1. Guide to Interviewing

7. Focused Many interviewees tend to go ‘off on tangents’ during interviews. Your interview guide should clearly state the boundaries for your interview. These should be stated generally at the beginning with more specific instructions to refocus when appropriate. Quantifiable Open questions tend to produce long answers that are difficult to quantify and compare. If you need measured responses ask the interviewee to assign a value to their answer so direct comparisons to be made. For example How reliable is the current system, what score would you give it out of ten? Complete Check that the guide addresses all the objectives of the interview and have a colleague review it. Guidelines for structuring an interview

8. Interview execution Interviews are exceptionally rich sources of information. However, no two interviewees are alike: some tend to ramble, others are suspicious and curt, some will need only the slightest encouragement to speak their minds, while others will have to be guided along. The interviewer’s job is to conduct the interview to gather the information required, which takes skill, practice and structure. Once you have concluded your interviews, they must be summarised to yield the ‘big picture’. Your questions should therefore allow for valid comparison and summarisation of your interviewee’s viewpoints.