Primary Market Research

1
Primary Market Research

• Focus Groups

2
Overview

• Introduction
• Purpose, composition, applications,
• Basics
• Strengths/weaknesses, moderators role,
  logistics,
• Focus group questions
• Kano, taxonomies, generic questions,
• Analysis of focus group outcomes
• Interpretation, categorization,

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Purpose

• Focus groups are tools used to obtain information
  from (generally small) groups of people sampled
  from a target population for the purpose of
  answering questions.
• In the context of product planning, focus groups
  are used to identify product characteristics
  (features, functions, performance, etc) desired
  by customers.

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Target Population

• Persons able to provide the needed information
• Independent variables knowledge, experience,
  education, income, disability, etc
• Homogeneous independent variables are uniformly
  distributed throughout the target population
• Heterogeneous independent variables are
  non-uniformly distributed throughout the target
  population

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Sample

• Same distribution of independent variables in
  sample and target population (generalization)
• Heterogeneous target population ? large sample
  size
• Homogeneous target population ? small sample size
• Sampling method random, purposive, intensive,
  mixed

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Group Composition

• Of participants per group
• Number of topics to discuss
• Everyone can contribute
• Time to explore and elaborate
• Maximum length of about three hours
• Typically maximum of 15 20
• Factors reducing group size or length
• Total of participants
• Rule-of-thumb?
• Determined by sampling
• Of groups (total participants/participants per
  group)

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Applications

• Product refinement
• New product concepts
• New technology applications
• Product evaluation
• Improved service delivery
• Very flexible tool - many other applications

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Strengths

• Synergism
• One person completes another persons thought
• Snowballing
• One persons thought stimulates a new idea in
  another person
• Security
• Participants feel safe, encouraged to express
  their thoughts
• Empowerment
• Participants encouraged to talk about needs and
  frustrations
• Spontaneity
• All ideas receive immediate feedback and comment
• Speed
• Lots of information can be obtained in a short
  period of time

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Weaknesses

• High cost
• Participants, transportation, food, staff,
  equipment and facility rental,
• Complex facilities
• Sound system, sound proof room with one way
  glass, audio and video recording equipment,
• Heavy staffing
• Research/design team, audio-visual, analysis,
  recruitment, transportation,
• Difficult data analysis
• Thousands of statements, statement fragments,
  interpretation, clustering,
• Requires thorough understanding of topic and
  issues

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Moderators RolePre-focus Group

• Thorough knowledge of topic area and issues
• Research, interviews
• Team approach
• Experience is no substitute for knowledge!!
• Assist preparation of focus group questions
• Anticipate discussion issues complete
  discussion below
• Structure discussion
• Prepare script
• Rules, breaks, payment, transportation, food, etc

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Moderators Rolein Focus Group

• Dont alienate participants
• The moderator must remain impartial and
  respectful toward all participants
• Empathy and patience
• Every participant is part of the group because
  they have relevant information. The moderator
  must draw out this information
• Dont lead or bias the discussion
• If research and sampling have been properly
  conducted, participants will spontaneously cover
  many of the relevant issues. Prepared questions
  should introduce issues that have not been
  adequately covered

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Moderators Rolein Focus Group

• Dont distract participants
• Jokes and stories about the kids are generally
  inappropriate. Participants should understand
  that the group is business
• Dont focus in on one (or a few) individual(s) /
  dont lose control of the group
• Participants can dominate the discussion or seize
  control of the group because they are attractive,
  have a forceful or aggressive personality, great
  depth of knowledge, etc. Moderator must be both
  experienced and knowledgeable
• Flexibility
• Prepared questions will never cover all the
  relevant issues.The moderator must be prepared
  and comfortable goingoff script

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Focus Group Questions

• Focus groups are a tool to obtain information to
  answer questions!
• Focus group questions
• Ensure that each topic of interest is introduced
  for discussion
• Ensure that each topic is thoroughly discussed
• Provides pace and structure to discussion
• Probes for information rather than leads
• Theory
• Dr. Noritake Kano
• Certain issues are unlikely to be discussed by
  participants without probing questions!

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Information From Interviews (Kano)

• Exciting information
• Generally not raised by interviewee
• Lack knowledge, unrealistic concepts
• Product/service refinement
• Revealed information
• Is raised by interviewee
• Reasonable, well understood
• Product/service innovation new product/service
  concept
• Expected information
• Generally not raised by interviewee
• Too basic or obvious
• Product/service acceptance

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Product Planning

• Focus groups are used to find product
  characteristics (features, functions,
  performance) required by the product customer
  (people who use, prescribe, purchase, service,
  maintain a product)
• Product planning tools such as Quality Function
  Deployment (QFD) are driven by customer
  requirements
• Important to discover all of the (expected,
  exciting, revealed) requirements
• Focus group questions are prepared that try to
  anticipate likely requirements

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Generic Question Sets

• Laborious process to generate a thorough set of
  focus group questions
• For closely related problems there will be
  considerable overlap between their question sets
• Generic questions sets can be developed to
  improve thoroughness and effectiveness
• Generic question sets can be built around
  conceptual taxonomies
• Generic questions are modified and added too for
  specific applications

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Question Taxonomy

• Acceptance
• Assembly
• Durability
• Effectiveness
• Environmental factors
• Learning

• Maintenance
• Market factors
• Operation
• Physical safety
• Portability
• Securement

Batavia Hammer 1989, Lane 1998
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Question Construction

1. What is the purpose of the focus groups?
2. Conduct background research
3. What are the specific problems to resolve?
4. Which generic questions are relevant?
5. Transform generic questions into problem specific
   questions
6. Add missing problem specific questions
7. Update generic question set

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Focus Group Data

• Thousands of statements
• Statements often reinforce each other
• Statements may also contradict each other
• Statements are sentence fragments
• Statement meaning depends upon context within
  discussion
• Missing or unknown information
• Non-verbal communication

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Analysis

• Raw statement transcripts
• Statement completion
• Addition of explanatory notes
• Identify problem specific categories
• Tag statements by problem specific category
• Cluster statements by problem specific category
• Interpretation
• Verification
• Re-examine audio-video-text transcripts

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Conclusion

• Focus Groups
• Participant Perspective
• Idea Generating
• Divergent
• Open Ended

• Analysis
• Task Perspective
• Question Answering
• Convergent
• Focused

• Physical examination and organization
• Qualitative data analysis software (e.g. Nudist)

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Related Issues

• Questions, Comments, Suggestions