Couldn’t agree with you more on the challenge of dealing with the “focus group of one”.

I think one of the main scenarios here is that when the company starts small, the (founder,CEO, head of sales, etc) was directly connected to the target customer. The problem is as the company grows and starts targeting new use-cases and customers, the (founder,CEO, head of sales, etc) does not always realize that his/her perspective is no longer representative of the target.

Inevitably, this is how “Feature X shall do Y” ends up in the next release whether it is relevant or not.

Thanks for the post!

Josh

I’ve moderated myself or seen my coworkers moderate a discussion. I’ve found that it is really hard to do a good job due to the engrained tribal knowledge about the company and product It’s also been helpful to chat with a professional moderator since they are looking at the whole thing with a fresh pair of eyes, and the debrief can be almost as helpful as the actual focus group discussion itself.

Regarding separating genders, I agree that the need to separate goes up with youth and is dependent on topic. But if the budget allows it, it just makes life less complicated. That said, I think some research is always better than no research, so if budget doesn’t allow it, I’ll bend rules and do things on the cheap anyways

Elaine

I do think you can use someone from your organization as an internal moderator but they have to have past experience in leading sessions to make sure bias is not introduced and the right questions are asked. That being said, if you can afford it, a professional moderator is usually worth the investment.

I am interested in hearing more about your thoughts on separating genders. I can definitely see the benefits for a younger audience but wondering if the need to separate older participants is dependent on the research topic?

Thanks for the post,

Josh