Qualitatively Speaking: For better focus groups, get the back room focused

By Robert Relihan | January 1, 2007

Reading time: 5 minutes

Abstract

The author explains how to assemble a team of back room observers to get the most out of the focus group process. Drawing from different departments and job titles, this cross-functional team will bring a number of viewpoints but still share the same goal: making the focus group as effective as it can be.

Research Topics:: Focus Group-Moderating | Focus Groups | Qualitative Research
Content Type: Qualitatively Speaking

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Editor’s note: Robert J. Relihan is senior vice president at C&R Research Services Inc., Chicago.

If you have conducted qualitative research long enough, you cannot deny the power of the Aha! moment for galvanizing viewers and focusing thought. Yet, it is equally true that no one can guarantee an interview will produce a truly groundbreaking insight. At the same time, product development cycles have shortened the time available for reflection after the fact. There is no time for the “Oh, now I get it” moment, the type of insight that is usually the product of analysis.

So, what to do?

The answer is to make the focus group project as productive as possible, and that means making the back room as productive as possible. That’s where the ahas occur.

The focus group ceases to be an object for researchers merely to observe. Rather, the participants, the observers and the moderator become one team charged with addressing an issue or solving a problem. In many ways, this kind of enhanced-productivity qualitative project is like taking a journey on a submarine in which everyone is cut off from the outside world and no one can surface until the job is done.

To make this happen requires several things:

The project must be seriously focused on an issue or a problem. It cannot be approached with a general, exploratory, let’s-see-what-consumers-think-about-the-category frame of mind. Rather, you need to conceive of the project as a quest to answer a basic question, “What are the barriers to consumers trying my product?” Or address a clearly defined issue, “What characteristics does my product share with its competitive set and what characteristics make it unique?” Answers to these questions can help solve larger problems but the productive qualitative project must start with these clearly defined questions.
The crew of the submarine should be members of a cross-functional team. For the group behind the mirror to be productive, it needs to be composed of individuals who are not frequently in contact within the organization. There needs to be opportunity for individuals to have fresh ideas and stimulate others with them. In addition, the team should have copywriters and package designers (as appropriate) to give it the capability to change group stimulus in response to developing hypotheses.
Finally, the submarine needs a captain or, at the very least, a wrangler - someone in the back room to keep the crew on task and not seduced by the siren call of BlackBerries, squishy toys and M&Ms.

So, what does the team do?

First, the team decides the areas of interest that should provide the basis for an answer to the question or for a complete definition of the issue. So, if the question is, “What are the barriers to trying my product?”, the relevant areas might be category aspirations, category disappointers, product delighters, product disappointers, consumer needs and the like.
Once the areas of interest are established, each one is written as a title across the top of an easel sheet. The easel sheets are hung on the walls of the back room. Clearly, the back room needs to be large enough for the team to move around and work.
Each of the team members is given a pad of Post-it Notes. All are instructed to watch the group interview and, as they do, to write ideas or observations on the Post-it Notes. There are a few rules. First, there can be only one idea per Note. Second, the ideas cannot be mere transcriptions of groups interchanges. They can be mini-ahas, proto-syntheses or provisional conclusions. For example: “Simplicity creates enthusiasm,” “Satisfaction is related to aroma,” “The category satisfies the need for control,” and the like.
At the end of each of the groups, all of the team members get up and affix their Post-its on the appropriate easel sheet. Are there Post-its without an easel sheet? You can create a new easel sheet, if the Notes are all related. Or, you can let them sit to the side as “miscellaneous” and see what the next interview brings.

This process is very democratic. It assures that everyone has had a chance to participate and that everyone’s observations are treated equally. In the end, therefore, the conviction of the team in the validity of the ultimate conclusions is strong.

Once an interview is completed, the team reviews the easel sheets. If some are rather full, perhaps the next interview can pursue that area less doggedly. And, if some sheets are almost empty, the moderator can drill down on the appropriate topics. Ultimately, the team needs to look at the easel sheets and decide if they feel they are moving in the direction of answering their basic question.

Yes, it is not uncommon to modify the interviewing strategy after one or two interviews. But this approach will assure that the modifications are better grounded in the goal of the project.

Once the interviews are over, every team member is assigned his or her easel sheet (an operational reason for keeping the number of “areas of interest” to a relatively small number). Each team member affinitizes the Post-its on the sheet, literally moving them into clusters that relate to a similar idea. So, the team member who takes on the “category exciters” easel sheet might organize the Post-its around themes such as “large size,” “memories of home,” and “rich ingredients.”

Each team member presents the themes of the area of interest to the team. To be sure, there is some discussion. A group scribe may record these mini-presentations. If the areas of interest have been well defined in terms of the ultimate goal, these presentations should point very strongly to an answer to the in-going question. In our little example, the differences among the themes that define category exciters, category disappointers, product exciters and product disappointers will point very strongly to hypotheses for why consumers do not try your product.

The fact that you have a qualitative answer is not the point. A qualitative project approached in a traditional manner might have resulted in a report with similar conclusions. But with the focused back room, now when the submarine breaks the surface, the team members should be united and confident in what they have and ready to engage immediately in the next steps. The project ball has been moved forward, often dramatically. A productive qualitative project creates a productive team.