Interview

Why

Learn from potential users of your new product and other stakeholders

How

Interviews allow you to better understand users and other stakeholders by gathering their opinions, behaviours, goals, attitudes and experiences. Invite representative participants from each stakeholder group, make them feel comfortable and ask questions about your topic of interest (e.g. product usage). Report on your interviews in an appropriate way.

Practice

Interviews are widely used throughout IT projects, but often in the early stages of a project.

Ingredients

• Typically 5 to 10 interviewees, representing the relevant stakeholders.
• A clear goal for what you want to obtain.
• An interview guide with topics or questions.
• Active listening skills
• The ability to improvise and ask 'why' a lot.
• A plan for how to capture and analyse the interview results.

Phases

• Problem definition
• Analysis

Trade-offs

Read more about the trade-offs: Inspiration or Data / Expertise or Fit / Overview or Certainty.