Ten Top Tips for Great Focus Groups

Tip 1. Develop clear objectives.

You might be tempted, when planning focus groups, to ask as many questions as possible in the belief that you’ll achieve better ‘value for money’. This is a myth. It never pays off to bombard participants with questions. What was intended as an enlightening discussion turns into a verbal questionnaire, with no mental space or time to fully engage with the issues or questions you wish to explore. I’ve found these three simple questions, answered at the outset, helps focus my thinking and weed out unnecessary lines of investigation. • What do I need to know? • Why? • To what end?