What Questions Help Improve the Effectiveness of Qualitative Research?

All effective qualitative market research projects must start with a clear understanding of the background and objectives for each project. To help define a project and determine the appropriate methodology, we generally ask our clients the following questions:

• What are the research objectives? What are you hoping to learn? What background information can you share which led to the need for this research?
• Are there any other ways you might describe what you’re trying to explore in this research? (This question can help provide more richness to the definition of study objectives.)
• What team/internal clients is this research being conducted for? Does this team or these clients have specific preferences about how research results are summarized and/or presented?
• Are all team members in agreement about what this research should explore – and, if not, what are the differing perspectives?
• What have you/your team already done to explore these issues? (This can include previous qualitative research, quantitative research, internal data, secondary research, etc.)
• Have you ever done similar research in the past and, if so, are there any issues that were not addressed then, that you now wish you had explored? Do you have any frustrations concerning the last time you did similar research?
• What other initiatives/internal issues might affect this research? AND what other initiatives/internal issues might be affected by this research?
• What decisions will be impacted by the learning from this research? How might you act differently based on what you learn? Also, what are areas that can’t be changed, regardless of what the research might learn?
• Are there any hypotheses about the answers, among your team or your internal clients? If you were to imagine that the project is complete, what’s your ideal outcome?
• What do you expect to be the biggest challenges we encounter as we conduct this research?
• What specific constraints do we need to keep in mind?
• What stimulus material – if any – do you want to people react to and what format will it be in?
• What issues related to target audience might be relevant to know as we design the research? And are there any customer segments we should keep separate or perhaps combine for any reason?

Clear and thoughtful answers to these questions are essential to meeting both the stated and unstated objectives of any qualitative research project. These questions help to decide (1) if qualitative research is the right methodology for your objectives and, if so, (2) which approach would best meet your needs (such as deciding between focus groups and individual depth interviews), (3) what the necessary recruiting specifications are so that an accurate and effective screening questionnaire can be written, (4) what issues need to be covered in the moderator guide and, finally, (5) how your research analyst should prepare the project deliverables.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of setting clear objectives BEFORE you undertake any research project if you want to have a successful outcome. In fact, this initial discussion can avoid those disastrous “Oh, by the ways” that have destroyed many research efforts!

How Can I Get the Most Out of Ideation or Brainstorming Research Sessions?

There are a number of established techniques for ideation and/or brainstorming (which are similar, but not exactly the same) that can be effectively used a part of a systematic search for targeted opportunities in the form of new features, new products, new markets, and/or new services within various categories of interest.

The fundamental premise of these techniques is to start with an issue or challenge and then generate a broad range of different possible ideas to address that challenge. Often, there are two important components to a brainstorming project: “Divergence” is the process of generating ideas followed by “Convergence,” which consists of selecting and developing the top ideas.

Although brainstorming sessions share some similar characteristics with focus groups, brainstorming research sessions are quite different from traditional focus groups ‒ within the field of new product development, brainstorming sessions are about exploring possibilities, generating new concepts and discovering new opportunities, whereas traditional focus groups are best used to validate ideas, weed out bad concepts and improve existing concepts.

The distinctions between brainstorming sessions and regular focus groups carry through to some critical differences in how the groups are conducted:

1. Brainstorming sessions last longer than most focus groups to ensure there is sufficient time for both training and ideation. Typically, each brainstorming session is scheduled to last between 2-1/2 and 3 hours whereas focus groups generally do not go beyond 2 hours.

2. Participants are recruited specifically to be natural “lateral thinkers” or “intuitors” because this thinking style has been shown to correlate positively with the ability to generate new ideas. However, this isn’t a common talent – most consumers are very good at reacting to ideas they are presented with but they’re not as good at coming up with new ideas on their own. In addition, the “creativity” recruiting specifications are over and above the need to invite participants who have experience with the topic under discussion.

3. Participants in brainstorming sessions are given a homework assignment to complete in advance of the session and are required to start generating ideas before attending the session. This helps to get them “primed” for the discussion and ensures that each session can start off with idea sharing from the start.

4. During the recruiting phase of the project, a member of the project team will contact each qualified participant by phone to encourage their idea generation and answer any questions about the process or expectations from the sessions.

5. Brainstorming sessions are not as much of a “discussion” as a focus group is – rather, the goal is to keep things moving and use ideas shared to spark additional ideas.

6. Ideally, the client team (often consisting of 4 to6 people) is encouraged to be fully engaged in the process and to use the ideas from the consumers to help spark their own thinking. In the end, it is often the client team members who end up generating the best, most workable ideas.

Getting the best value from brainstorming sessions also requires following a number of important steps to ensure that good quality ideas are generated. In our experience, the most effective brainstorming sessions consist of:

1. Introductions and training in the rules of brainstorming.

2. IDEATION GENERATION. Each participant shares one idea at a time, the facilitator probes for clarification if necessary, and other participants share any “builds” they have on the idea. A “build” is a new idea that is sparked by the original idea shared. The participants continue to generate and share ideas throughout the session, while the client team listens in the backroom and builds their own ideas.

3. Negative comments quickly shut down the idea-generating process; therefore, participants are taught to approach ideas with a specific mindset. If they hear a new idea they dislike, rather than share this negative reaction, they instead focus on generating a new idea that fixes what they don’t like or simply move on to sharing another idea they have generated.

4. The client team is brought in with the participants mid-way through the session and the client team members work in small teams with the consumers. Typically, each small team is asked to consider the ideas they heard throughout the session and then develop their own “ideal” solution to the project’s challenge. This co-creation process yields a range of different “ideal” solutions for the client team to consider after the session, as they choose and develop their final ideas.