Focus Groups
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Focus groups are facilitated meetings of up to a dozen people that
are organized around answering a series of focusing questions. A
facilitator leads the group through these questions. Focus group data
are generated as the result of a facilitative process and, while guided
by the focusing questions, the facilitator has the freedom to go off in
many different directions to gather the data that are viewed by the
group to be most critical. The big appeal of focus groups is that the
dialogue can lead to some interesting and unexpected places. Participants
build on one another’s comments, tell stories, give examples,
and share experiences to create a wealth of qualitative data.
These groups can be used either as a companion to other data collection
techniques or alone. The most common approach is to use
focus groups as a follow-up to survey data. A survey of coaching
clients may not only answer questions—but raise some new and
intriguing questions as well. A focus group can explore these new
questions and provide a fuller picture of the application of coaching.
Focus groups are not suitable to explore individual stories,
however; the interactive nature of the focus group conversations
does produce rich qualitative data. We will see later in this chapter
how this approach was used successfully at Frontier Manufacturing.
Later in this chapter, we see how Frontier successfully used a focus
group with Regional Sales Managers to explore application and
chart a course of action. Guidelines for successfully using focus
groups include the following:
_ When focus groups include only a subset of a greater population,
make these groups as representative of the greater organization as
possible. This increases the credibility and quality of the data.
_ Keep the size of the group to 12 people and, if more than 12 people
are needed, conduct more than one session. Groups larger than
this size make it difficult for everyone to participate, and groups
smaller than this may not provide all of the data required.
_ Ensure that the initiative sponsor and/or business leaders buy into
this data collection approach. This will increase their confidence
in the outcomes of the group sessions.
_ Use experienced facilitators and those who are especially quick on
their feet. Work with the facilitator in advance to plan the
agenda and outcomes for the session.