Interviewing

What is Interviewing?

Structured Interviewing is a data gathering technique where the improvement team talks one-on-one or in small groups with people who experience the problem. Unlike casual conversation, structured interviews follow a prepared guide with open-ended questions designed to surface facts, patterns, and insights. The people closest to the work often see things that data alone cannot reveal.

When to Use It

• •In Step 1 (Identify) to understand the problem from multiple perspectives
• •In Step 2 (Analyze) to investigate root causes that are not captured in system data
• •When quantitative data tells you what is happening but not why

How to Use It: Step by Step

1. 1

   Prepare the interview guide

   Write 5-10 open-ended questions. Start broad ("Walk me through your typical day") and narrow ("When does this problem happen most often?"). Include follow-up prompts.

2. 2

   Select interviewees

   Include people at multiple levels: frontline workers, supervisors, managers, and affected stakeholders. Aim for diversity of perspective.

3. 3

   Conduct the interview

   Listen more than talk. Take notes or record (with permission). Ask "Can you give me an example?" to move from general to specific.

4. 4

   Synthesize findings

   After all interviews, look for themes, contradictions, and surprises. Present anonymized findings to the team.

Pro Tips

• ✓Promise and maintain confidentiality — people share more when they are not worried about attribution
• ✓Ask "What else?" at the end of every answer — the best insights often come last
• ✓Interview skeptics and resistors, not just supporters — their objections reveal real constraints
• ✓Schedule 30-45 minutes per interview — shorter feels rushed, longer causes fatigue

Facilitation Guide

Hold a 60-minute idea generation session. Set ground rules: no criticism, quantity matters, build on ideas (5 min). Run silent brainwriting round — each person writes 3 ideas and passes to the next person, repeat 5 times (30 min). Read all ideas aloud and cluster into themes on a wall (15 min). Do a quick round-robin where each person adds one more idea inspired by the clusters (10 min). Count total ideas and celebrate the quantity.

Other Tools in Step 3