A good interview should seem more like a natural conversation between two organizations and less like an interrogation. However, it is critical that you approach the discussion with a clear plan of the topics you are going to address and the feedback you wish to gather. A good interview guide provides the foundation for this process.
While it may seem counterintuitive, the absolute worst way to derive a customer's wants and needs during an interview is to simply ask them "What are your wants and needs?" or "What are your requirements?". When you do this, the customer will switch to solution mode and will start offering you suggestions for incremental changes to the current product based on things that are likely already available in the market.
If, for instance, you asked customers about their requirements for an automobile, they would talk about mileage, horse power, cup holders, integrated Bluetooth, Sirius, and other features, which would be great if you were just looking to create a "me-too" product in the market. If, however, you are looking to create new functions and features for the future wants and needs of customers, you will need to do the hard work of understanding customers more holistically and in a way that is structured and measurable. This is what the interview guide allows you to do better: understanding how your customer goes about accomplishing his assigned duties, what things prevent them from accomplishing those duties, and how your product or service can make them more successful.
The interview guide is meant to be more of an outline of the things you will discuss with the customer and less of a script. A successful interview guide will set the agenda for the visit and the stage for the interview showing a progression of topics starting with more general business topics and then gradually shifting to more specific topics. It takes a little time to build rapport with customers, so it is not advised that you delve directly into technical detail. Also, I have often found that we uncover new opportunities higher up in the discussion guide funnel before we have even begun to talk about products. Figure 5.6 is an example of a discussion guide funnel I have found to be useful in the past:
Figure 5.6: Discussion guide funnel
The interview guide should lay out the structure for your interview and should promote a smooth flow of topics. To create an interview guide, there are a couple of points worth keeping in mind as you go about creating your list of questions:
- Ask open-ended questions that have unlimited potential answers. In general, it is best to avoid closed-ended questions that have a predefined set of responses, such as yes or no, or A, B, or C. If you must ask closed-ended questions, only do so at the end of a section and only if they are necessary to get closure on a specific topic.
- Questions should be worded in such a way as to not give any clue to the interviewee about what the "right" answer is.
- "What", "How", and "Could" questions are good ways to open a question. "What problems have you experienced in the past?" "How does this product help you achieve your goals?" "Could you tell me more about a time when this product did not work the way you were expecting?"
- "Why" questions can be used, but one must be careful. "Why" questions can help you better understand motivation on the part of the user, but they can also be perceived negatively and can sound like criticism. "Why do you use the product in that way?"
- "Can", "Are", and "Do" question should be avoided. They tend to elicit a positive or negative response only. You are always better off asking more open-ended questions that start with something like "Describe".
When developing your interview guide, it is best to start by using a flip chart and capture all the questions you wish to ask a customer. Once you have done that, it is then possible to try and group similar questions to see if you can ask one summary question that will address the main issue you are trying to discuss. Instead of asking:
- What are the negative cost issues you've had with the current computer system?
- What maintenance issues have you had with the current computer system?
- What ordering issues have you had with the computer system?
- What software issues have you had with the current system?
- What hardware issues have you had with the current system?
- What workarounds have you had to devise for the current system?
You could simply ask:
- Tell us about the problems you have had with the computer system
If, for some reason, the customer does not answer some of the burning questions in your mind, you can always ask a follow-up to help provide more clarity.
Once you have created a list of summary questions, you can then try and group the questions to create a logical flow for your interview. As I said before, try and start with the environment or business and then continue to drive deeper toward product-specific questions. Ideally, one topic leads to the next through the entire conversation. It is good to lay out the flow for your interview, but be prepared to follow the interviewee and deviate from your path if it looks like the conversation is going that way. You can always circle around later to pick up anything you may have missed.
I have found that something like the following works well in understanding the larger business issues and eventually driving to the product-specific issues:
- Introduction
- Purpose of visit and introduction of team
- General
- Overall business review, challenges, opportunities
- Types of equipment used today
- Changes to the business in the future
- Factors driving consideration of new purchase
- Application
- Current applications and processes
- Opportunities and issues with current applications
- Future applications and processes
- Product
- Problems in using and installing current product offerings
- Problems in purchasing, ordering, and receiving current product offerings
- Problems in supporting, training, documentation, and so on, relating to current product offerings
- Needs not being addressed by current product offerings
- Enhancements required for current product offerings
- Prioritize relative importance of each need
- Wrap-up
- Summarize findings
- Probe for additional insights or input
- Review if there is anything else customer wishes to add or bring up
While this shows the general flow of a discussion guide with a list of topics to discuss, I have found it is often helpful to construct specific questions for each section. This ensures that there is a level of consistency from interview to interview, that all key points are addressed during the interview and, as we will talk about in the next chapter, that clues are also provided as to what may have been missed by your fellow interviewers.
When you are constructing the discussion guide, care must also be given to not end up with pages and pages of questions. In general, you should target the interviews to be close to 60 minutes and typically no more than 2 hours in length. With this amount of time, two to four pages is typically the right length for an interview guide.
When you are completed with your interview guide's first pass, I highly recommend distributing your interview guide to the other team members to get feedback on the structure, flow, and level of detail.