Speaking to people is central to any research project, and an insight sprint is no different. However, it has a different philosophy.
In traditional qualitative research projects, you must take a lot of things into account. You have to:
- Ensure that you are speaking to a representative sample of people
- Spend time drafting a discussion guide
- Ensure the interviews follow the same format
- Spend time scheduling the interviews in
There may be projects where this approach is needed. But for most insight sprints, you should get creative…
Start with people you know
It’s difficult to think about all the possible people you could reach out to. Sometimes it isn’t until the end of a project that I have a flash of inspiration and remember that old contact who is a perfect interviewee.
Think about your friends, ex-colleagues, family members. Have a scroll through your LinkedIn contact list.
Interviewing someone you know is more powerful than someone you don’t. You already have a strong sense of rapport with them. You know their background. They will want to help you.
So , take advantage of this opportunity to strengthen your network and catch up over a coffee.
The interview process
If you don’t know the person you are interviewing, you’ll need to learn the art and science of interviewing.
The start is the hardest. It can be a bit awkward. This is where you need to play the host. You’ll need to master a fundamental research skill — building rapport.
Think big smiles and easy questions. Encourage people to talk about their passions, interests or family. Sometimes the person will be really nervous. Here you should let them know that you are a bit nervous as well, get them to ask some questions first, and point out how bizarre the whole process of interviewing is — this should help calm nerves.
Next, think of the interview as a funnel — you start wide and broad, with some nice easy questions. Then you narrow down to more specific and challenging areas.
You want people to reflect on the way they think. To go meta. This is easier for some than others. Business leaders are good at reflecting on their own thought processes. Others will need more ‘why do you think that?’ prompting.
Keeping the conversation flowing is an art. You want to blend momentumizers like small nods and ‘um-hmm’ noises with paraphrases and probing questions. Even just repeating the last few words that someone said will get someone to carry on.
People will go off on tangents, and you’ll have to get them to focus. However, don’t interrupt if you haven’t established a good sense of rapport. It’s rude. People don’t mind being interrupted once a good dynamic is established.
And importantly — don’t be afraid of silences. The desire to fill a silence is natural, but these moments are often when the other person is thinking about something.
Interview Strategies
There are hundreds of tricks and tips you can use as an interviewer — each interview you conduct will teach you something new.
One of my top methods is to use projective techniques. To do this, get people to talk about someone other than themselves — ‘how do you feel other people think about xxx?’ — this will give you a glimpse of their underlying prejudices and opinions on others.
Another technique is to encourage personification. Get the interviewee to describe the interview topic as though they are a person. Get them to describe where they live, how they behave at a party etc.
Or you could use stimulus such as a cartoon with empty speech bubble. You are providing ambiguous stimulus to someone and see where their mind wanders. It’s like the famous Rorschach test.
These are just a few — you also have word association, story construction and so on.
Of course, the best interviews are when you just allow people to tell their story in their own words — and you leave all of these little tricks at the door. Which leads us to the final point…
Power Dynamics
In the eighties, the feminist sociologist Ann Oakley opened the discussion about the power relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee. She argued that the interviewing process of the time was mechanistic, and that the social interaction between interviewer and interviewee was viewed as a mere inconvenience for the interviewer.
Viewed thus, researchers are miners, digging to get at pearls of insight (a metaphor we hear often in the age of big data and data mining).
You can see the power imbalance here. The interviewer controls which questions to ask, when to probe, and when to finish the interview. They are the ‘experts’ with authority. For participants, an interview can sometimes feel like taking an exam with wrong and right answers.
In the digital age, Oakley’s insights are even more urgent. From online surveys to online research communities — there is an additional layer between the two parties. When mediated through the web, the interviewer becomes dehumanised, or even removed from the process. Participants can feel they are speaking to a robot.
Furthermore, when you offer to pay someone to take part in an interview you add another power dynamic — that of employee and employer. Taking part in research becomes a contract with compensated responsibilities.
A Human Approach to Interviewing
Oakley’s response was to focus on developing non-hierarchical relationships, with reciprocal power-sharing. The emphasis is on the social interaction of the interview, a ‘friendship-as-method’ approach.
This is an essential component of agile interviewing in the age of the insight sprint. Research contributions should be conceptualised as a ‘gift’ from the participant, not an ‘employment contract’.
This approach strengthens the overall research network and makes future sprints easier.
