Consulting Journal: Trends

Trends: Focus groups

by David Blakey

Organizations are rushing to use focus groups. But they need to be watched in more ways than one.

[Monday 5 November 2001]

Many companies and some areas of the public sector are using focus groups to help them make decisions. Often, this works well.

Essentially, a focus group works like a set of beta testers who are being observed. If the product being tested was a bar of soap, then

the alpha testers would test that it worked like soap in test conditions,
the beta testers would test that it worked like soap in variety of real situations, and
the focus group would test that it handled like soap and that it was treated like soap.

It is a requirement that the focus group is observed, and that observers watch how the members of the group unwrap the soap, handle the soap, and store the soap as well as how they use the soap. If the focus group cannot be observed at the time, then they can be interviewed afterwards. The interviewer will note not only the members' answers to questions but also their reactions to the questions and their behaviour when answering them.

This is where focus groups can provide good information. The observers and interviewers will be able to establish the group's comfort with using the product.

This is, unfortunately, where focus groups can go wrong.

Some years ago, studies were conducted on the behaviour of apes. Some apes were given tasks to do that resulted in rewards when the tasks were completed successfully. There might be a panel with three lamps and three buttons. When the observers lit a lamp and the ape pressed the appropriate button, it was rewarded with a grape. In other studies, the observers used a form of sign-language to convey a message. If the ape responded with an appropriate reply in sign-language, it was rewarded. These studies were taken by some as proof that apes had a relatively high level of intelligence and that they were capable of understanding a simple language.

In reality, of course, the apes behaved in particular ways because they were rewarded. Rather than being intelligent or linguistic, the apes were simply responding in ways that produced rewards. They were just conditioned.

I am not implying that the members of focus groups behave like apes. But they can develop a number of characteristics that make their work less valuable.

Some members of a group may wish to prolong their membership of the group. They may therefore begin to behave in ways that they believe will make them valuable. This can result in them always expressing doubts about the benefits of the products that they are testing. They believe that this reaction will cause the product developers to think again about the benefits of their products. In fact, this constant negativity can frustrate the developers and the other group members.

This behaviour can often occur in main-line management as well. You may encounter members of a team who always question every idea and decision. They believe that this will enable them to say that they raised the issue of failure and that any subsequent failure is not their fault.
The reverse may occur. Some group members may believe that their membership of the group can be prolonged by their concurrence with what they imagine are the answers that the developers want to hear. It is fairly easy to identify the people who are negative about everything but it is harder to spot the people who are always positive. They might agree with all your opinions because those opinions are right. You might expect that, one day, they will disagree with one of your opinions.
Some members may court acceptance by the other members of the group. They are likely to be swayed by the views of a majority of the other members. They are less likely to put forward opinions that they imagine will be be rejected by the other members. In the worst case, they may hold a different opinion from the rest of the group because they have information or experience that is not shared by the rest. They may be unwilling to put this opinion forward because of their fear of rejection by the group as a person who believes they are superior to the rest.

If you can avoid these problems, you can get focus groups to work well for you. As with so many other issues in management, you can best avoid the problems by continually searching for them.

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