Focus Groups
for Strategy Development
Many are aware of the marketing focus groups using hidden cameras. Well, this is not that type of focus group process. Focus Groups are facilitated events in which organizational members take a survey, rating the organization in a number of areas, and identify major issues the organization is facing. The process and surveys is done annonomously but are coded by group and organizational department or division. We use two group codes, leaders and workforce. The discussion helps each individual identify organizational issues, clarify their meaning and discuss their implications while the facilitators take notes on flipcharts or on computers while projecting the information.
In small organizations (<50) we recommend engaging a high percentage (70% to 80%) of the workforce. As the size of the organization climbs the percentage will fall, roughly to a minimum of 10%.
Focus Groups are done in small groups of 15 or less to allow for a fair amount of participation by all over a 1.5 to 2 hour working window for each group. Leaders and work force participants are not mixed. The client's lead team identifies who is in what group category.
Focus Groups provide a phenominal amount of quality information for strategic planning efforts. The groups allow us to group the responses by the perceptions of the leadership and work force and by each department to see what perceptions and issues may differ. The report package includes planning team assignments for reviewing the results. We seamlessly integrate the results with that of the other forms of data collection used in the planning efforts.
These Focus Groups have also been done as a stand alone process. In these cases the optional Step 6 Facilitated Session is used to process the results with a Leadership Team to generate understanding, identify implication, and discuss and assign potential actions to address the issues identified.
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