E. Focus Groups: Part 5 - The Questions

In What kind of questions should you ask? In one hyphenated word?

Open - ended

Following are some general principles of focus group questioning:

• Warm up with innocuous conversation that lets people begin to establish rapport and get used to talking in a group

• Start with general questions, and move to the specific
  

• Spend the most amount of time on the project’s central issues. Think in terms of, “if I had to come away from these groups with only one answer, what would it be?”

• Don’t let the agenda get sidetracked by having to cram too many questions into it. When this happens, the moderator ends up having to choose between accepting the first answers or leaving out questions.
  

• Stay away from questions that allow “yes” or “no” as a response.
  

• If there is anything in the subject matter that may make participants uncomfortable, save it for later in the groups once the moderator has had the opportunity to help the groups establish a comfortable flow and rapport with each other.

• To prevent "groupthink", make participants write down answers first, then defend those responses in the discussion.

• Defend and encourage disagreement; pay attention to body language and probe when it appears someone may be disagreeing with others.

• Probe, probe and probe some more. Do not accept the first answers, or assume you know what they mean. Ask - play dumb - or just look confused and stay silent - it opens them up.

• Encourage stories - just be sure it’s on point, and that there is a “moral” at the end relevant to the objectives. Like, “tell me a story about one time when you received exceptional service.”
  

There also are so traps you should take care NOT to fall into:

• As my wife is fond of saying, don't try to fit 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound sock. Except she doesn't say "stuff". You know what I mean. Don't try to cover too much ground with the questions - you need to be able to give the participants time to think and answer the questions, as well as respond to the thinking and answers of the other participants.

• Quantification style questions are fine as long as they lead to qualitative explanation. "How many of you prefer..." should lead to "what about that do you like?" and other probing questions.

• Don't get into a habit of asking questions that allow a one-word response with no explanation - this will lead to the respondents' thinking that is all you want from them.

• Don't allow a completely tangential line of questions "while we have them in the room" - such as "While we have them thinking about advertising, why not ask about our pricing?"