlike surveys, there isn’t a formula to calculate the number of focus groups you need to get a valid sample. But having conducted many qualitative studies, I’ve noticed a reliable pattern: after moderating three focus groups, key ideas start to repeat.

Example: Determining the number of focus groups

A specialized division within a large company was gearing up for the launch of five new products in less than two years—a hefty challenge for the small group of only a few hundred people. The division decided to conduct focus groups to see what employees thought about the upcoming challenge and uncover the best ways to communicate during this frenetic time.

Because the division was so small, we made the decision to only conduct three focus groups:

• Managers at headquarters

• Non-managers at headquarters

• Non-managers who work in the field

We learned that employees were nervous but excited about the challenge. We also heard that company messages needed to be more real and less filtered to be credible.

So three has become my magic number, but I often adjust based on three (See a theme?) factors:

Objectives. Increase/decrease the number of focus groups based on the complexity and scope of your topic.

Focus on the data you need to accomplish your objectives, rather than good-to-know information. For example, if you’re gathering ideas for follow-up communication, one to three focus groups will do the trick. But if you’re conducting an audit of your communication system, you’ll likely need to add sessions so you have input from those you’re trying to reach.

Audience. Adjust based on the colleagues or teams you need to influence with the data.

Use one or two focus groups when you’re the only one who will see the data—such as using the results to shape a communication plan. But if you want to influence a senior leadership team, you’ll likely need comprehensive representation. (Each member of senior leadership will want to see his/her group represented.) Translation: more focus groups.

Speed. Fine tune based on how quickly you need to use the data.

A comprehensive focus group study (with 10 or more focus groups) takes time—from participant selection to logistics to analysis. Limiting yourself to one or two focus groups will help you gather data quickly. See Chapter 13: Conducting a fast focus group project.

A “purposively selected” sample

In his book, Focus Groups as Qualitative Research (SAGE Publications, 1997), David L. Morgan recommends that the best way to select participants for a focus group is to use a method he calls “purposively selected” or “theoretically motivated” sampling. Selecting participants for focus groups should follow a process of deciding upon criteria, then finding people who fit that criteria, rather than by the random sampling used for surveys, in which participants are chosen at random according to a mathematical formula (every 10th person, for instance).

To achieve a purposively selected sample within your organization, follow these steps:

Revisit your thesis and objectives. As with nearly all aspects of the focus group study, it’s helpful to keep objectives in mind when deciding which type of employee participants you need.

Determine the overall sample. The sample is your big bucket—the broad category of employees you need to study. For example, based on your thesis, you might decide that your sample is one of the following:

Types of sample groups

Thesis

Sample

How do employees regard the current benefits program?

Benefits-eligible employees

What do supervisors need to help manufacturing employees focus on safety?

Supervisors and hourly plant employees in separate groups

Why aren’t customer service employees participating in our initiative to improve quality?

Customer service employees

How should we introduce a new performance system in the R&D division?

Employees and managers in R&D

Do new employees understand our processes?

Employees who have been with the company less than a year

Segment subgroups. Your research topic may present the opportunity to conduct separate sessions with identified segments within your sample universe. When we conducted focus groups to gather feedback on an executive pay program. While our sample was all executives, we grouped participants into separate sessions by level: junior and intermediate executives into one set of focus groups, and senior executives into another.

How many subgroups do I need?

There’s no magic formula for determining the number of subgroups (groups of employees who make up your sample). We usually work closely with our clients to decide, referring back to the thesis, considering how much time and budget is available, and focusing on how much segmentation is really necessary (as opposed to what would be nice to have).

Common subgroups could include:

• Job categories. Customer service representatives, drivers, manufacturing workers, information technology employees, scientists, sales representatives, product managers—depending on the size and diversity of your company, there can be many different job categories.

• Levels. From hourly workers to senior leaders—because viewpoints differ at various levels of the company.

• Locations. Employees in Montana may have viewpoints sharply divergent from people who work in Italy, especially if each location serves unique functions.

• Divisions, departments, groups. Does your company have one unit that makes plastic bags and another that makes hair dryers? If you’re organized along business division lines, employees in distinct groups may have different perspectives.

• Demographics. There may be strong demographic groups within your organization that need to be segmented. These could include gender, age cohort and country/culture.

• Legacy company. If your organization has been merged, allied or otherwise combined, keep in mind those old boundaries. People may still have a strong affiliation with the old organization, especially if the merger is recent.

• Length of service. People who have been with the company for a long time may have a different perspective than new arrivals.

• Union/non-union. There will likely be differences between the perspectives of union and non-union employees, especially on benefits and policies.

• Decide on the final invitation list. Once you’ve determined your total sample and subgroups, work with Human Resources or Payroll to generate lists of employees from which to create an invitation list. The key is to be specific about your criteria. You need to define:

– Your overall sample (for instance, Latin American employees or directors in bands four through six)

– Relevant subgroups (for instance, engineers, Midwest sales representatives, those within five years of retirement)

How many employees do I need to invite to yield 10 to 12 participants?

The rule of thumb is a bit different from organization to organization, but generally I recommend inviting twice the number of participants you need: 20 to 24.

Then you need to specify how many people you need in each category. For a focus group with a two- to three-week lead time, the rule of thumb is to invite twice as many employees as you need. For a focus group of 12 participants (the ideal number), invite about 24. For a group that you’re trying to put together quickly, you may need to invite more people, since it’s likely that a greater percentage will have conflicts.

Tip

Don’t offer incentives

Unlike marketing focus groups—where participants are usually paid—you don’t need monetary incentives to get employees to participate. Most participants are motivated by the opportunity to voice their opinions. However, food—breakfast, lunch or snacks—offers a nice incentive.

An HR manager seeks to determine how employees view the current benefits program. Her sample is benefits-eligible employees, which in her organization are those:

• Working in the United States

• Not in a union (union employees have a different benefits program negotiated through their union contract)

Based on her objectives, the HR manager decides she also needs to segment these subgroups:

• Managers and employees. In this organization, managers are expected to be knowledgeable about benefits and to answer employees’ questions, so it will be useful to conduct focus groups with managers and employees separately to see how well this process works.

• Long-tenure employees (more than five years of service) and those who have been with the company five years or fewer, because they may have different perceptions about company benefits.

• Locations. The HR manager needs to know if there are differences between employee understanding at headquarters and at remote locations, so she decides to hold focus groups at a) headquarters, b) a manufacturing plant and c) a sales office.

Once the HR manager has identified her sample and subgroups, she decides to hold six focus groups:

• Two at headquarters: one for managers and one for employees

• Two at the manufacturing plant: one for managers and one for employees

• Two at the largest sales office: one for managers and one for employees

Example: Determining a sample group

She decides that the issue of how tenure affects employee perceptions can be handled within each focus group, as long as each group includes people who have been with the company longer than five years and those with fewer than five years of experience.

The HR manager asks her colleague in Payroll to generate the following randomly selected employee lists:

Finally, she uses these lists to randomly select 12 names from each category to invite to each group. For instance, for the headquarters manager group, she invites 12 managers with fewer than five years of experience, and 12 managers with more than five years of experience, for a total of 24 invitees per group. (She expects about half to accept the invitation, yielding 12 participants per group.)

Need guidance on selecting participants?

Answer these questions to jump-start your thinking about who should participate:

• How many people are there in your company?

– How many are managers vs. non-managers?

– What are some of the main demographic groups in your company?

– Do you need to segregate various sets of employees in the focus groups? (Manager/non-manager? Bands/levels? New employees vs. long-timers?)

• Where are your major locations?

– Are there employees in other countries whom you need to include?

– Is there a large group of employees who work remotely?

Where to hold focus groups

When deciding where to run your focus group sessions, it’s important to choose locations that enable the moderator to easily facilitate a discussion and capture data. I recommend focus group sessions occur on-site at your company’s facilities in a conference room that comfortably seats 10 to 15 people.

Can I have some participants in the room and others on the phone?

No. Having some participants in the room and some on the phone makes everyone uncomfortable. Plus, the dynamic is difficult to moderate. If you need to hold a virtual focus group, make sure everyone is participating in the same way. See Chapter 9 for tips on conducting virtual focus groups.

The greatest advantage of on-site focus groups is convenience—participants don’t have to travel out of their way to attend the session. In addition, participants usually feel at ease in a familiar setting.

If you don’t have access to a conference room, it’s not the end of the world—there are plenty of alternative locations that can be just as effective (as long as the room is large enough and chairs and a table can be arranged comfortably):

• Lunch room/cafeteria (not during lunch)

• Break room

• Facility head’s office

• Unused office

• Storage room

• Laboratory

• Test kitchen

Example: Dealing with environmental distractions

During a focus group study with manufacturing workers, the moderator arrived at a facility to discover that the conference room he booked was no longer available. The only alternative was conducting the session out on the shop floor. In a perfect world, the moderator would have postponed the session, but he had traveled across six states to reach the facility and there was no turning back now.

Concerned about noises and other distractions from the manufacturing machines, the moderator arranged folding chairs into a tight circle so participants could huddle together. Throughout the session, the moderator made an effort to speak loudly and reminded participants to do the same. In addition, the moderator frequently repeated participants’ comments to ensure everyone could hear.

Although the moderator recorded the discussion, he took careful notes during and immediately following the session to compensate for the poor audio quality.

Should I find a specialized focus group facility with two-way mirrors?

While specialized off-site facilities are commonly used to conduct market research, they are seldom appropriate for employee focus groups. Three reasons you should avoid commercial facilities include:

1. Cost. Why spend money if you don’t have to? Save yourself the added expense by conducting focus groups on-site.

2. Convenience. Shuttling employees to a remote location is time consuming. If you’re looking for a change of scenery, try holding the session in an area of your building that employees don’t typically get to visit.

3. Confidentiality. Focus group facilities commonly have hidden mirrors and built-in video cameras that can cause employees to feel nervous about someone “listening in.”

What to consider when choosing location(s):

• Is the room large enough to comfortably accommodate participants and the moderator?

• Will the participants be able to see and hear each other, as well as the moderator?

• Will noise levels or other distractions be a problem?

• Will it be easy to capture the data, either by taking notes, using an observer or recording?

• If the moderator is not familiar with the facility, is there a local contact who will be able to meet him/her, show him/her to the room and assist with any problems?

What to consider from participants’ point of view:

• How easy will it be to reach the facility?

• Is parking available? Or is it accessible by public transit?

• Will it be pleasant to sit and talk for 60 to 90 minutes?

• Is it a safe place for participants to speak their minds?

Length of focus groups and scheduling

Selecting the appropriate length for a focus group depends on your organization, the scope of your research and the complexity of your topic. Most focus groups run between 60 and 90 minutes. It’s hard to cover an issue in sufficient detail in less time—and it’s difficult for busy employees to spend longer than an hour and a half away from their jobs.

Tip

Don’t over-extend your moderators

How many focus groups should you schedule on the same day? I recommend a maximum of two per day. Moderating is draining work. If you decide to schedule more than two sessions in the same day, you’ll need to have more than one moderator.

Further, if you schedule multiple sessions with different moderators at the same location on the same day, make sure you have separate rooms for each group to meet, so you don’t run into scheduling conflicts.

Choose the timeframe that best achieves your objectives—and fits work practices in your organization. For example, your topic may be so specific you only need 60 minutes to cover it. The key is to ensure you have enough time to get the information you need. In addition, remember that participants need time to warm up, get to know (and trust) one another, flex their brains and get engaged. You can’t do all that in 15 minutes or less. When in doubt, plan for more time than you think you’ll need—participants will thank you for ending early, but not for keeping them longer than expected.

Tip

Focused topics require less time

Shorter sessions work if your topic is narrow and focused; for example, how managers communicate vs. internal communication overall. Just be sure you’re not sacrificing depth and breadth for duration.

In addition to duration, another important consideration is the time of day. While no arrangement fits everyone’s schedule, there are certain times during the day, week and year that are more convenient than others. Here are some tips to guide you through the scheduling process:

• The most common time to hold focus groups is during regular working hours. A general rule: Monday mornings and Friday afternoons are not ideal.

• Schedule the session around breakfast or lunch. If that’s not possible, provide a snack. Serve food at the beginning of the session so you don’t interrupt the meeting.

• Be aware of scheduling issues at your organization. Are there certain times that are more frenetic than others (for example, at the end of each quarter or right before the fiscal year ends)?

• Avoid the days right before or after a major holiday and give more notice during summer and winter holidays.

Example: Deciding on the number of focus groups and timing

The Human Resources director at a large manufacturing facility was in charge of supporting the senior team to communicate strategies, results and other important issues. Since the facility was so large—more than 2,000 employees—the HR group spent a lot of time managing communication.

The director’s objective was to determine what was working and what needed improvement. To do so, she wanted to ensure that every type of employee at the facility was represented, including hourly workers on three shifts, supervisors, professional staff and members of the senior team.

We conducted a study that included:

• A group for each shift of hourly workers: one at 8 a.m., one at 5 p.m. and one at 11 p.m.

• Three separate groups for supervisors, one on each shift

• Two groups for professional staff

• Individual interviews with each member of the senior team

Tip

Minimize distractions

When it comes to food and beverages, a good rule is to keep it simple. Avoid foods that require utensils or are individually wrapped. Choose finger foods—such as bagels or cookies—that are easy for people to grab and take to their seats.

Additional things to know/prepare

In addition to deciding where and when to hold focus groups, there are other logistics to consider based on the circumstances surrounding your study. Here are some common examples:

Additional logistics

Area

Key considerations

Food

Food and beverages can enhance the quality of your focus groups, as eating together promotes communication and participation within a group. If you plan to serve food and/or beverages, it’s best to do it at the beginning so participants aren’t getting up and down from their seats once the discussion begins. You also need to decide whether there’s an on-site food service you can use or if the moderator needs to bring the refreshments.

Recording equipment

You have several options for recording focus groups. I recommend using a digital voice recorder with a USB interface, so you can transfer recordings directly to your computer. See Chapter 8 for more information on recording focus groups.

Incentives

Employees are already paid for the time they spend participating in a focus group session, so it’s not necessary to provide additional monetary incentives. But don’t take their participation for granted. Thank them and clearly explain the purpose of the groups. And provide a comfortable room and refreshments.

Most focus group studies involve only a limited number of participants. Even a large study might engage fewer than 100 people from an overall workforce of 10,000 employees. Because the sample is so small, it’s essential to be smart about how participants are selected and to work hard to encourage selected employees to attend.

Tip

Avoid inviting only employees you know

The easiest way to recruit focus group participants might be to invite people you know. But avoid the temptation. It creates a biased sample, which negatively affects the validity of your research.

Recruit participants

A focus group invitation not only asks employees to attend, it also helps them understand why they’re attending and what’s expected of them. I usually invite participants via an email invitation, which includes:

• A personal message, which explains that the recipient was selected to participate

• A brief description of the study’s objectives

• Relevant logistical information (time, date, location, etc.)

• Contact information and an offer to answer questions

• Response information (how to accept/decline, deadline)

• An assurance that what the employee says in the focus group will be kept confidential

Once you’ve set the date and participants have confirmed, follow up a few days before the session to remind people of the event.

How soon should invitations be sent?

It depends on the culture of your organization, but I recommend issuing the invitation about two weeks ahead of the date and ask for a response within three days of the invitation. That way, if you face a low response rate, you can reschedule the focus group or invite other participants.

Example: Drafting an invitation

Dear <Name of employee>,

You have been selected to participate in a focus group about our benefits at <insert company>.

This focus group is one of a series being held to understand employees’ perceptions of our benefits program. These focus groups are part of a comprehensive study designed to assess the competitiveness of our program. Your help and participation in this research is greatly appreciated.

The focus group will take place on <date/time/location> and we will provide a <breakfast/lunch/snack>.

As a participant, you will be asked to share your perspective on:

• Our current benefits communication materials (website, etc.)

• Our benefits plan

• What is working and what you would change

To ensure confidentiality, the session will be conducted by <name of company/moderator> and participants will not be identified, so you can speak freely when giving your comments during the focus group.

We’ve notified your supervisor of this research effort and asked him/her to allow you time away from your job to participate. Please let me know by <date> if you are able to attend.

Feel free to call with any questions. I hope you’ll be able to join us for this important session and I look forward to your valuable input.

Sincerely,

<Your name>

<Your job title>

<Your phone number>

<Your email address>

When email doesn’t work

Sending an email invitation doesn’t work for every employee. For instance, when dealing with employees who have limited or no network access—workers in manufacturing, retail or transportation—you may need to do one or both of the following:

• Recruit a local person to help you ask employees in person to participate.

• Create a simple printed invitation and hand-deliver or use your interoffice mail. Make sure there’s an easy way to RSVP.

Other stakeholders

In addition to inviting participants, it’s a good idea to inform other people in the company who need to know their employees are participating. For example:

• Senior leaders. Keeping senior leaders in the loop is good for two reasons: 1) They understand what is happening inside their businesses and 2) It will be easier to make the case for change when they already understand the study and its purpose.

• Managers. You should let managers know what’s going on, particularly in cases where employees are in customer service or other on-demand jobs.

• All employees. Word spreads fast in organizations and rumors may begin to swirl about the “mysterious focus groups.” Squelch the grapevine by communicating to all employees what the focus groups are about and when you will share results.

Why do you need a discussion guide?

Everyone—from beginners to experienced moderators—should always work from a discussion guide. A well-designed guide will help the moderator:

Maintain confidence in front of a group, so there is less concern about forgetting a question.

Stay on track. When participants start talking, the conversation may head off in many directions. Experienced moderators know that these tangents can be very productive, so it’s important not to immediately stop the flow. A discussion guide, however, helps the moderator get back on track.

A discussion guide is the term used by researchers to describe the document—part script, part outline—that the focus group moderator uses to lead the session. It is used only by the moderator and not shared with participants.

Cover the bases. It’s the moderator’s responsibility to address all of the questions required. By following a written guide, he/she can be sure that the right information has been covered.

Be consistent. Since most focus group studies include multiple sessions, a guide keeps the discussion consistent from one group to the next, thereby ensuring the validity of the data. Also, since studies may involve several moderators, a discussion guide ensures consistency, regardless of who is facilitating.

How to build a discussion guide

Building a discussion guide is a five-step process:

A. Draft questions

B. Add interaction

C. Add introduction and conclusion

D. Structure the session

E. Test and refine the guide

A. Draft questions

Drafting questions is a critical step in your research project. To help you get to the best set of questions, I’ve broken this step into four tasks:

Review objectives for the focus group study. (See Chapter 3 for more information about setting objectives.) Your questions need to be aligned with what you’re trying to achieve.

Create sections for your guide. Think of them as buckets for your questions. Keep in mind that they don’t need to be perfect; you can finesse later. (Hint: Look at your objectives for guidance. They may provide natural sections.)

See the sample discussion guide at the end of this chapter.

Now it’s time to brainstorm a list of questions that will guide the conversation among participants. At this point, don’t worry about the number or order of the questions. The idea is simply to generate a list that you can sort later.

Don’t include the kitchen sink. When you start brainstorming questions, it’s easy to fall in the trap of, “I want to learn about this related issue. Oh, and we can’t forget about that. And this other thing would be nice to know.”

Example: Creating questions about benefits

If your objective is to find out which benefits are most important to employees, possible questions may include:

• Which benefits do you value most? Why?

• Which benefits do you value least or don’t use? Why?

• If you were in charge of benefits, what would you add? Take away? Why?

• How would you compare our benefits to those in other companies?

What’s the right number of questions?

The right number depends on the complexity of your topic, the amount of interactivity and the timing of the focus group. In a typical 90-minute session, I usually have:

• Three to four sections

• Two to three main questions in each section

• Three to four supporting questions (also known as prompting questions) for each main question

Stuck developing questions? Try this…

Imagine yourself as a participant in a focus group:

• What do I know about this topic?

• How does this topic impact me? Is it critical for my job or my personal life? Or is it just nice to know?

• What are my biggest issues about this topic? What would get me talking about this issue?

If you try to cover too much with your questions, you may not get deep insight on any of the issues you’re exploring. Trying to cover too much can also be confusing for participants. Always ask, “Does this question support my objectives?”

After you generate a list of questions, organize them. Here are a few tips to help:

• Delete questions that feel the same as others, especially when the answers will be repetitive. There’s nothing worse than hearing a participant say, “We covered that already.”

• Identify questions that support main ones (I call these “prompting questions”) and nest them.

• Group the questions by the categories you created earlier.

What is a prompting question?

Prompting questions are follow-up or supporting questions to the main ones. They guide the moderator to ask follow-up questions if participants don’t bring up the issue first.

Example: Writing prompting questions that support a main question

Main question

Is your direct manager able to answer your questions about key business issues?

• Can you give me an example of a question that he/she couldn’t answer?

Prompting questions

• Why do you think he/she couldn’t answer?

• Are you comfortable asking tough questions?

• Would you ask tough questions in a group setting? In a one-on-one setting?

B. Add interaction

Most employees have spent too much time in boring meetings; as a result, they may be jaded and resistant. That’s why you should design focus groups to be fresh, lively and fun. The idea is to use games or exercises to give participants a chance to play a little.

You can use exercises at the beginning of a focus group as a warm-up or in the middle of the session, to explore a topic in more depth or simply to raise the energy level.

Interaction is not just a tactic to get people involved; it’s often a better way to gain insights. Exercises don’t exist for their own sake—they’re integrally linked to the topics being studied.

Tip

Watch the time devoted to exercises

While a terrific way for getting to the heart of issues, an exercise can be time-consuming, requiring 20 minutes or more. So the value of the exercise has to be weighed against the time it will take.

Review your questions carefully. Maybe there’s one or two that would work better as an exercise. Consider one of the following exercises to amp up the energy in the room. I’ve also included tips for using these exercises during web-based (virtual) focus groups.

Tip

Exercises are a great way to encourage participation when employees:

• Are introverted or shy

• Don’t speak the language of the moderator very well

• Are reluctant to appear critical or challenging

• Get distracted easily

• Feel nervous about giving “the right answer”

Word association or sentence completion

How it works: Ask employees to finish a sentence or freely associate about a topic. Use this tactic at the beginning of a session to get participants used to speaking up in front of each other. It’s also a great way to inject a little fun or boost energy during the middle of a session.

Virtual tip: To perform this exercise in a web-based focus group, share words or phrases using PowerPoint slides or a virtual white board and ask employees to respond using chat/instant messaging or call on them verbally.

Tip

Practice makes perfect

Test your exercise with a small group of colleagues before you start a focus group. The trial run will help you get the kinks out.

Short survey

How it works: Distribute a short survey and ask participants to circle an answer or fill in a blank. Consider using this tactic as a warm-up exercise or to transition to a new topic. Surveys are a low-risk way to get the conversation flowing, especially if participants are not used to speaking up in front of others or sharing their opinions.

Virtual tip: If you use this exercise in a web-based session, share the survey as a PowerPoint slide and ask employees to respond using web polling or instant messaging.

Drawing

How it works: Think Pictionary™! Use this tactic to explore a topic in great detail. Ask employees to draw a picture of a daily work challenge or a desired goal. The illustrations will provide a clear picture of the problem, such as missing tools, steps or knowledge. Keep in mind this exercise usually requires a significant time investment, so plan your agenda accordingly.

Virtual tip: This exercise is not appropriate for web-based focus groups.

Tip

Help shy or reluctant participants

If you have participants who are shy and not used to sharing opinions in the workplace, ask them to partner with a colleague or work in teams.

Grouping

How it works: Instruct employees to sort a series of words, pictures or ideas into categories. This hands-on activity is a fun way to get participants focused by asking them to solve a challenge. Similar to putting a puzzle together, this exercise calls for participants to move words around as they think about the grouping that makes the most sense to them.

Virtual tip: This exercise is not appropriate for web-based focus groups.

Voting

How it works: Ask participants to demonstrate their preferences by a show of hands or voting with stickers. If you’re looking for a quick and easy exercise, voting is for you. Use this tactic to get the pulse of opinions in the group before jumping into a topic.

Tip

Energize participants

To give your focus group a boost of energy, create an exercise that requires employees to get out of their seats. For example, ask them to vote with stickers on topics posted on a board.

Virtual tip: In a web-based focus group, use a PowerPoint slide for each question and ask employees to respond using web-polling or instant messaging.

Scenarios

How it works: Present a semi-fictional situation and ask participants how they would handle it. Use this tactic when employees are reluctant to criticize. Participants are more willing to offer advice on solving an issue when it’s a fictional situation.

Tip

How many exercises?

There’s no right number, but you don’t want to overload your agenda with too many exercises. As a rule of thumb, use one exercise per focus group, but if you have a challenging participant group, it may be necessary to include more than one to keep the conversation flowing.

Virtual tip: This approach works well in a web-based session. After you’ve shared your scenario, call on employees by name and ask how they would solve the problem.

Storytelling

How it works: Ask participants to talk about a past experience or give a personal example. Use this exercise when you want to understand how employees feel or what they believe. Storytelling helps shed light on why people have certain opinions or perceptions.

Virtual tip: To use this tactic in a web-based focus group, call on employees by name and ask them to share an experience they’ve had or have heard about from a co-worker.

C. Add introduction and conclusion

In addition to the body of your discussion guide, be sure to include an introduction and conclusion. Here are suggestions about what to cover:

In the introduction Sets the tone for the focus group and sets expectations

What to cover

Example of what to say

Start by introducing yourself and explaining the purpose of the focus group.

“Today we will discuss how well supervisors manage people.”

Next, give participants a chance to introduce themselves.

“Tell us your name and your job title.” (You might also ask where they work and how long they’ve been with the company.)

Be clear about how you intend to use the results you gather.

“Based on your feedback today, we will make changes to our benefits communication to make sure it’s meeting your needs.”

Ensure anonymity. Create a safe environment by assuring participants that their comments will be kept confidential.

“Anything we discuss during this focus group is confidential.”

Clearly describe the participants’ roles and responsibilities during the discussion.

“Please be involved and share your viewpoints.”

Inform participants that there are no right or wrong answers to questions, and that they should speak freely, without hesitation.

“I’m not looking for one response to any of the questions. I’m just hoping you will provide open, honest responses.”

Tell participants that you are recording the discussion, which will be used for analysis.

“We are recording this session; however, the audio file will only be used for analysis and not shared with others. Names will not be used.”

In the conclusion Demonstrates how participants’ feedback will be used and any next steps

What to cover

Example of what to say

Remind participants about what will happen next.

“Based on your feedback today, we will make changes to benefits communication to make sure it’s meeting your needs.”

Thank participants for sharing their feedback.

“Thank you for your candid feedback and helpful ideas.”

D. Structure the session

Now that you have the essential elements—introduction, questions, exercises and conclusion—it’s time to consider the structure of your discussion guide. The thoughtful ordering and timing of questions will do a lot to encourage participation.

The best focus groups have a logical flow that first puts participants at ease and then gets them charged up. It’s like playing a sport—you have to warm up first to reach peak performance.

Here are three ways to organize your questions and exercises, and finish your discussion guide:

Start with easier topics.

Determine which sections or groups of questions are easier for participants to discuss and move them to the front of the guide.

Is it better to start with tough questions or easy ones?

Warm up your group with easier topics. Allow them to start talking and sharing before you explore more complex or sensitive issues.

The idea is to start with topics that are safe, simple, not emotional or personal, and positive or neutral. Then, you can work up to the hard stuff: challenging, deep, more complex, emotional, personal and negative.

Easy or difficult? How do you decide?

Based on your knowledge of the organization, you can usually gauge whether a topic is easy or difficult. Here are some examples:

(Usually) easy issues

• Communication preferences

• Minor change in operating procedure

• Satisfaction with communication vehicles/channels; such as, the company newsletter and town hall meetings

(Often) difficult issues

• Morale

• Job satisfaction

• Values

• Reaction to a merger

• Major changes in operating procedure

Determine timing. A key step in completing the discussion guide is setting the time allotted for each section; that is, determining if each section will run five minutes, 10 minutes or longer. In a 90-minute focus group session, you should plan for approximately 60 to 70 minutes of content, since it’s not unusual to run over.

Here are a few guidelines to follow when estimating timing:

Five-minute sections are usually placed at the start of the focus group session or as transitions between longer sections.

10-minute sections are usually the areas of central concern that drive the study—they usually include the main probing questions.

15-minute+ sections represent a sizable time investment and should be used conservatively—they typically include exercises or very difficult topics.

Add instructions. If you have a number of moderators for the study, or even if you’re the only one, it’s a good practice to include specific instructions as reminders. For example, “Distribute surveys (and pens, if required),” or, “Collect participants’ ideas and post on board.”

E. Test and refine the guide

I recommend testing the questions before you start any focus group. Run through the questions with a trusted colleague or a small group, such as:

• Members of your research team

• Outside focus group experts

• Professional colleagues

For every question, ask yourself:

• How will this question help us reach our objectives? What will we learn?

• Are we willing to take action based on what we learn? (If not, it might be better to devote time to a different question.)

Tip

Provide timing cues

When drafting the discussion guide, identify how much time you want to spend on each section, then before each focus group, jot actual time codes at the end of each section. So if the discussion guide starts at 1 p.m., know that you want to finish the intro section by 1:10 p.m., the first exercise by 1:30 p.m., etc.

Conduct a pilot session

Now you’re ready to moderate a trial-run focus group. In an ideal world, this pilot would simply exist to get the final bugs out of the discussion guide—especially if you’re running a comprehensive study. But most professionals don’t have the luxury of conducting a group “just to test,” which is why the pilot is often integrated into the study. That’s okay as long as you don’t substantially alter the discussion guide between the pilot group and those that follow.

How did you do?

At the end of the pilot group, consider passing out a short written survey to assess the effectiveness of the session. (Let respondents fill them out anonymously so no one worries about hurting the moderator’s feelings.) This will help with identifying kinks in the discussion guide.

Also, try asking the group a few questions—think of it as a focus group within a focus group:

• How effective was today’s session?

• Were the questions clear and understandable?

• Did the flow of the discussion make sense to you?

• Were any topics or questions confusing?

• Is there anything you’d change about the questions?

Is a pilot focus group always necessary?

Even with the best review process, it’s amazing how using the discussion guide in a real focus group setting will change your perspective on many questions. So, use a pilot group if you can.

Tip

As you’re testing questions in a pilot session, consider:

• Does the question seem awkward when asked out loud?

• Do the words flow smoothly?

• Does the question sound conversational?

• Do participants respond to the question quickly?

• Are questions being misinterpreted?

• Do responses provide insight on the topic being examined?

• Does the question elicit strong feelings or viewpoints?

• Is the answer obvious or does the question suggest participants should answer a certain way?

Example: Creating a discussion guide

How to manage moderating

In this chapter, you’ll learn the six key elements:

A. Understand the moderator’s role

B. Decide who should moderate

C. Prepare for the upcoming focus group

D. Moderate the group

E. Handle challenges

F. Debrief after the focus group

Along the way, I’ll share a variety of tools to help you prepare for the session, successfully conduct the group and accurately summarize what happened.

A moderator is the person who leads a focus group. One of the most critical success factors in any focus group is how well the moderator manages the discussion so that everyone participates and the research objectives are met.

When do I absolutely need to hire a professional moderator?

When you need to ensure neutrality. One of the key attributes of a professional moderator is that employees will perceive him/her as being neutral, with no built-in biases or point of view. So if you absolutely need employees to be candid, a professional moderator is best.

A. Understand the moderator’s role

The focus group moderator plays a significant role in the research process. He/she must:

• Create a safe, comfortable environment

• Manage participants’ comments

• Set the tone for the discussion

• Keep the conversation on track

• Listen carefully to what is being said, while remembering what has been covered and what still needs to be covered

• Give everyone a chance to talk

• Know when to explore tangents and when to move along

• Cover the discussion guide in the time allotted

That’s a pretty tall order for anyone, which is why it is important to prepare and practice.

Example: Influencing participants

We were working with a pharmaceutical company on a focus group project. Due to budget constraints, our clients made the decision to moderate some of the groups on their own.

All seemed to go well until we started reading the transcripts. One of the staff members chosen to moderate the groups had a relative in a very high position—her father was a prominent VP in the division. As soon as she gave her unusual last name (which was the same as her father’s), employees froze. One even asked if her father was the VP. Just reading the transcripts, you could visualize employees nervously looking at each other. Feedback from the groups that this woman moderated was much less candid than in groups moderated by others.

B. Decide who should moderate

A key question is whether you should moderate the groups yourself, enlist the assistance of a colleague or hire a professional moderator. Here are some considerations to help you decide:

Who should moderate?

When to…

Factors

Use a professional moderator

Ask a colleague for help

Moderate your own groups

Experience

When neither you nor any of your colleagues have experience moderating and the stakes are high

When other departments (HR, training, market research, employee communication) have focus group experience—and time available

When your experience matches the needs of the study

Sensitive topics

When the topic being studied is sensitive or emotional, or when you have a vested interest in the outcome

When issues being studied are not particularly sensitive or emotional

When participants won’t view you as having a vested interest in the issues being discussed

Time and money

When it’s a priority to complete the project quickly

When leveraging colleagues for studies that require large geographic coverage to minimize travel costs

When it’s a small study or you have a limited budget for employee research

Tip

Train your colleagues

If you plan to use colleagues to moderate focus groups, ensure you’ve included time to train them. This is especially important if they have little facilitation experience or aren’t familiar with the subject matter.

Example: Staying neutral is key

For one project, we were asked to train two communicators to conduct focus groups. We reviewed the role of the moderator with the chosen staff members: keep the discussion on track, watch your time, stay neutral, etc. When the transcripts came back, it was clear that they ignored at least one rule.

The moderators, being too close to the topic, couldn’t stay neutral. They corrected participants—telling them a number of times, “That’s not quite right,” or, “No, we don’t really do it that way.” After this happened a few times, participants clammed up. We had to explain to our client that the results from the groups weren’t useful because the moderators’ bias had skewed the findings.

C. Prepare for the upcoming focus group

Moderating requires keen concentration and preparation. You need to be alert, mentally focused and able to ignore distractions.

Here are a few tips to help you prepare for your focus group:

Familiarize yourself with the discussion guide. Review the guide and envision yourself asking questions. Practice aloud in front of a mirror, with family members or with some trusted co-workers.

Decide how you will capture what people say. I recommend recording, but if that’s not possible, arrange for a colleague to take notes.

Make a checklist of everything you need to bring to the session. Here are items that are on my standard list:

Discussion guide

Handouts, such as warm-up survey or cards for sorting

Blank tent cards, so participants can write their names

Markers for name tents and flip charts

Pens or pencils for participants

Note pad and pen for yourself

Recording equipment

Directions to the site

Contact at the site

Debriefing form (see sample later in this chapter)

Arrive early. If you are traveling to another location for the focus group, arrive 30 to 60 minutes early and set aside some quiet time before the focus group. Relax, take a few deep breaths and reflect upon your role.

Set up the room. Familiarize yourself with the room and set it up. Make sure tables and chairs are arranged appropriately for participants to have a conversation; the best configuration is chairs set around a table rather than in rows. Arrange your notes and other papers. Set up and test your recording equipment.

Re-read the discussion guide. Refresh your memory about contents, since the sequence of questions is often modified in the natural flow of discussion. A working familiarity with the guide will help ensure that you cover all the essential points.

Arrange for recording or note taking

With all of the responsibilities of a moderator, it’s difficult to remember every nuance of a focus group. That’s where recording comes in. Most researchers consider recording a critical element of analyzing focus groups. Recordings are ideally sent to a transcriptionist, who prepares a document called a transcript (See "What is a transcriptionist" in Chapter 11). This ensures that findings are not affected by the (often faulty) memory of a moderator.

See Chapter 9 for tips on how to record a web-based focus group.

You have several options for recording focus groups. I recommend using a digital voice recorder with a USB interface, so you can transfer recordings directly to your computer and email them to the transcriptionist.

Tip

What to do if you can’t record

If you are unable to record the session, ask a second person to take notes. The moderator needs to listen carefully and focus completely on what each person is saying, and prepare for the next question.

Here is a checklist of recommended recording equipment:

Digital recording equipment:

Digital voice recorder with USB connection (I’ve had good luck with Olympus recorders.)

Two to three microphones that are compatible with your recorder (Manufacturers often sell a microphone kit to extend the range of the recorder’s mic.)

USB cable to transfer files to your computer

Backup batteries

Extension cord

Smartphone:

Recording app (If the app is new, test it before your first focus group.)

Microphone kit to extend the range of the smartphone’s microphone

USB cable to transfer files to your computer

Backup batteries

Extension cord

During the focus group:

Set your smartphone to airplane mode, so you’re not interrupted

Monitor your smartphone’s battery (Consider plugging it in.)

Tip

How to ensure a reliable recording

• Before the session, assemble and reassemble the equipment (so you’re familiar with how to do so)

• Test the equipment just before starting the group

• If the batteries have a built-in energy tester, test them before the session

• If a wall outlet is in reach, use the provided power cable instead of batteries

D. Moderate the group

You know those entertainers in Las Vegas who juggle a dozen plates—and sometimes also keep a ball, a chainsaw and a glass of orangeade in the air at the same time? That’s what it feels like to be a moderator. Within one focus group, you need to:

• Keep track of time

• Listen to what participants are saying

• Make sure everyone has an opportunity to talk

• Refer to the discussion guide to ask questions and keep the conversation on track

• Allow tangents and detours, but bring the discussion back to the topic at hand

• Diplomatically interrupt participants who ramble or speak too long

• Manage recording equipment and materials

• Cover all topics to meet the study’s objectives

• Paraphrase questions if participants don’t understand

To keep those plates in motion:

• Make a good first impression

• Set expectations

• Keep the session on track

• Ask follow-up questions

• Wrap it up

It’s my first time moderating. What should I do to improve my skills?

The best way to build your moderating skills is to practice. I recommend enlisting the assistance of four or five colleagues to participate in a mock focus group. (If possible, include someone who has moderating, facilitating or training experience.)

You should ask your volunteers to commit 60 to 90 minutes; providing them with breakfast or lunch is always a good incentive.

Prepare for the session by becoming familiar with the discussion guide. If you are using an exercise or game, have all the necessary sheets or materials.

To make the session as much a learning experience for you as possible, structure it as follows:

• Explain the purpose if participants aren’t aware of it.

• Encourage participants to have fun and role play. For instance, assign each member a role (e.g., an employee from a particular department or one of the participation challenges described in the table: How to deal with challenging participants).

• During the mock focus group, ask people not to break character until the group is over.

Conduct a debrief

After the group has concluded, ask for feedback:

• How was the experience overall? Were there enough chances to participate?

• What do you think I handled well? What situations seemed more difficult?

• What suggestions do you have to help me improve my moderating?

Make a good first impression

Your first action is to establish a safe environment. As with any social or business situation, first impressions count for a lot. Your first contact with participants should be welcoming and appreciative. Here are some tips for creating a safe environment:

• Smile and shake participants’ hands as they come into the room

• Offer them food or a beverage

• Be friendly

• Make small talk

• Direct them to their seats

• Let them know they can ask you questions

• Thank them for their time

Tip

Casual and friendly builds trust

Don’t worry, be happy. Try not to be too formal or rigid. Smile, be friendly and speak in a conversational tone.

Set expectations

This may be participants’ first experience in a focus group, so they could be a bit nervous not knowing what to expect. As moderator, it’s your job to help them feel at ease by explaining the purpose of and process for the session.

When everyone is in the room and you’re ready to begin, welcome participants and thank them for their time (as part of your discussion guide; see "Add introduction and conclusion" in Chapter 7). Your introduction should:

• Explain the reason for the session, areas for discussion, length of the session, etc.

• Explain that your role is to guide the discussion and ask questions

• Review guidelines or ground rules, such as being polite, not interrupting, turning off devices, etc.

• Emphasize that each participant’s opinion counts and that there are no wrong answers

• Ensure confidentiality; assure participants that you will not include names or other identifying details in your report

Keep the session on track

After the focus group has started, your main role is to keep the discussion on track. Because questions are open-ended, the conversation can take unexpected directions and uncover new issues. As moderator, you need to decide when to allow tangents and when to bring the discussion back to the main subject. This is tricky because you don’t want to let tangents continue to the point where you lose control of the group, but you also don’t want to ignore important issues that come up.

How do you decide when to end a tangent? It depends on the composition and chemistry of the group. Sometimes, a lively tangent means that participants are talking about an issue that is very important to them. It’s up to you to decide whether to deal with it right away and clear the air, or to spend time on other issues first and come back to the hot topic later.

There are no clear-cut rules on what to do. Consider how the tangent aligns (or doesn’t) with your research objective, but use your instincts and best judgment to guide you through these situations.

What should I do if I need to bring people back to the topic at hand?

Try gently guiding participants, “Well, I see you all have strong feelings about that, but let’s get back to the main topic.”

Tip

Body language says a lot

Watch body language and nonverbal cues. Avoid judging a participant’s response by rolling your eyes or shrugging your shoulders.

Ask follow-up questions

If a participant’s answer isn’t clear, ask follow-up questions to get more in-depth information. Listen to what participants are saying and give everyone a chance to talk. Clarifying questions include:

“Can you give me an example of that?”

“Please tell me a little more about that.”

“How does that work?”

“Could you explain that further?”

“Does anyone else have a similar perspective? Or a different view?”

Wrap it up

After the discussion, thank participants for their time and input. If possible, tell employees how you intend to use the information you’ve gathered.

Should I deviate from the discussion guide?

As a rule, no. But if the conversation is going in a direction that you feel directly contributes to your research objectives, allow yourself to ask one or two new questions. You can also plan for this situation by including prompting questions—follow-up questions that you may or may not have to cover depending whether participants bring up the issue on their own.

Don’t be surprised if people don’t rush out the door at the end of the session. Participants sometimes want to continue chatting with others, which is why it’s important to leave enough time between focus group sessions.

Be the best moderator you can be

Do this…

Don’t do this…

Put people at ease

Let one participant dominate the conversation

Listen more than talk

Talk too much

Remain objective

Offer opinions or express emotion

Engage participants

Disregard participants’ input

Focus on the topic

Allow participants to take over the discussion

Move the group along

Act confused

Be inclusive

Focus on one or two participants

Read people’s body language

Ignore nonverbal cues

Maintain a calm environment while sounding enthusiastic

Get emotional and lead participants

Improvise

Stick with a line of questioning when participants have moved on

Be flexible

Be rigid

Maintain eye contact

Get distracted easily

E. Handle challenges

Unfortunately, bad things sometimes happen to good focus groups. Even the best planning in the world cannot always prevent things from going wrong. Here are some ways to cope:

Manage too many/too few participants

Too few. You’ve invited 12 people, 10 confirmed, and here it is 10 minutes past the scheduled start of the focus group and only four people have arrived. Assuming employees arrive promptly for meetings in your organization, you have a problem. Our rule is that even if only one person shows up, you have to hold a “group.” Not doing so is disrespectful of your participants’ time.

However, you’ll need to note in your findings that the results from small groups might be skewed. Depending on the people involved, a small group can influence participants in two opposite ways:

• Some people might feel “safer” in a small group and say things they would not have said in front of a larger group

• Others might feel more “on display” and hence be more guarded about what they say in a smaller group

Just keep the size of the group in mind when it comes time to analyze your findings.

Too many. Because your organization has a high no-show rate to meetings, you’ve invited 18 people. Fifteen confirmed and you’re expecting 10 to attend. But to your surprise, not only do 14 of those who confirmed appear promptly at the designated time, so do two who said they couldn’t come! There are several ways to handle this:

• If you have another moderator available, split the group in half and hold two sessions.

• If that’s not an option, hold the group, but be especially wary of tangents. A big group makes it more difficult to hear from everyone and still cover all the issues in the discussion guide.

• If you’re feeling overloaded, before you start, choose a few people at random, thank them for coming and release them back to work.

Control the environment

A distraction is anything that diverts attention from the topic:

• Noise outside the room

• Temperature of the room (too hot or too cold)

• Windows or glass walls that allow participants to see outside the room

• Phones or other devices going off throughout the session

Example: Encouraging participants to stay

I recently led a web-based focus group to test the effectiveness of an intranet site for managers. It quickly became apparent that most of the participants had not used the site. In fact, one participant said, “I shouldn’t be here because I don’t use the site.”

It was a dangerous moment because there were a lot of participants in the same situation. Because the perspective of the nonusers was critical—I needed to find out why they didn’t visit the site—I did two things to hold onto participants:

1. I responded directly to the comment, “I shouldn’t be here,” by letting the participant know that his perspective would help me create a realistic picture of the usefulness of the site.

2. Throughout the focus group, I called on several nonusers by name to get their perspectives. For example, I asked, “If this is the first time you’ve seen this feature, what do you think? What would draw you to the site to use this feature?”

As a moderator, your job is to minimize distractions, if possible. Pull blinds or curtains to eliminate distracting views. Try to find someone to help you control the temperature in the room. If there are people working outside of the room, ask them to please remain quiet for the duration of the session. It’s a good rule of thumb to ask people to turn phones and other devices off at the beginning of each session.

Deal with misbehaving participants

It’s bound to happen—the focus group has just started and a participant decides it’s his/her job to answer every question in detail at great length. Or another participant starts to respond but then wanders off into a confusing tangent that has nothing to do with what’s being discussed. Or still another participant sits in his/her chair like a clam, opening the shell only long enough to say “yes” or “no.” How do you deal with these obstacles? Here are some techniques:

How to deal with challenging participants

Challenge

Solution

Example

The rambler: This person begins talking about one idea and this leads to another until the person gets lost—far from his or her original idea.

Refocus the discussion; get the other participants involved.

“Thanks, Joe, for those thoughts. Would anyone like to add anything on the point Joe was making about [the original topic]?”

The talker: This person monopolizes the conversation and does not give others a chance to contribute.

Acknowledge the speaker’s expertise and then turn back to the group and engage their ideas.

“Thanks—you obviously have a lot of experience with this topic. Now I’d like to hear from someone else. Who else has some thoughts about this?”

Poor communicator: This person has good ideas, but cannot seem to put them into a form that others can understand easily.

Do not call attention to the problem. Instead, clarify the idea.

“I want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. To paraphrase…”

Introvert: This person may be shy, timid or insecure about his/her views.

Gain interest by asking for his/her opinion, but be careful not to put the person on the spot.

“Let’s make sure we’re hearing from everyone. Joan, would you give me your thoughts on [this topic]?”

Sidetracker: Side chatter is usually personal in nature, but it can be related to the topic at hand.

Do not embarrass those engaged in side talk. Ignore sidetrackers, but not for long. If it continues, explain that you are having difficulty hearing or focusing.

“I want to make sure we capture what everyone is saying. Jim and Sally, can you share your thoughts on [this topic]?”

Example: Dealing with participants who take over

In a focus group session about human resources issues, several employees spoke about their unhappiness with a recent compensation change. After a few comments, one woman took control of the discussion and challenged the facilitator. “It comes down to the fact that we were ripped off,” she said. “What will you do to fix it? And when?”

The moderator naturally felt challenged, but also knew that it wasn’t her role to solve the problem, just help participants raise issues. So instead of answering directly, the moderator:

• Restated the objective of the session: “We’re here to talk about your experience with the performance management system. I appreciate your comments.”

• Reinforced what would happen with the employees’ input: “We’ll share your feedback with the HR team, so they understand where the challenges are.”

F. Debrief after the focus group

When the focus group is over, you should take a few minutes to debrief either alone or with a colleague. It is best to debrief immediately after the focus group, especially if the session was not recorded.

Always check your recorder immediately after the focus group session ends. If it did not work, and you did not have a note taker, then immediate debriefing is critical.

The debriefing can last 10 minutes to an hour, depending on the complexity of the information discussed.

Here are some tips for debriefing:

• Don’t start until all of the participants have left. If they don’t leave the room, you and your colleague (if one is helping you) should find a quiet place where you can talk privately.

• Complete the debriefing form.

• Capture your thoughts. Write key thoughts so that you can refer to them later.

How to handle comments after the focus group

Occasionally, participants might approach you after the session is over and attempt to share additional information with you. Generally, the recorder is off and most others have left the room when this happens. Here’s what to do:

• Keep track of time

• Pull out a notebook and take notes

• Ask the person why he/she did not raise the point during the session

• If the comment is relevant or important, include it in your final report, but make a note that it occurred after the session ended

While face-to-face focus groups remain the gold standard, virtual or web-based focus groups (where the moderator is in one location and participants log in from remote locations) are sometimes necessary, especially when:

• You want to include employees from many locations in the study

• You have a limited budget to send a moderator to each location or bring local moderators together for a training workshop

• You don’t have much time, but need to include a large number of people in the study

• Your organization is global and tries to operate virtually, so you need to honor that practice

Put simply: Virtual focus groups save time and money. And they can increase the validity of your data by including the perspectives of employees you might typically overlook for face-to-face sessions.

If you decide to include virtual sessions in your study, here are five to-do items:

A. Choose your virtual location

B. Select a teleconference service

C. Record your session

D. Set up your virtual focus group

E. Conduct your session

A. Choose your virtual location

Just as you would book a room for face-to-face sessions, you will need a virtual place for participants to gather. The first step is choosing a web conferencing service (audio and web-based meeting room).

A sampling of web conferencing applications and services:

• WebEx (Cisco)

• Live Meeting (Microsoft® Office)

• Adobe® Connect

• GoToMeeting (Citrix)

Tip

Don’t mix participants: some in the room and others on the phone

Whether you use a web platform or videoconferencing, here’s what NOT to do: Invite some people to a face-to-face focus group and invite others to join via phone or web meeting. This creates a “have/have not” situation where the people who aren’t in the room may feel excluded.

Make sure the web conferencing service you select has the features needed to support the interactive components of your focus group. Find out what is offered by your service provider and consider how to use these features. For example, using polling questions will give participants a more active role.

Web conferencing features may include:

• Presentation sharing

• Video

• Using “whiteboard” annotation tools

• Sharing an application

• Chatting/instant messaging

• Surveying or polling

What about videoconferencing?

If your company has state-of-the-art videoconferencing, you may consider using it to conduct virtual groups. Just keep in mind:

• Less advanced videoconferencing is still glitchy and jumpy, so it doesn’t replicate the face-to-face experience. This is often distracting.

• Many people are camera-shy, so they find videoconferencing inhibiting—not ideal when you’re trying to get candid opinions.

• Before you set up a focus group using videoconferencing, make sure all of your targeted participants have access.

Since technical glitches do happen, be sure to find a vendor with customer service representatives available to troubleshoot.

B. Select a teleconference service

While most web conferencing services have an integrated audio component, in some cases it’s more effective (quality and cost)to use a separate teleconferencing service. For example, if your organization has a preferred service, it’s likely the calling rates have been negotiated and will therefore be lower than those offered by your web conferencing provider.

There are also a number of external service providers offering competitive calling rates. For an accurate cost estimate, be sure to tell the vendor:

• The length of the call

• The total number of callers you expect on the line

• Whether you need toll-free or toll calling

• Whether all callers are from the same country or whether it’s an international call

C. Record your session

Whether you choose to use the audio component offered by your web conferencing service or an external teleconferencing service provider, investigate the service’s recording capabilities. Recording is considered part of the standard process for conducting focus groups. (For more information on recording, see Chapter 8.)

Can I conduct a focus group by phone only, without using a web conferencing service?

It’s not ideal. I highly recommend you use a web conferencing service for a number of reasons:

• You’ll know who is on the call—based on the fact that participants sign on to the web conference—making it easier to facilitate and ask questions

• Web conferencing allows you to share a file, such as PowerPoint, or other visuals with the participants to help them focus

• It enables interaction—online chat, polling, voting, whiteboarding, raising virtual hands—that is missing on a teleconference

Tip

Help the moderator focus

Consider where the moderator will conduct the group. He/she will need a quiet room where there won’t be background noise or distractions.

If your service provider charges a fee to record your session, you may consider recording the focus group audio on your own. You’ll need the following recording equipment:

• Digital phone recorder with USB interface

• Backup batteries and/or power cord

Prior to the focus group, your vendor(s) should provide you with:

• A web address, host password (for use by the moderator) and participant password

• A dial-in number (domestic and international), host password and participant password

• Instructions for participants

D. Set up your virtual focus group

Here’s how to plan your virtual focus group to ensure your session goes without a hitch:

• Set your focus group start time for 15 minutes before the actual start time so you and participants can log in early

• Since some web conferencing applications can take a few minutes to load, ask participants to join early to ensure they don’t hold up the session

• Double-check that the features you want to use—chat, polling, etc.—are enabled

E. Conduct your session

Virtual focus groups may seem like an easy alternative to face-to-face groups, but they pose unique challenges for the session moderator. Here are two that are especially difficult for those new to moderating virtual focus groups:

• Keeping participants focused

• Encouraging participation

What you need to know before setting up your virtual focus group:

• What date will your focus group be held?

• What is the start time and end time?

• What is the title of your focus group session?

• Who will moderate?

• Will there be international participants?

• How many participants will join the call?

Challenge: Keeping participants focused

Because attendees are participating from the comfort of their offices, they are more prone to distractions like checking email, taking a call or chatting with a co-worker. Use a presentation to keep participants focused. Here’s what to include in your slides:

Challenge: Encouraging participation

Without the benefits of face-to-face interaction—body language, facial expressions, etc.—it’s tough to encourage and ensure equal participation. Use visuals to keep participants engaged. Here are some options to consider:

Not sure if you’ve heard from everyone? Use a roll call to get answers to vital questions. Here’s an example of how it would work.

Moderator: For the next question, I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to share his or her opinion. Therefore, I’ll call on you by name to answer the question. Bill, let’s start with you. Do you think the current website is easy to navigate?

Here are other ways to hold participants’ attention and encourage participation:

• Browse a website or share an application with the group.

• Use a whiteboard and annotation tools to brainstorm ideas or collect feedback.

• Ask participants to answer a question in the chat, then use those responses as a way to stimulate further discussion. For example, “Joe, when you say information is ‘difficult to find,’ could you give me an example of what you mean?”

Example: Exploring how well a system works for users

The Product Development group at a global industrial company knew that employees weren’t actively using a system designed to generate new product ideas and bring those ideas to fruition. So the group conducted two virtual focus groups:

• The first was with professionals throughout the organization who execute new product development

• The second was with “gatekeepers”—managers who evaluate ideas and help get them launched

The Product Development group wanted to make the focus groups as participative as possible. So, during the 90-minute session a variety of techniques were used to involve people:

• The first segment featured a word association exercise where participants offered synonyms for key terms

• The moderator showed screenshots of the product development website and asked questions to provide feedback on specific aspects of the site

• Participants completed a five-question poll on one topic

• Twice during the discussion, the moderator used a “roll call” to make sure each participant had a chance to respond

While focus groups are the most popular and frequently used form of qualitative research, there are certain times when an alternative method, such as one-on-one interviews, may be more appropriate.

Like focus groups, interviews are a form of research that involves talking with employees. Both approaches require a facilitator to lead a face-to-face or virtual discussion using a series of open-ended questions. The main difference is that interviews are typically conducted with one individual at a time while focus groups involve multiple participants.

The biggest drawback with interviews is they lack group interaction. As a result, the interviewer misses out on hearing opposing viewpoints and reacting to what other people say about a particular issue.

Key advantages of one-on-one interviews:

• You don’t have to worry about managing group dynamics

• Responses are not biased by “group think” (when participants respond the same way rather than individually)

• Each interview can be adjusted to different personality styles

• Participants tend to be more comfortable sharing criticism

Here are four considerations when you’re planning one-on-one interviews:

• When to use interviews

• How to develop an interview guide

• Tips for conducting interviews

• What to do after you’ve completed the interviews

When to use interviews

Depending on your research objectives and organizational culture, you can use interviews on their own or in conjunction with focus groups. Here are some basic guidelines to consider:

Focus groups vs. interviews

Issue

Use focus groups when:

Use interviews when:

Subject matter

The subject matter is neutral and employees will feel comfortable sharing their true feelings in front of a group

The subject matter is highly charged/sensitive and employees will not feel comfortable sharing their true feelings in front of a group

Group dynamic

The group dynamic will help challenge employees’ thinking and bring opposing views to the surface

The group dynamic will inhibit responses and bias the research findings

Depth of responses

Employees can share their perspectives on each of the topics in a few minutes or less

A greater depth of response is required from each individual employee

Cultural issues

Employees are comfortable sharing feedback

Employees from certaincultures may be uncomfortable being candid in a group setting

How to develop an interview guide

As with focus groups, you need a written guide to help you conduct one-on-one interviews. The purpose is to help you stay on track, cover all the bases and remain consistent. Whether you develop your interview guide from scratch or modify it from a focus group discussion guide, there are several factors to consider:

Length. Focus group discussion guides tend to be long and comprehensive, while interview guides are shorter and contain fewer questions. This format supports the structure and style of interviews, which are more open-ended and free-flowing than focus groups. The downside is it requires you to periodically go off script and improvise throughout the course of the interview.

For example, let’s say you’re interviewing plant managers from 20 different facilities and one of your objectives is to learn about the current state of local communication vehicles. Your interview guide should contain a few general questions related to this topic, but you’ll need to think on your feet and ask the appropriate follow-up questions based on each manager’s response.

Complexity. One of the most important things to keep in mind when developing an interview guide is to keep it simple. Interviews shouldn’t include warm-up activities such as pulse surveys or interactive exercises, such as role playing. While these techniques are valuable for moderating group discussions, they don’t work in one-on-one situations. Instead, the interview process should be a straightforward conversation between two people.

Tip

Keep interviews simple

When it comes to drafting an interview guide, remember less is more.

Structure. While interviews aren’t as scripted as focus groups tend to be, you still need a solid foundation. Below is a basic outline for developing an interview guide:

• Introduction: Provide a brief summary about why you’re conducting the interview and the key topics you’ll cover.

• Body: Include all the questions you want to ask (grouped into similar categories, if appropriate). Here are some sample questions taken from interviews with senior executives about the role of Corporate Communication as a strategic business partner:

– From your perspective, what role does Corporate Communication play in supporting the company’s success?

– Do you feel Corporate Communication is fulfilling this role? Why or why not?

– Can you recall a recent project/effort that Corporate Communication handled successfully? What made it successful? Can you recall one that was not handled successfully? What was the problem/challenge?

– If you could change one thing about Corporate Communication, what would it be?

– If the company were to achieve the ideal state of internal communication, how would it look?

• Conclusion: Explain what happens next in the research process and thank the interviewee for participating.

Tips for conducting interviews

You could have the greatest interview guide in the world, but without a skilled interviewer, it won’t do much good. Whether you decide to take on the role yourself or assign it to someone else, the interviewer is ultimately responsible for successfully meeting the research objectives.

How long should a typical interview last?

The ideal interview time is approximately 30 minutes.Depending on the subject matter and amount of information you need to gather, you can increase the time to a maximum of 60 minutes, but only if the person you’re interviewing can spare time from his/her job responsibilities.

How do you know if you or one of your colleagues has what it takes? For starters, it requires the ability to apply many of the same techniques used for moderating focus groups:

• Listen carefully and focus on what the person is saying

• Maintain eye contact or, if you’re on the phone, use confirming statements or follow-up questions

• Stay on track

• Remain neutral; don’t interject your views

• Ask follow-up questions if responses aren’t clear

Be prepared to adjust your interviewing style and approach to match each participant’s personality. The following table contains common problems with participants and tips on how to handle these situations if they happen to you:

Common interviewing challenges

Challenge

Description

Solution

Data dumping

Responses are mired down with too many technical details

Acknowledge the interviewee’s expertise and then specify the level of detail you’re looking for

Lack of substance

Responses are vague and nondescript

After each vague response, ask the interviewee to provide an example

One-word answers

Interviewee gives brief responses without details

Be prepared to ask follow-up questions to probe deeper and uncover what he/she is thinking

Off topic

Responses are unrelated to the main subject or often go off track

Remind him/her about your question or research objectives, including what’s in and out of scope

Rapid pace

Responses are rushed, making it difficult for you to follow along and stay on track

Ask him/her to slow down and/or repeat responses

Tip

Know how to deal with different personalities

To become an effective interviewer, you must be familiar with different personality types and know how to address related barriers to keep the discussion running smoothly.

After you’ve completed the interviews

After you’ve finished all the interviews, you should feel a sense of accomplishment. But don’t get too relaxed—you still have some hard work ahead of you. The next steps in the process include analyzing the results and determining key findings.

Many of the same steps for managing and reporting focus group data apply to one-on-one interviews. For example, it’s important for the interviewer to take a moment after each discussion to complete a debriefing form. Moderators use this same technique following focus group sessions to highlight key themes expressed, specific words or phrases used repeatedly, etc. These forms serve as a valuable reference when you get to the analysis stage.

If your study includes both interviews and focus groups, you’ll need to handle the analysis process differently than if it’s a stand-alone effort. When using both forms of qualitative research, it’s important to compare results and identify similarities and differences before reaching conclusions.

See Chapter 11 for more information about analyzing data.

Should I record my interviews?

Yes—whenever possible, record. It’s challenging enough to listen carefully and focus completely on what the interviewee is saying. Add to this the responsibility of taking notes to capture the interviewee’s comments and you’re making your job harder. Recording and transcribing the interview ensures accuracy in reporting the findings.

See Chapter 8 for tips on using recording equipment.

Example: Interviewing plant managers

A manufacturing company’s business unit sought to improve communication with employees. So a study was developed with these objectives:

• Understand the current state of communication at all of the plants

• Identify best practices as well as areas for improvement

• Establish a baseline in order to measure future progress

The audit consisted of an employee survey, analysis of local communication vehicles and interviews with plant managers. The audit manager selected interviews over focus groups because:

Logistics. It was impossible to coordinate plant managers’ schedules and get them together at the same place or time.

Honesty. Plant managers would be more candid and open about sensitive issues in a one-on-one setting versus a room filled with peers.

Differences among plants. Because each plant manager oversaw a unique operation, more time was needed to conduct an in-depth investigation of communication needs and challenges facing each facility.

Sample questions from the interviews

• What types of communication vehicles are currently used to share information with employees at your site?

• What vehicles do you believe are most effective in reaching your employees? Which are least effective?

• What is your biggest challenge in communicating with employees?

Although every aspect of a focus group study takes effort, in many ways the most difficult part of any project is making sense of the rich data that emerges.

Focus groups produce a large quantity of information that must be organized and summarized. Think of it as building a complicated jigsaw puzzle, but here’s the catch: You don’t have the picture on the box.

The key steps in analyzing findings are:

A. Revisit your objectives

B. Capture the big ideas from each session

C. Mine the data for answers to your questions

D. Build detailed findings

E. Decide on key findings

“Humans have a tendency to see or hear selectively only those comments that confirm a particular point of view or a tendency to avoid dealing with information that causes dissonance.”

—Richard A. Krueger, professor and evaluation leader at the University of Minnesota

A. Revisit your objectives

I realize this is beginning to sound like a broken record, but…revisit your objectives. You’re about to be inundated with data—some will be important, some not so much. Keeping your objectives top of mind will help you filter appropriately.

B. Capture the big ideas from each session

Return to the debriefing forms (see template in Chapter 8) for each focus group and review them.

• What are the one or two ideas that the moderator identified?

• Are there ideas that are consistent across the groups?

Do I always need to transcribe focus groups?

The short answer is yes. Transcriptions make it much easier to analyze the data and identify quotes to support your key findings. But, if you don’t have the budget for professional transcriptions, look for an administrative assistant in your organization who has transcribed recordings in the past. Or, plan ahead and have an experienced note taker at each session. Think courtroom transcriptionist.

What is a transcriptionist?

A transcriptionist types up a piece of audio—either recorded or live—into a text document, so it can be read, coded and referred to later.

Finding a transcriptionist

You can find transcriptionists or digital services by searching online or asking colleagues and friends for recommendations.

How much does a transcription cost?

Rates vary widely depending on a number of factors, including:

• Whether you use a person or an automated/digital service

• The length of the audio file

• The number of speakers and if you need each person identified (It’s best not to identify speakers to protect their anonymity; ask the transcriptionist to identify “moderator” and “participant”.)

• The type and quality of the audio (Most transcriptionists apply additional fees for poor quality audio.)

• How quickly you need the transcription (Most charge rush fees.)

• If any of the participants have moderate or heavy accents

You can expect to pay approximately $1.50 to $2.50 per minute for good-quality, digital recordings on a standard turnaround (three to five business days).

Rush fees, as well as poor audio quality or background noise, may raise the cost to between $2.75 and $4.00 per minute. Be sure to ask your transcriptionist to clearly outline standard fees, as well as extra charges you may incur.

C. Mine the data for answers to your questions

Transcribe participants’ comments

It’s much easier to review a focus group by reading a transcription, rather than listening to a recording. Depending on the size of your study, you can send your recordings to a transcriptionist, or an automated service, as focus groups are completed. This will prevent a logjam of work.

If you conduct virtual focus groups, your web meeting or tele-conference supplier will most likely provide recordings. Some of these companies also provide transcription services for an additional fee.

If you use a transcriptionist, he/she will provide a text file (usually in Microsoft Word) for analysis. Ask him/her to remove names mentioned during the session so participants remain anonymous. Usually the name is replaced with “participant” or “employee.”

Sort responses and code comments

After all the groups have been conducted, it’s time to read through transcripts. It’s a good practice to take two passes:

1. During your first pass, find each of your main questions and identify corresponding responses.

2. During the second round (designed to help you think at a higher level), let your main questions fade in the background and look for themes across the entire session. This is done by coding.

Tip

Keep objectives top of mind

Post your objectives on the wall, so you don’t forget what you’re trying to find.

Isn’t there a simpler way to do this?

While coding feels excessive, it’s a tried-and-true practice of analyzing qualitative data. There are software packages available to help automate the process; however, most have a steep learning curve so if you’re pressed for time, you may want to manually code your transcripts.

Coding is a simple process, but it takes time and discipline. The trick is to identify relevant comments, interpret those comments and flag each with a code—a word or two that summarizes the idea. (You can manage this process with software or manually.)

For example, if a participant says, “I have too much information coming at me from too many sources. I don’t know which is more important.” The reviewer might code this “information overload” and “can’t prioritize.” Typically, a sentence, phrase or exchange is coded once, but there may be times when the participant(s) are talking about a few things (as with our example).

You have a decision to make here—you can do it on your own or you can invite others to participate. (See sidebar: It takes a team.)

Once you (and/or members of the team) have read through all the transcripts, tally the number of times each code appears. (If you’ve chosen to use software, it should do this automatically.)

Some codes will be used many times, while others may only be used a few times. For example, if “information overload” comes up 30 times, while “can’t prioritize” only occurs three times, then it’s likely that “information overload” is a key issue.

Here are some rules of the road when it comes to coding:

• Build your list of codes as you read the transcript—let participants tell you what’s important.

• Be as consistent as possible with your codes. For example, if you use the code “information overload” once, keep using it throughout the transcript. If you mix it up by saying “information overload” sometimes and “too much information” at other times, it will be difficult to find common themes.

• When creating your code list, keep phrases simple. Use only a few words and limit one thought to each code. For example, don’t say, “information is timely and clear.” Instead create two codes. One for “information is timely,” and one for “information is clear.”

It takes a team

I recommend using a team to read and code the transcripts, discuss what it all means and write/review the report.

There are two reasons to use this approach:

1. Analyzing focus group findings is hard work and there’s lots of it. It’s not uncommon for a single focus group transcript to run 30 pages. Especially if time is short, it makes more sense to divide and conquer the tasks.

2. You can increase the quality of your conclusions by collaborating. Since everyone has biases and assumptions, challenging others’ ideas, and being challenged in turn, makes the conclusions less influenced by a single perspective. It’s especially important to challenge moderators, who usually have a strong perspective on the findings because one or two things get stuck in their memories.

Note: Ask people to read the transcripts from groups that they did not moderate. This way, moderators remember their own groups and become aware of what was said in other groups.

Coding can be done in one of two ways:

• Using qualitative analysis software

• Printing transcripts and coding them manually by highlighting quotes and/or writing notes in the margins

Software

You can purchase software that searches for key words, keeps track of your codes and counts your codes. With most software, you can also apply multiple codes to the same quote.

Try a Google search with “qualitative research software” and you’ll find a number of options. Keep in mind that most require a steep learning curve.

Manual coding

If you can’t use software to code your transcripts, you can still do it the old-fashioned way: Print the transcripts and highlight quotes and/or write in the margins.

Some people use a color-coding system to flag key points in the transcripts. For example, use:

• A blue highlighter to mark verbatim comments that pertain to the main area of study

• Yellow and orange highlighters to flag two or more key study areas

• A pink highlighter to mark an important issue for participants that wasn’t in the discussion guide

Tip

Own the transcript

When working as a team, it’s helpful if each reviewer owns his/her transcripts. In other words, he/she brings the perspective of the employees represented in the transcript to the table.

Codes:

• Spin

• Be candid

• More from senior leaders

• Information overload

Sample transcript with margin codes

Male

Yeah. I mean, to me it’s…it’s just company propaganda. How wonderful we are. And with all the information coming at us, it makes it even more difficult to find what is meaningful. I mean, it’s almost like these are things that should be put in HR for people coming through to…to get a job with the company or something. I don’t know.

Spin

Information overload

Female

They should call it the packet or something.

—

Female

I mean, cause it doesn’t, you know, the message about, you know, where we really need to focus…you know, sometimes it just has to come from senior management. Sometimes you just want to hear from your leader. It just, you know, we don’t ever see them outside of one annual town hall.

More from senior leaders

Male

I agree about the propaganda. I mean…it’s not even real or believable. Everything you read is so sanitized and like, just tell the truth and treat us like, you know…adults.

Spin

Be candid

D. Build detailed findings

For each of your main questions, review the transcripts and develop a response summarizing what employees said and why. In some cases, you may have to include opposing views because participants didn’t agree.

E. Decide on key findings

The fifth step is where disparate findings come together into a cogent analysis. While this is easiest and most effective to do with a group, you can fly solo. But I recommend enlisting trusted colleagues to review your work and challenge your assumptions.

After transcripts have been reviewed, answers to key questions sorted and themes identified, it’s time to bring everything together. You need to explore:

• Answers to each of your main questions

• Key points raised by employees that address the study objective(s):

– Compare codes and the number of times they appear (You’ll need to reconcile differences between codes if reviewers named themes differently but meant the same thing.)

– Identify key points and reasons to support them

• Similarities among and differences between groups or population segments

• Key points raised by participants that weren’t part of the discussion guide (See side bar: Reporting out of scope findings)

As you and/or your team members read through the transcripts, don’t forget to:

• Review the moderator’s debriefing notes and consider his/her perspective on the objectives

• Look for similarities and differences among the groups

• Identify overarching themes

• Separate ideas that are not part of the study, but are important or relevant

As you work through the data, decide whether you’re seeing patterns or overarching concepts. For example, you might see a bunch of data points that, when bundled together, demonstrate a lack of knowledge of key business issues. Your objective is to identify three to five key findings (supported by multiple proof points) that are aligned with your research objectives.

The challenging part of this process is being as unbiased and clear as possible. Concentrate on what participants said and how they said it. Be open to trends that develop as you put all the groups together. Remember that analysis is a process of comparison; it’s about finding patterns and seeing what fits and what doesn’t.

As a result, remember to:

• Be conscious about whether what people said fits your assumptions or whether participants’ comments contradict what you thought was true

• Let objectives guide your conclusions (Keep in mind that objectives are what you wanted to accomplish before beginning the study; as a result, they continue to provide guidance about what happened.)

• Don’t attempt to answer every question or cover every topic in your key findings since you’ll summarize in the detailed findings (Remember that questions were designed to build toward objectives, so 80% or more of what participants say in focus groups simply builds the foundation for the core conclusions.)

If the study topic is complex or conclusions are not clear, sometimes it’s a good idea to let your initial conclusions percolate for a day or two before returning to the analysis process.

What to do with out-of-scope findings

It never fails to happen: No matter how carefully you structure and test your discussion guide, a participant will introduce a topic from left field—and all the other participants will chime in and add their opinions. It really gets interesting when one group has a burning issue that’s not on your radar, but is very much on the minds of employees. The topic may even come up again and again throughout the study.

What do you do about this surprise topic? If it’s loosely related to your main study, by all means use it—and depending on the level of intensity, make it a key finding.

If the surprise topic falls outside of your objectives, you can create a category in your report called “Out-of-scope findings,” where oddities like these could reside.

What if the topic is highly inflammatory or controversial? For example, we conducted a study where employees spoke vehemently and negatively about the company’s CEO. In their minds, the CEO had acted in a way that was dishonest, insensitive and dumb. (It doesn’t get more politically charged than that!) Because this particular company had a history of shelving research that told the painful and revealing truth, we conferred with our client about how to “package” the negative findings about the CEO. On her suggestion, we gave her a version that had the cruel and candid comments as an appendix. For other internal recipients of the report, we included some of the verbatim comments—along with others about other senior leaders—under a category called “Leadership credibility.” As a result, we were able to convey the finding—that leaders had credibility issues—without undermining the research.

Example: Reporting out-of-scope findings

The Corporate Communication team was conducting a series of focus groups designed to get feedback about employee communication.

But almost as soon as the moderator asked the very first question, employees started talking about a recent communication that Corporate Communication wasn’t involved with. The Human Resources department had recently changed the vacation policy, eliminating the ability to carry over unused vacation days from one year to the next. As far as employees were concerned, HR had botched communication, announcing the change too late, not providing enough details and not being candid.

Since the issue was so emotionally charged, the moderator let employees vent for a while before transitioning back to intended topics.

Once the study was completed, Corporate Communication faced a challenge: What to do with this feedback? It felt wrong to ignore it, but the team didn’t want to include it in their analysis, either. Finally, the director decided to create a separate report just focused on the vacation issue and meet one on one with her counterpart in HR to share the findings.

Everything you’ve done so far has been leading up to this point: the report, in which you create a complete picture of your study results. The best focus group reports are designed to help stakeholders understand how employees responded to your thesis, which helps you make the case for recommended changes.

After all, how you use focus group findings sends a message to stakeholders, participants and employees. You made a promise to participants that their opinions would matter—that the time they spent with you would result in positive change.

An effective report makes it possible to deliver on that promise, by bringing employees’ opinions to life in a strategic, persuasive document.

There are two steps to getting there:

A. Create the report

B. Customize and share results

A. Create the report

Regardless of how you create the report, I recommend that it include five sections:

• Introduction/background

• Methodology

• Key findings

• Detailed findings

• Recommendations

In the paragraphs that follow, I outline what to include in each section and provide samples from reports we’ve authored over the years. Of course, you may want to do things differently based on your organization. I simply provide these examples as a jumping-off point.

Introduction/background. The introduction sets the stage. It should briefly describe the situation or challenge that prompted the focus group project, as well as outline your research thesis and objectives (what you were hoping to learn).

Here’s an example from a manufacturing company that outlines:

Methodology. This section outlines how the study was structured, participants, timing and locations.

Does a report have to be formatted in PowerPoint?

No. We tend to use PowerPoint because that’s how most of our clients present information in their organizations. But any document layout program could work; choose the one you’re most comfortable with.

Key findings. Consider this your executive summary. If your boss or another colleague only reads one thing, this is it. Since a focus group report doesn’t have numbers (charts and graphs) to support the findings, I recommend including two to four quotes to illustrate each key finding. Keep it simple. Reports should only include about three to five key findings. These can be summarized on one page, or can be three to five pages grouped together in a section.

If your research yielded out-of-scope findings (see Sidebar: Reporting out-of-scope findings), you may want to include them in key findings.

Tip

Separate out-of-scope findings when they’re distracting

Don’t let out-of-scope findings hijack your report and distract stakeholders from your main objectives. If out-of-scope findings are political or controversial, put them in a separate section or create a separate report.

Detailed findings. While key findings create the big picture, detailed findings provide the data. Although you don’t always need to prepare detailed findings (especially for a small study), I find them helpful for providing a deep understanding of the issues.

In this section, outline each main question in the discussion guide, write a short summary of what participants said (paraphrase) and supply a few supporting quotes.

Should I share findings with focus group participants?

Yes. Giving participants a summary of the report is a great way to thank them for their time and encourage future participation. It also demonstrates to them (and other employees) that their viewpoints were heard. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to give them the full report. You can boil it down to main sections: introduction, methodology and a summary of key findings.

Recommendations. This final section outlines what you and your team think should change based on what was learned. For example, if employees are confused about company strategy, what will you do to increase their knowledge? If employees think the quarterly videos by the CEO are a huge waste of time, do you recommend the company continue producing them?

Getting to better recommendations

Recommendations are most successful when they are developed collaboratively with key stakeholders. I recommend coming up with two to three recommendations on your own and then spending some time with colleagues to brainstorm additional changes. This ensures that recommendations are realistic, reflect budget or staffing constraints and encourage commitment among stakeholders. See the preceding example.

B. Customize and share results

When reporting focus group results, you shouldn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Identify audiences that need to understand the results and customize your report appropriately. This helps you to:

• Incorporate feedback and ideas into recommendations

• Gain commitment for the changes you want to make

• Explain stakeholders’ roles and manage their expectations about what will happen

Should I include the discussion guide or transcripts with my report?

Some reports include an appendix with additional materials used in the study, such as:

• Invitation to participants

• Discussion guide

• Transcripts

I recommend only providing transcripts to a small team of people who will use the information to make decisions and act. If you provide transcripts, be sure to remove any names mentioned by participants and educate readers about how to read a transcript; that is, seeing the big picture and not focusing on one or two comments.

Tip

Keep referencing the results, even after it seems everyone has lost interest

After all the work you’ve put into your focus group project, the last thing you want to do is let it sit on the shelf and collect dust. Reference the results every chance you get. It will make your decisions and plans more strategic, rather than just an opinion.

Whom you share results with will depend on the scope of your study. My rule of thumb is to answer two questions:

1. Where will I need support to make changes?

2. Who needs to understand what will change?

See the following table for some rules of thumb regarding communicating results.

Share research results with such audiences as…

Audience

Focus

Method

Key stakeholders

This might include the research team or other groups that need to be involved in changes

• Complete results

• Recommendations and next steps

• Their role

• Individual conversations

• Working sessions to review results and develop recommendations

• Copies of the report

Senior executives

• How the research relates to the company or specific business units

• Recommendations and next steps

• Support that is required (money, people and time)

• Their role

• Individual conversations

• Presentations to management teams

Focus group participants

• Summary of key findings and changes (if known and able to share)

• Next steps if more input is required

• Shortened version of report or summary by email

Employees who did not participate

• Summarize biggest concerns, challenges, needs

• What will change and when

• Intranet or newsletter article, and/or shortened version of report or summary by email

Collaborating with other groups to make changes

Here’s how a director of internal communication made the rounds with her research results to make changes to the internal communication program. Keep in mind that only one group (the Internal Communication team) reported directly to her. With the others, she used the results to make the case for change and gain support.

Example: Reporting mixed findings

Results of an employee culture survey at a midsize manufacturing company showed that employees were dissatisfied with the state of internal communication. As a result, senior management appointed a cross-functional team to conduct focus groups at the company’s three key locations to gain a deeper understanding of the survey findings.

The objectives of the study were to assess internal communication sources, employees’ understanding of key issues and the role of leaders and managers in the communication process. After the team conducted all the sessions, it met to analyze the findings. While a few common themes emerged, the team discovered there were dramatic differences at each of the three facilities.

For example, employees at one facility said their business leader was a micro-manager, while employees at the other two locations said they never met their business leader and didn’t know him/her.

As a result, the research team created three separate research reports to highlight the strengths and weaknesses at each facility. This approach also enabled the team to recommend targeted strategies to enhance internal communication where needed throughout the company.

While it’s always ideal to carefully plan a focus group project, there may be a situation when, in the words of Nike, you need to “just do it.”

Perhaps your company is undergoing an unforeseen crisis or you realize at the last minute that some focus group research would help you make a case for a new idea you’re presenting. Or maybe you’re under a deadline—you need quick qualitative feedback to use in a meeting next week.

A quick project generally involves no more than two focus groups, probably in the same geographic area or conducted virtually. This saves time, both in the upfront planning and the execution.

Tip

Balance time and perfection

When trying to do focus groups quickly, you still need to address key steps like recruiting and logistics, but don’t worry about making everything perfect before moving forward.

Key steps at a glance:

A. Establish a thesis

B. Manage logistics

C. Recruit and invite participants

D. Develop questions

E. Conduct the focus group(s)

F. Analyze notes

G. Summarize your findings

A (quick) word about buy-in

In a regular focus group project, you would seek buy-in from key stakeholders, such as department heads and senior leaders. With a quick project, you probably won’t have time to seek extensive approvals, so think about whether or not this step is necessary and who absolutely needs to know before you move forward.

A. Establish a thesis

To get started, take some time to establish a central thesis for your project. The thesis is a single statement that summarizes what you’re trying to learn.

To learn more about creating a thesis, see Chapter 3.

As a reminder, sample thesis statements may be expressed as a statement or as a question:

• What do employees think about a recent HR announcement?

• Employees don’t seem fully engaged in our new quality initiative and we’re not sure why.

• Why is retention so low at our production facility in Minnesota?

• We aren’t sure which communication channels employees value most and would like to find out.

Establishing a thesis helps keep you focused as you move forward.

Example: Gathering input to finesse a rollout plan

A financial services company was about to launch new brand positioning to employees, but members of the brand team found themselves questioning their assumptions about how employees would like to hear the news. At the 11th hour, the team decided to conduct two focus groups to fine-tune the launch.

The team moved fast, putting together an outline (instead of a full discussion guide) and tightening up the review process (fewer people and quick turnarounds). They decided to conduct two focus groups: one on-site and one virtually, both led by a professional moderator. A team representative met with an HR person and selected 25 people from a variety of functions to invite for each group.

Just a week after deciding to conduct the groups, the team had valuable employee input that helped members shape the launch plan. Following the launch, the team conducted another set of focus groups with the same employees to gain their perspectives on its effectiveness and ideas for next steps.

B. Manage logistics

In a full-scale focus group project, you spend a lot of time on logistics (choosing locations, managing travel, etc.), but when you need to move quickly, focus on what’s most critical.

In a fast focus group project, hold sessions at the same location. Alternately, conduct one or both virtually. (For more information about virtual focus groups, see Chapter 9.) When you hold groups in either one location or virtually, it’s likely the same moderator can facilitate both groups without having to travel. It also cuts down on the number of people you’ll need to involve. (Multiple locations require involving site/plant/division heads to support logistics).

To learn more about managing logistics, see Chapter 5.

C. Recruit and invite participants

Recruiting participants is one of the most crucial steps to the success of a focus group project. In a typical focus group project, participants should reflect the makeup of your organization. When you need to move quickly, however, you should think about limiting criteria to two or three groups. For example:

• Employees who have been managers for more than one year

• Sales people in the Northwest region

• Employees who attended orientation within the past six months

Once you’ve figured out who you need to talk to, ask someone in HR or a site manager to help you pull together a list of employees who meet that criteria.

Number of participants per group

Maximum of 10 to 12 participants (On short notice, you should invite 30 to get 10 to 12.)

To read more about recruiting, see Chapter 6.

You want to have at least 30 people on the list. Then:

1. If you have 25 to 30 people, invite them all. (Don’t worry, it’s unlikely that everyone will come.)

2. If you have more than 30, choose 25 at random to invite.

Invite participants

Keep the invitation simple. It should include only top-line information such as:

• Reason for the focus group

• Logistical details (date, time, location, login information if you’re conducting a virtual group, etc.)

• Respond details (how to accept or decline, deadline)

Focus group invitations are typically sent to participants via email. Because you’re giving participants such short notice and need them to respond quickly, consider calling after you send the invitation to encourage them to attend.

D. Develop questions

With most focus group projects, you would develop a discussion guide, which is the document (part script, part outline) used by the moderator to lead the sessions.

Developing a thorough discussion guide can be time-consuming, so you may want to use a more condensed document instead.

For quick projects, I recommend creating an outline of key questions. This ensures the moderator stays on track, but saves you time in the planning stage.

Tip

Identify a local contact

If your moderator is not familiar with the location(s) where the focus groups are being held, be sure to arrange a local contact who can show him/her to the room and assist with logistics.

Tips for developing your outline of key questions

Align with your thesis. Review your project thesis to ensure that all questions support it.

Create categories. Think about the two to three main things that you want to learn in your focus group. For example, if your thesis involves finding out what employees think about two proposed mission statements, the main categories you want to explore may be:

• Employees’ understanding of the current mission statement

• Their reaction to the two possible new mission statements

• How the employees would connect with the new mission statement

Draft questions. Once you have your main categories, think about the three to five key questions for each category that will help your moderator discuss the issue with participants. Avoid the temptation to add a long list of questions. The idea here is to give the moderator a sense of structure without spending too much time worrying about the exact questions.

Tip

Test ideas and concepts

Feel free to share materials with participants (such as statements, logos, photographs, etc.) to get their reaction. Show them one at a time to focus the discussion.

Example: Creating an outline of key questions

Objectives. Inquire about information needs and preferences; assess employee usage of HR website; get reaction to recent HR message regarding new benefits plan

Areas of focus. Questioning during the one-hour focus group will fall into three areas:

E. Conduct the focus group(s)

Even in a quick focus group project, conducting the sessions is a major undertaking with many considerations. But you can move through the steps more quickly to save time.

Choosing a moderator

Remember, the moderator can make or break a focus group. Since you don’t have a lot of time, you should look for someone who has moderating experience. Hire a professional if an experienced moderator from your organization is not available.

For more help with choosing a moderator: See Chapter 8: Decide who should moderate.

Documenting the session

Since the moderator should be focused on facilitating the discussion, he or she shouldn’t be expected to take notes too. Instead, recruit a second person to attend each focus group to take notes. Record the session, if possible.

After the focus group ends, the moderator and note taker should take a few minutes to debrief. Have each person use the sample debriefing form in Chapter 8 to record key thoughts and memorable quotes from the focus group. This solidifies what happened and helps with the analysis later.

What should I include in my report?

Keep it simple: why you did the research, what you learned and what you plan to do with the information. In showing your results, include quotes that illustrate your findings.

Since you are moving quickly, you might not have time to transcribe each session. But you should still record them, so you can clarify a finding or find an exact quote.

F. Analyze notes

Once the focus groups are over, the moderator and note taker need to sort through what participants said, make sense of it and develop findings. To do this, both should review the debriefing form(s) they filled out after each group. The moderator and note taker will use those forms, along with the notes or recordings as a back up, to identify one to three key findings. Even when you’re conducting research quickly, it’s still a good practice to answer each of your questions, summarizing what employees said.

G. Summarize your findings

Once your team has agreed on the key findings, report them to stakeholders. For fast focus group projects, I recommend either a short (one- to three-page) Microsoft Word document or a three- to five-page PowerPoint presentation.

Include the following sections in your summary:

• Introduction (briefly outline the situation and your thesis)

• Research methodology (how the study was structured, how many participated, where groups were held, etc.)

• Key findings (a statement of what you learned with two to four verbatim quotes to support each finding)

To learn more about creating a findings report, see Chapter 12: Create the report.

Tip

Share your findings with participants

This is the best way to show them that their opinions matter.

Even when you’ve worked diligently to manage your focus group study, you may encounter obstacles. After all, there are a lot of details to manage. And the success of your study is highly dependent on people—colleagues, stakeholders and participants—who can be either thoughtful contributors or opinionated meddlers.

When it comes to dealing with focus group challenges, the best advice I can give is to keep your cool. Almost every problem can be solved—it just takes patience and flexibility. In this chapter, I’ll reflect on each step of conducting focus groups, identify a common challenge you might face and provide ways to overcome that challenge.

Tip

Never let them see you sweat

Many focus group challenges occur when things don’t go as planned; for instance, when too many (or too few) participants show up. By staying calm, you deal with the problems—and participants won’t know that something has gone wrong.

Chapter 2

Learning about employee focus groups

Challenge

You’re sure that conducting a focus group study is the best way to explore how employees feel about your program. But your boss is a finance guy and all he cares about are numbers. So you’re worried that if you deliver findings that aren’t full of statistics, your boss won’t consider them valid.

Solution

If you have a key stakeholder (like your boss) who absolutely must have numbers, I recommend using a combination of research methodologies, blending both quantitative research (like a survey) and qualitative (like focus groups). That way, you get the statistical data you need to make your case and the employee comments you need to meet your objectives.

The survey doesn’t have to be extensive. There’s no need, for example, to conduct a census where all employees are included—just make sure your sample is large enough to be valid. And you might want to keep your survey short (fewer than 20 questions) so you get just enough data, but not too much to manage.

Finally, consider how the survey and focus group study will work best together. Often a survey is used first to gather key data, then the focus group serves as a follow up to probe into the issues raised.

Chapter 3

Setting objectives

Challenge

The good news is team members are excited about your upcoming focus group study. They’re looking at the study as a long-awaited opportunity to find out how programs are being received by employees. The bad news is they’re so enthusiastic they want to add and add and add. You start with a strong thesis and draft three objectives. But next thing you know, three more objectives are added, then another two, then one more, until you’re heading for double digits. You know it’s too much, but how can you stop the madness?

Solution

It’s time for an intervention. The best way to take control is to bring all those enthusiastic stakeholders together and facilitate a meeting that clarifies the focus of the study. Start by re-examining your thesis, the single statement that summarizes what you’re trying to accomplish. Does everyone agree that the thesis is valid?

Are focus groups ever used to generate statistical data? For example, can I give participants a survey, then compile the results to generate percentages?

No, because the sample size in a typical focus group study is not statistically valid. So your data would not be representative of the entire employee population and shouldn’t be reported as such. If you need data, conduct a survey.

Once you have that settled, encourage the group to review your long list of objectives. Do all those objectives support the thesis? (There are probably some that are off target.) Could any objectives be grouped together, if they’re different versions of the same thing?

If the team continues to go off into several directions, consider whether you need to divide your one focus group project into two or more separate studies. For example, a global company was exploring communication effectiveness by conducting employee focus groups at key locations around the world. A country manager was so enthusiastic about this study, he wondered whether he could add an objective of exploring how well his country’s communication was working. But the discussion guide was already full and adding the objective (and the questions to support it) would make the sessions too long. So the country manager decided to conduct two separate focus groups to explore his objective.

Tip

Phrase it in the form of a question

For some of us, writing objectives causes severe writer’s block. It’s hard to choose the right words to articulate just what we mean. That’s why it’s often easier to draft your thesis—and the objectives—in the form of a question. Just think about what you need to know: Are employees using the service center? What would help employees prepare for this change?

Chapter 4

Planning your study

Challenge

Your boss has given you a month to complete a focus group study from start to finish. Given what you need to accomplish in a short period of time, you’re concerned about keeping track of all the steps. You need to figure out the best way to manage the project so nothing falls through the cracks.

Tip

Share your plan

After you’ve created your plan, share it with your team members to manage expectations about deliverables. As your project progresses, review your plan regularly to make sure you’re hitting your targets—and update it as needed to ensure it’s current.

Solution

One of your first steps should be to create an action plan to help you stay focused and ensure you’re covering all the bases. While you can customize your plan based on the scope of your study, there are three basic elements to include:

• Action steps: Key deliverables to be accomplished

• Timing: Due dates/milestones

• Roles/responsibilities: Individuals assigned to specific tasks

How detailed does my action plan need to be?

Focus group action plans come in various shapes and sizes, and your plan’s format should be determined by the magnitude of your study. For a simple study, a one-page plan will be sufficient. For a global study encompassing 15 or more groups, your plan should be expanded accordingly.

Tip

Time for a focus group

What’s the ideal time of day to conduct focus groups? There are certain times that are more convenient than others. For example, the most common time to hold focus groups is during regular working hours. A general rule: Stay away from Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.

Chapter 5

Determining scope and managing logistics

Challenge

You’ve decided to conduct a focus group study that explores an issue in depth. To meet your objectives, you know that the ideal length for each group would be 90 minutes. But some of your participants are hourly workers who can’t leave the manufacturing line for more than 60 minutes. Another target group is departmental directors, who are notorious for having a short attention span. How should you manage timing?

Solution

Decide which topics are the greatest priority—refer to your objectives, of course—and develop a discussion guide that is designed to complete each focus group in 60 minutes.

By the way, not every group in a study needs to be the same length. We’ve managed studies where there was a core discussion guide of 60 minutes but additional questions for managers or other types of participants. We extended those groups by 15 minutes to allow for the extra questions and prepared our analysis/report accordingly.

What if the group answers all the questions in my discussion guide and we have time left over at the end?

Worse things could happen. You could use this as an opportunity to revisit one of your key topics or pose a follow-up question to the group based on the feedback you just heard. Or, you could simply thank participants for their help and let them leave early.

Chapter 6

Getting employees to attend

Challenge

You’ve worked out a rigorous, unbiased process for selecting and recruiting participants. But to implement that process, you need the help of colleagues from HR, who are used to a more seat-of-the-pants approach to selecting participants. “Why go through all the trouble of generating a list and then choosing people at random?” asks your HR colleague. “In the past, when we did focus groups, we just invited people we knew and it worked out fine.”

Solution

Avoid the temptation to tell your colleague that the process she used in the past is deeply flawed (even though you know that’s the case). Instead, emphasize the “unique nature” of your study. “In order for our program to be successful, it has to work for every employee group,” you can say. “So, it may seem like a lot of trouble, but we believe it’s essential that we use a comprehensive approach to recruiting participants for the study.”

If you can’t persuade your colleague, you may need to escalate the request: Ask your boss to convince your colleague’s boss that it’s critical to obtain a “purposively selected” list.

Our employees are so overloaded that they ignore most emails. What can I do to get them to pay attention to the focus group invitation?

It’s time to use a different channel. A personal phone call often works. (You may need to leave a voice mail message, then call back again.) Or try face-to-face invitations: Print an invitation, then drop by each employee’s cubicle or office and say, “Hey, I’d like to invite you to a focus group.”

Chapter 7

Developing a discussion guide

Challenge

You’ve brainstormed questions for your discussion guide with other stakeholders and now have too many for a 60-minute focus group. What do you do?

Tip

Avoid duplication

When brainstorming questions, it is easy to draft two questions that ask the same thing. Go back through the guide and take a hard look at every question. Are there any that are likely to reveal similar responses? If so, delete one of them.

Solution

This often happens when people from various functions get involved. First, review your objectives and delete questions that don’t help you achieve them. This can be difficult if people argue that such-and-such topic is “related,” but hold your ground. It is important to keep the discussion guide focused or you run the risk of missing your mark.

Next, create a hierarchy of questions by identifying main questions and others that support them (also known as prompting questions). Think of prompting questions as a follow-up to a main question. The moderator doesn’t have to use prompts, but can do so if he/she feels participants’ answers haven’t thoroughly addressed the topic. See Chapter 7 for examples of main and prompting questions.

What is the ideal number of questions in a discussion guide?

The right number of questions depends on the complexity of the topic and the length of your focus group, but generally, the discussion guide for a 60- to 90-minute focus group should have three to four sections and two to three main questions in each section. Each main question can have up to four prompting questions.

Chapter 8

Moderating focus groups

Challenge

You’re moderating a focus group where participants have a lot to say. They answer every question in depth, comment on each other’s answers and tell lots of interesting stories. You suddenly check the time and realize you only have 25 minutes left, with a lot of ground yet to cover. What now?

Solution

This is another reason to become familiar with your discussion guide ahead of time. The more comfortable you are with the content, the more you can manage the time you have left. Quickly glance at upcoming questions and note which are critical. At this point, you will have to stick only to main questions, skipping prompting questions.

You will also have to start managing the conversation more closely to ensure it stays on topic. The time for tangents is over. If someone strays off topic, gently say, “Time is short and we need to get back to the topic at hand.”

Tip

Make a note

Write time cues in the discussion guide margin to help you keep time. If the focus group starts at 1 p.m. and the introduction should take 10 minutes—put “1:10 p.m.” at the end of the intro. Do the same for each section, then check the time regularly. This will help you stay on track.

Example: Managing participants who want to go in a different direction

The company had been through a lot of change lately: A new CEO had been hired, a new strategy introduced, a major division sold and several initiatives had been launched. How well did employees understand these changes? A focus group study was designed to find out.

But even before the first question was asked, all hell broke loose. Employees were ANGRY! They didn’t want to talk about their understanding of changes; they wanted to talk (and sometimes shout) about how unhappy they were with the direction of the company:

“The CEO’s decisions were stupid!”

“Recent systems changes just made things worse!”

“The company was going down the tubes and taking employees down with it!”

Faced with an all-out mutiny, it would have been understandable if the moderator just fled the scene. But she kept her cool and, after 20 long minutes of listening to employees vent, she wrested back control. “I appreciate your candor,” she said. “But now I need your help to answer the questions I came to ask. Can you help?” Employees grumbled a bit, but they settled down and the focus group continued as planned.

Is it rude to cut off comments or put an end to tangents?

At a dinner party, yes. In a focus group, no. As the moderator, it’s your job to manage the conversation. If you find yourself short on time you can say, “We’re running a bit behind and I’ve promised to get you out of here on time, so I need to move on now.” If someone goes off on a tangent, you can interrupt and say, “I’d love to hear more about this and wish we had more time, but I really need to keep us focused.”

Chapter 9

Conducting virtual focus groups

Challenge

You have plenty of participants logged on to your virtual focus group. But when you ask the first question, there’s just silence on the line. How can you get people talking?

Tip

Test examples

Virtual focus groups are particularly useful for showing samples or prototypes and asking for feedback. For example, you can display a process map and ask, “How is this system working for you?” Or show a screenshot of a website (or the actual site) and pose a series of questions.

Solution

It can be harder to engage participants virtually than in a face-to-face focus group. If people aren’t saying anything, you can do a “roll call,” where you say you’d like to get everyone’s perspective on the next question and then call on each participant to answer.

In addition, use your list of names (either your invitation list or the web service’s login list) to elicit participation. When asking a question, say, “Diana, I’d like to hear from you regarding the next question. Here’s what I’d like to know…” and then complete the question. After Diana gives a response, say, “Now, Matt, how about you? What’s your viewpoint on this issue?”

Is there a way to hold participants’ attention during a virtual focus group?

One of the best ways to hold employees’ attention is to create a PowerPoint deck. This can include key questions and visuals to help participants follow along. You can also browse a website with the group or use a whiteboard or other annotation tools to brainstorm ideas and get feedback.

Chapter 10

Interviewing one on one

Challenge

Your boss asked you to conduct a focus group study with the sales organization to gain perspectives on a new initiative. What makes the situation more complex is each group is affected differently. Even within a region, some will experience little to no impact, while others will be required to dramatically change the way they do their jobs. You’re concerned it will be difficult to manage these divergent viewpoints.

Solution

Given the range of impact this initiative will have on individuals, follow your instinct and choose one-on-one interviews instead of focus groups. Persuade your boss about this course of action by developing a brief proposal that highlights these key advantages:

• Each interview can be targeted to specific sales groups or reps

• Responses won’t be biased by conflicting perspectives or experiences

• Participants will be more comfortable sharing candid feedback

Example: Understanding how senior managers influence the discussion

A study was conducted at a company’s 14 manufacturing facilities to get employee feedback on communication and training.

At one location, the local plant manager and two of his direct reports asked to observe the session. While the moderator advised that their presence could bias employees’ responses, the plant manager would not be denied. Reluctantly, the moderator had no choice but to allow the observers into the room, but asked for their commitment to:

• Remain silent and not participate in any part of the discussion

• Monitor their nonverbal behavior and maintain a neutral expression at all times

• Be prepared to hear criticisms and negative viewpoints, which may or may not be true

Despite these restrictions, the moderator observed that employees in the group were very quiet; their responses were brief and polite. Afterwards, the moderator advised our client what had occurred and noted in the report that this particular focus group might have been affected by the visitors.

Is it okay to use a combination of interviews and focus groups or should I stick to one approach?

Depending on your research objectives and organizational culture, you can use interviews on their own or in conjunction with focus groups. Typically, the research method is chosen based on the unique characteristics of participants. For example, it may be more effective to interview senior leaders, while for employees, the dynamic of a focus group is preferred.

Chapter 11

Analyzing the findings

Challenge

After conducting nine focus groups, your three-person team is now in the process of reviewing the transcripts. But a team member is having a meltdown. “I can’t make sense of these comments!” she exclaims. “It seems like employees didn’t even answer the questions we asked; they just said what they wanted to say. As a result, I’m not finding any common themes. They’re all over the place!” How do you calm down your team member and put the analysis back on track?

Solution

My preferred process is to read the transcripts and develop a coding system while you do so—to let participants tell you what’s important through their comments. However, sometimes you need to impose some boundaries upfront. Perhaps participants kept going on tangents. Or a number of topics weren’t covered in detail. Or your team is simply not experienced at analyzing transcripts. In any case, meet as a team and agree on 10 to 12 key themes (with an agreed-upon phrase for each) that you heard when moderating or expect to see based on the discussion guide.

How many findings should I expect to have in a typical focus group study?

It depends on the complexity and scope of your study. We’ve done simple studies that resulted in only one key finding, with supporting subfindings. And we’ve conducted extensive global focus groups, exploring a broad topic, where the report had eight key findings with dozens of supporting findings.

This process provides team members with the confidence and direction to review their transcripts. But—this is important—don’t limit the analysis to your preconceived themes. Instead, encourage team members to identify additional themes as they read. (You may end up with an additional 10 to 20 themes.) Once all the transcripts have been reviewed, get together again to continue your analysis.

Chapter 12

Reporting results

Challenge

You and your team have finished analyzing all focus group transcripts and are drafting the final report. And it will be good—full of meaty insights that can be used to make important changes. Various stakeholders—including several senior managers—supported the study and are interested in seeing the results. But your boss is worried that the report you’re preparing is too detailed for all of your stakeholders, especially those “Type A” executives. How do you customize your report for different recipients?

Solution

The report format in Chapter 12 is easy to customize because it’s modular. Use the upfront sections, including key findings, as an executive summary when you only have a few minutes to present your report. For stakeholders who are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work, you can share full findings, including as much detail as you need.

Do I need to share findings with focus group participants. If so, what should I include?

Yes. Giving participants a summary of the report is a great way to thank them for their time and encourage future participation. It also demonstrates to them (and other employees) that their viewpoints were heard. Key elements to include:

• Summary of key findings and changes (if known and able to share)

• When and how results will be shared with other audiences

• Next steps if more input is required

Chapter 13

Conducting a fast focus group project

Challenge

You don’t have the budget to hire a professional moderator. And since focus groups are not common in your organization, you can’t find anyone internally who has experience as a moderator. Your first focus group is scheduled for next week. What do you do?

Solution

Find someone with related skills who will make a good moderator. In most organizations, you can find someone who has experience with conducting training or facilitating meetings. These facilitators can sometimes be found in your training/learning department, in Human Resources or in Sales. But ask around. A good facilitator can be hiding in any group.

If I’m in a rush, can I write a one-page discussion guide?

Yes, see the example in Chapter 13: Creating an outline of key questions. The purpose of a discussion guide is to keep the session on track and to help the moderator make sure all essential topics are covered. As long as you’ve included key questions, a one-pager works well.

A

Action plan

Template

Agenda

Analyzing findings

Common challenges

Fast focus group project

Attributes, focus groups and surveys

Attention, holding

B

Big ideas, capture

Body language

Buy-in

C

Challenges, solving common

Analyzing the findings

Conducting fast focus groups

Conducting virtual focus groups

Determining scope/managing logistics

Developing a discussion guide

Environmental distractions

Getting employees to attend

Interviewing one on one

Learning about focus groups

Moderating focus groups

Organizing the groups

Participants, too few/many

Participants, challenging

Planning your study

Reporting results

Setting objectives

Change, getting ready for

Checklist

Closing

Collaborating on changes

Comments, coding

Communicating results

Conclusion

Consumer research, employee groups different from

D

Data mining

Debrief after focus group

Interview debriefing form, template

Moderator debriefing form, template

Definition of focus groups

Discussion guide

Common challenges

Example, creating a discussion guide

Ideal number of questions

Include in report

One-page

Distractions

Example, dealing with environmental

distractions

Dos and don’ts

Conducting fast focus groups

Moderating

Drawing exercise

E

Email invitations

Employee participation

Common challenges

Environmental distractions

Examples

Creating a discussion guide

Creating an outline of key questions

Creating proposals

Dealing with environmental distractions

Dealing with participants who take over

Deciding on the number of focus groups and timing

Determining a sample group

Determining the number of focus groups

Developing objectives for research with managers

Drafting an invitation

Encouraging participants to stay

Exploring how well a system works for users

Gathering input to finesse a rollout plan

Getting ready for change

Influencing participants

Interviewing plant managers

Managing participants who go in a different direction

Reporting mixed findings

Reporting out-of-scope findings

Setting objectives for a study about pay

Staying neutral is key

Understanding how senior managers influence

Writing prompting questions that support a main question

Exercises

Drawing

Grouping

Scenarios

Sentence completion

Short survey

Storytelling

Voting

Word association

Expectations, setting

F

Facilities, research

Fast focus group projects

Common challenges

Dos and don’ts

Example, creating an outline of key questions

Findings, analyzing

Decide on key findings

Detailed findings

Example, reporting out-of-scope findings

Key findings

Number to expect

Out-of-scope findings

Reporting mixed findings

Summary, fast focus group projects

Focus group definition

Focus Groups as Qualitative Research(Morgan)

Follow-up questions

Food

G

Ground rules

Group dynamic

Grouping, exercise

I

Incentives

Interaction

Interviewing

Common challenges

Conducting interviews

Debriefing form

Interview guide

Key advantages

Plant managers

When to use

Introductions

Report

Invitations

Fast focus group projects

List

Timing

J

Job levels

K

Keeping participants focused, challenge

Key findings

Krueger, Richard L.

L

Legitimate form of research

Length of time of focus groups

Local contact

Location

Focus groups

Virtual focus groups

Logistics

Fast focus group projects

M

Managing logistics

Mine the data

Moderating focus groups

Choosing a moderator

Common challenges

Debriefing form

Definition, moderator

Dos and don’ts

Hiring a professional

Improving skills

Preparation

Role of

Who should moderate

Morgan, David L., Focus Groups as Qualitative Research

N

Note-taking

Number

Example, determining number

Findings, number expected

Focus groups, ideal

Participants per group

Questions, ideal

Subgroups needed

O

Objectives

Common challenges

Example, developing objectives for, manager research

Example, setting objectives for pay study

Setting

One-on-one interviewing

Organizational diversity

Origins

Other uses for focus groups

Outline, key questions

Example, creating an outline

Out-of-scope findings

Example, reporting out-of-scope findings

P

Participants

Dealing with challenging

Holding attention

Keeping focused

Misbehaving

Recruiting

Sharing results

Too few/too many

Participation

Creating interaction

Getting employees to attend

Personalities, dealing with

Phone invitations

Phone-only focus group

Pilot session

Planning

Action plan

Common challenges

Plant managers, interviewing

PowerPoint®, Microsoft

Project summary

Example, creating proposals

Prompting questions

Proposal

Example, creating proposals

Key components

Purposively selected sample

Q

Qualitative research

Quantitative research

Questions

Development, fast focus group projects

Draft

Prompting

Right number

R

Recording

Equipment

Interviews

Recruiting participants

Regional considerations

Reporting results

Common challenges

Example, reporting mixed findings

Example, reporting out-of-scope findings

Recommendations

Roll call, using

S

Sampling

Example, determining a sample group

Scheduling

Scope decisions

Selecting participants

Senior executives, share results

Scenarios, exercise

Session structure

Share results

Audiences

Common challenges

Example, reporting mixed findings

With participants

Stakeholders

Buy-in

Sharing results

Storytelling, exercise

Subgroups, number needed

Survey

Exercise, short survey

T

Tangents, controlling

Teleconference service, choosing

Templates

Action plan

Interview debriefing form

Moderator debriefing form

Test and refine discussion guide

Thesis

Fast focus groups

Time of day

Timing

Topics, number

Transcription

Finding a transcriptionist

Transcripts

V

Videoconferencing

Virtual focus groups

Common challenges

Example, exploring how well a system works for users

Voting, exercise

W

Web-based virtual focus groups

Common challenges

Example, exploring how well a system works for users

When participants decide to leave, example

Where to hold focus groups

Why to consider focus groups

When to use focus groups

Word association exercise