I enjoy coming up with things on the fly, and today’s Try This is one of those moments.
I was hired by a client organization earlier on in my consulting business to conduct several focus groups for their program participants, all of whom were young high school girls attending a 6-week summer program.
During the first two focus groups, one question I asked was, “What would you change about this program?”
Interestingly, the participants enjoyed the program so much that they didn’t have any ideas on how they could improve the program.
When I got to the last two focus groups, I decided to change the question.
Before I share how I changed the question, let’s make one thing clear: It’s very possible your program participants really do enjoy your program, and there’s a lot of information to glean from this. But this client organization specifically wanted feedback on how to evolve the program and they noticed that, outside of exclaiming they enjoy the program, participants didn’t give in prior feedback on what they enjoyed and what they’d like to see based on previous evaluations.
In response to my client’s request, I shifted the question.
This activity is ideal for:
- Anyone responsible for developing, running and evaluating programs and services
- Anyone interested in applying evaluative thinking
Here’s what you need:
- Whatever setup you use for focus groups (though this can also be created as a survey, key informant interview, or as a World Cafe)
The steps:
I changed the question to:
“If you could create your own version of this program, what would it look like?“
To further probe, the participants were instructed to think about each aspect of the program and share not only what they liked about the program, but also what they would include to make the program even better in their eyes. This could be anything from how they engaged with staff and other participants, various activities they engaged in, to the environment the program is located in, or how often the program is held.
As a bonus, participants took turns “marketing” their version to the other participants.
Let’s process:
Turns out, this process was more engaging as participants had to really pay attention to what the others were saying, plus they fed off each others’ responses. As for me, it helped me noticed how often themes came up.
Several years later, I asked the same question but in a World Cafe format with another client organization. The above question, along with the other focus group questions, were written individually on large pieces of butcher paper, and participants were instructed to respond to the questions as they moved around the room. Similar to how the participants “marketed” their version of the program, participants in this instance were able to build off of each other’s responses by placing stars next to responses that resonated most.
Key takeaway
Similar to last week’s blog post, this is a practice in cognitive reframing. Asking “What would you change about this program?” focuses solely on perceived problems, but asking participants to create their own version of the program is a more proactive way of addressing these concerns. This process also includes evaluative thinking as it’s action-oriented, leading to better decision-making, more well-focused programming.
Try this activity and let me know how it goes for you.
Raise Your Voice: How can you use this activity with your program participants? Share below in the comments section.
