Before the focus group

At this point, you have established a clear goal of the feedback you're trying to collect. You've recruited participants and started work on questions for the session. Before actually conducting the focus group meeting, a few more decisions need to be made, which we'll discuss in the following sections.

Using an outside facilitator

In Chapter 3, Brainstorming, we talked about some of the pros and cons to bringing in an outside resource to facilitate. Although it's not a requirement to use a third-party facilitator for focus groups, the subject should be discussed. An outside facilitator could be perceived as not having a vested interest in the outcome of the focus group. This can position them to get information that an internal facilitator can't. In fact, depending upon who is selected as the internal facilitator, their presence could make participants feel they need to respond in a specific way—or not at all.

I know we talked about the focus groups not being ideal for...