Conducting Successful Interviews with Project Stakeholders

6. Let interviewees know in advance what you’ll ask them.

Whenever possible, I let interviewees know in advance what I’ll be asking—or at least the three or four main topics I’ve planned to discuss.

Once in a while, I get an interviewee who’s nervous, which is so unexpected. And yet, it finally made sense to me when an interviewee said, “I don’t know why I’m here! I don’t know anything about the Web.”

“That’s okay,” I said, “we’re not going to talk about the Web,” which led to a mixture of relief and confusion.

Such problems generally arise in cases where I can’t communicate directly with interviewees beforehand. I ran into this problem recently when conducting stakeholder research for a government project. I had to coordinate all interviews through a designated project contact, who chose not to disseminate the interview topics. This meant that none of the interviewees showed up with any clear idea of why they were there. One interviewee brought along a marked-up screen shot of a single page from the current Web site, which wasn’t even the project under discussion.

Since I work on such research projects every day—and have done for a few years, now—it’s easy to forget that it might be the first time interviewees have ever been asked to participate in something like this—especially in a research project related to the Internet—and they’re concerned about doing it properly.

So, let interviewees know the topics of discussion ahead of time, because

• they’ll feel more comfortable
• they’ll be better prepared
• you’ll get more directed responses

7. Don’t be afraid to ask one interviewee to comment on something another interviewee said.

Each interview adds to your overall picture of an organization, so whenever possible, I try to get interviewees to comment on or respond to things others have said. I’ve had cases where the head of one business unit has blamed the organization’s poor performance or capability on another business unit or some deficiency elsewhere. It’s entirely unlikely that Business Unit Head A is confiding some deep secret to you, so I feel quite comfortable putting that comment to Business Unit Head B and asking for his or her take on the issue.

The idea here is not to foment discord, but to take the opportunity the first comment presents to gain a deeper understanding of the issue. Don’t shy away from such internal tensions!

8. There is no correct number of interviews.

Interview as many people as you feel is necessary for you to build up a clear picture of an organization with respect to the project at hand. Sometimes this can be as few as three or four interviewees, and I’ve had projects where I’ve conducted twelve or more interviews.

9. If necessary, ask an interviewee to wait while you make a note.

I find interviewees are more than happy to hold off talking, so you can make note about something they’ve said. This is particularly important if you want to record a direct quotation before continuing with your next question.

A note about taking notes: I always take my own notes—whether I’m conducting an interview over the phone or face to face. If I have another person with me on the interview, I still take my own notes. I also have one rule: The other person doesn’t ask any questions. This might seem strange to you, but I’ve found from experience that having two people asking questions ruins the flow of the interview.

10. Decide for yourself whether you’ll record interviews.

I never record interviews. Well, I did once. I went to a great deal of effort getting permission to record from each interviewee, recording each interview, creating a transcript of each interview, and storing both the audio and the transcripts. Nobody has ever listened to the recordings or read the transcripts. So, five years on, I still have all the notes I’ve taken during interviews, and I still refer to them on occasion.

The archaeologist in me knows this is probably not the best approach, since I’m missing my one and only chance to make a recording of an interview. However, it doesn’t feel natural for me, and I know it affects the way I go about the interview when I do record, so I don’t do it. You should try this out for yourself though, and make up your own mind.

The Benefit of Keeping Your Interviews Informal

It’s important to remember that you’re doing informal, semi-structured interviews, not taking testimony. Why informal and semi-structured?

Given the opportunity, I’d like to ask a company’s CEO or COO different questions from those I’d ask, say, the customer service manager or the logistics manager. Working at very different levels of an organization, with narrower or more broadly defined areas of influence, stakeholders’ perceptions and thinking on each topic will be quite different.

Recall that I earlier mentioned I use interviews to gain insights. I find interviews are an excellent way of drawing out people’s perceptions and thinking. They do this much more effectively than a survey or questionnaire could ever do. The reason for this is the ability of an interviewer to ask follow-up, probing questions to clarify or expand on an idea.

Documenting the Outcomes of Stakeholder Interviews

The most useful deliverable from a set of stakeholder interviews is a summary document that provides a general overview of the picture you’ve built up through the interview process. My summary documents usually combine information I’ve gleaned from the literature I read before beginning the interviews and the responses interviewees have given to my questions. Where relevant, I use direct quotations to highlight or illustrate a particularly important point.

I also try to highlight cases where interviewees’ responses to questions indicate attitudes or operational policies that do not support the documented strategy or brand values. Such cases often show critical areas for realignment prior to the commencement of a project’s design phase. If a project involves work on an existing system, I also try to highlight areas of that system that aren’t aligned with the documented or de facto strategy.

In Summary

Interviews with project stakeholders offer a rich source of insights into the collective mind of an organization. They can help you uncover areas of misalignment between a company’s documented strategy and the attitudes and day-to-day decision-making of stakeholders. They can also highlight issues that deserve special consideration due to their strategic importance to a business. Best of all, interviews are one of the easiest and lowest-tech forms of UX research you can conduct.