How to conduct interviews
Capture both the score and the reasoning of your most knowledgeable stakeholders.
Introduction
An interview is a conversation in which you walk the stakeholder through the questions and record the scores and comments in the platform. It takes 30 to 60 minutes depending on the number of questions. Interviews weigh three times a survey in the calculation, because they produce richer and more considered data.
An interview session: the question list on the left, the current question with the score breakdown and the comment field.
Steps
Step 1: Enable interviews for the group
In the group's data collection methods, enable Interview. Interviews always ask all questions assigned to the group.
Step 2: Prepare
- Send the interviewee the list of topics beforehand. Not the questions, the topics.
- Read the IRO passports of the questions you will ask. You should be able to explain each IRO in one sentence.
- Decide who records. Ideally the interviewer scores during the conversation.
Step 3: Start a session
Click Start session, fill in the interviewee's name and email (used for data logging only) and their expertise level on the topics:
| Expertise | Weight |
|---|---|
| Little or no knowledge | 1 |
| Stays informed | 2 |
| Expert | 3 |
The expertise weight makes an expert's answer count more than a layperson's within the group.
Step 4: Run the interview
For each question: read the question and the context, ask for the score, use the score breakdown by criterion (see How to score IROs) and note the reasoning in the comment field. The comments are the qualitative source of your DMA report.
Use the question list on the left to move around, skip a question that does not apply to this person and come back to earlier questions to recalibrate at the end. Skipped questions are not counted as a score of 0; they are excluded.
Scores are saved as you go. Save the comments before you close a question.
Step 5: Pause and resume
A session is saved automatically. Use Manage sessions to resume it later, for example to enter the minutes of an interview held by a colleague on site.
Tips
- Record the call if the interviewee agrees. It helps when writing the report and gives your auditor evidence.
- Keep the interviewer's opinion out of it. Ask, listen, score.
- If the interviewee cannot judge a question, skip it rather than guess.
Output
- A scored session per interviewee, weighted by their expertise level.
- Comments that explain the reasoning behind each score, which feed the qualitative analysis in your report.