Diagnostic Study - Field Guide (for interviewers)
Pre-interview preparation
This section is meant to be read PRIOR to conducting the interviews, as a means to prepare you for them.
Context
The IT Strategy team is organizing interviews with all directors and executive directors in IITB to understand their day-to-day experience within the branch and ESDC as a whole. We will be using the information we gather to drive and inform the development of upcoming strategies and plans. The purpose of this exercise is to review how we can invest in internal capabilities to improve our branch’s service delivery.
At the end of this interview exercise, the IT Strategy team will produce a “What we heard” report synthesizing the interview answers and keeping anonymity of the interviewees. The decision on how to publish this report will be decided only once it is written.
Each of the 80 IITB directors and executive directors targeted for these interview exercises have received an interview package containing the 20 questions you will be asking them, as well as some details about why the IT Strategy team is undertaking this exercise. The interview package was sent to them at least 2 weeks in advance to give them some time for reflection, engage with their team members to collect their perspective, and ensure the best use of their time.
There are 6 types of questions:
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Introductory (to get some demographic information)
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Targeting the Director’s own perspective
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Targeting the Director team members’ perspective
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Targeting the Director team members’ perspective of other IITB teams
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Common Hybrid Work Model
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Conclusion/Reflection
For some questions, depending on the answers, you will be probing for more information. Those questions and the probing ones are marked in the “Interview Questions” section of this document.
How will it work
The interview will not take more than an hour. There will be an interviewer and a note taker in the room. Only the note taker should take notes of the answers. The interviewer should remain focused on the Director answering questions.
Safe space
Psychological safety is key for the success of this interview exercise. As such, all answers recorded during will be kept confidential and logged autonomously (no names will be recorded).
Debrief time
After each interview, you will be given 1h to organize your notes, clean them if you will, before storing them on the private SharePoint repository. The notes will be referenced in the next few weeks during the writing of the “What we heard report”.
The Guide
This section is meant to be read PRIOR to conducting the interviews, as a means to prepare you for them.
Setup
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Sit so that the person you are interviewing can see you without moving head (note taker as well)
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Remember: they are the expert and you are the novice. Don’t enter lecture mode.
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The goal is to leave the interview having established a rapport
The interview
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Go with the flow. It’s ok to not stick rigidly to the order of the questions
- It’s ok to ask probing/follow up questions (follow up questions don’t have to be the same for everyone). E.g:
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Ask about emotional cues: “why do you laugh when you mention the x system?”
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Ask why: “I’ve tried to get my boss to adopt this format, but she won’t do it…” “Why do you think she hasn’t?”
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Probe delicately: “You mentioned a difficult situation that changed your usage. Can you tell me what that situation was?”
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Ask about code words/native language. “Why do you call it the bat cave?”
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Probing question examples from: Interviewing users: How to uncover compelling insights by Steve Portigal
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Ask the shortest question you can without directing answers
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Silence is ok. Count to 5 before you say something.
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Pay attention to whether you have received an answer to the question. If not, probe.
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Giver your interviewee plenty of ways to succeed
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Use transitional phrases “great, I’d like to switch direction now”
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They might ask you questions back to you. Try to always bring it back to them….it’s not about you.
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Taking notes
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If the director brings people to the meeting, ensure the notes include whether it is the director speaking or the direct reports
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Maintain eye contact as much as possible while writing
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If the participant is connecting better with note taker, its ok for the interviewer and note-taker to switch roles (switch in roles should not break the flow)
After the interview
- Interviewer and note taker should do a debrief immediately after the interview.
Script to start the interview
Hello <’participant’s name’>, thank you for coming today. My name is <’moderator’s name’>, I am a member of the IT strategy team, and I am going to be walking you through this session today. This is my colleague <’note-taker name’>; she (he) will help me facilitate the interview.
As you may already know, the purpose of the interview is to help us understand the experience of teams in IITB. We will be using this information to inform the development of upcoming strategies. The session should take not more than one hour.
I would like to ask for your permission to take notes during the interview.
All your answers during this interview will be kept strictly confidential with no names or teams associated to any answers in our notes. Once all interviews have been completed, we will be developing a “What We Heard” report, which we will share with you. This document will not contain any names or prescriptive comments that could inadvertently highlight any particular team. The decision about how this report will be published within IITB will be made only when the report is finished.
Because we are not recording any names, should a privacy request be received on this exercise the response will be Nil. For the same reasons, while this exercise is ATIP-able, since there are no names in our notes, there would be no names in the ATIP response.
In preparing for this series of interviews, we have consulted with the departmental Values and Ethics team to ensure we are meeting all our Values and Ethics requirements.
Do you agree to participate in this interview? (get their answer verbally only).
If answer is No
We understand. Thank you for your time
Else
Thank you. Please know that it is ok to withdraw at anytime during the interview if you are not comfortable.
Before we begin the questions, I want you to understand there are no right or wrong answers to the questions I will ask you today.
You are not going to hurt anyone’s feelings – we just want to find out what is and is not working so we can make it better.