The Art of Crafting a Compelling Discussion Guide: Avoiding Overcrowding and Focus on Impact

I remember when I wrote my first discussion guide. It was a mess. Way too many questions. Way too many parts. Way too much of everything. It ended in tears. And of course, it was a learning experience.

Having written hundreds of guides over the years, I have come to embrace brevity. My rule of thumb is that one question takes between two to five minutes to answer. That alone limits the number of questions you can reasonably ask. Important insights might get lost in the shuffle if you are focused on asking as many questions as you think you can. We lead conversations, not police interrogations.

When crafting a guide, keep these principles in mind:

Although it is not possible for every project, start broad before narrowing in to the ‘meat of the matter.’ I always tend to ask questions up front related to the screener, so as to ensure the participant matches the profile of the kind of people we seek.

You can realistically cover a maximum of three to four topics in-depth within an hour of discussion time, roughly 10 to 15 minutes per topic.

It takes time for a participant to fully review and understand any provocations/stimulus, so factor in at least three minutes for that on top of the follow-up questions.

Leave some buffer space for natural conversation and unexpected questions. We humans are unpredictable, but that’s the best part of qualitative research.

Prioritize brevity over breadth: Aim for concise, clear language that gets straight to the point.

And don’t forget that questions need to be open-ended to be effective. Replace ‘why do you do this?’ with ‘what about x works for you?’

Finally, it may be helpful to start from the end-point, e.g., the objectives and hypotheses. What questions directly map to these two things? Take these questions and put them in order of a natural flow. That alone can help you focus.

By avoiding overcrowding and focusing on impact, we can create a more focused and effective discussion guide that yields rich insights from our participants.

What strategies do you use when crafting your guides?