How to Conduct a Successful Focus Group

I'm a big fan of focus groups! I think they are a great mechanism to gain qualitative information about public opinion. They are used a lot in organizations and businesses when people are going through a big change. This way people affected can voice their feelings freely and the organization can really learn what is important to those involved and how to make things better for them.
As I mentioned early last month, starting this fall my church followed through with a merger with another South Minneapolis United Methodist Church. Since, I've been serving on my church's 'naming committee' to develop a fair process to select a new name. I voiced that before we narrow down the names to those the congregation will actually vote on, we should conduct at least two focus groups where people can see all the names and voice their opinions and feelings about them.
We picked two days and times to hold focus groups and invited everyone to come. They were a huge success and the participants really felt like they were part of the process. At each of them we showed the top 18 names we felt fit the criteria we wanted our name to have. We then went through the list, saying each name one at a time and started an open discussion around that particular name. The focus groups showed our committee things we had not noticed before and really taught us which names were well liked by the congregation.

Tips to conduct a successful focus group:
1) Find a small, quiet room that will not lead to distractions. Make sure everyone can see the others who are part of the focus group. Also, make sure you supply name tags.
2) Add an incentive for coming to your focus group, for example free pizza or a giveaway.
3) Think of your target audience and invite only that group of people who can answer the questions you have.
4) Only allow 10-15 people to participate in your focus group.
5) Assign one or two facilitators and one or two note takers.
5) Bring a tape recorder, set up a camera recorder, or both in the room. This will allow you to have all of the focus group recorded in someway. However, make sure you let everyone who is attending know these recording devices are in the room.
6) Use language that is easy to understand.
7) Encourage those who are not speaking up to talk by asking them questions directly.
8) Make sure your attendees stay on the focus group topic. If they sway, bring them back on track.
9) As the facilitator or part of the team leading the event, keep your opinions out of the focus group. You do not want to influence anyone who is attending.
10) People's time is precious, watch your time. I recommend that a focus group last no longer than one hour and make sure you publicize this. This means you must watch the time you spend on each question.
11) Make sure you thank everyone for coming to your focus group and tell them why you're researching this topic.

Proper focus group question outline:
1) Have each person say their name, ask them an easy question that will allow them to tell everyone else something about themselves.
2) Ask a question that is a little harder, but leads to the topic you really want to discuss.
3) Start asking the questions you really want answers for, the hard questions, make sure to ask follow up questions after.
4) Ask a question that is a little easier, but still on topic.
5) Ask a closing question that leaves them with something to think about.

The process we're using to find a new church name:

• We created a list of criteria that we want our name to have.
• We allowed members and guests of the church to submit names in a box outside the sanctuary until November 1st; we collected over 90 name suggestions!
• We narrowed the list of 90 down to 18 using our list of criteria.
• We organized two focus groups at different times and sent an invite through e-mail, the monthly mailed newsletter and announced it in the bulletin two weeks prior. Everyone was welcomed to come and knew they would see the 18 names. At the end of each focus group we gave each participant two stickers, a pink and yellow, and asked them to place a pink sticker on their first choice and yellow on their second.
• This weekend we narrowed the 18 names down to five based on the votes from participants at the focus groups and how they fit our criteria.
• Now, this coming Sunday, November 22nd, those at the Sunday morning service will be asked to vote for their favorite name out of five at the beginning of the service. We will then count the votes, take the top two names and ask them to vote again for the name that they like and that first us best.