Process interviewing is the fastest way to glean the information you need about a system. The catch is that things can go wrong before the interview, during the meeting, and while you are getting sign-off on the finished model. Below are the nine ways people will try to derail an interview, along with a fix for each.
The top nine interviewing problems
1. Stalling, or you cannot get an appointment
Everyone is busy, but some people can stretch “I’m busy” for days. Test their availability with the 1-3-All technique. Start by proposing one specific time. If that does not work, offer three alternatives. If they decline all three, tell them you will open your whole schedule, including before work, at lunch, and after work. If they still hesitate, it is probably not really about how busy they are. They have likely gotten the wrong message, or no message at all, and they are worried about what the project means for their department, their team, or their job.
If they have the wrong message, ask for ten minutes to show them what you are doing. Go to their desk with your laptop, open a demonstration file, and walk them through a process. Help them see that you will be doing the same for their area. Most of the time they become enthusiastic about taking part in the change and set an interview time. If that fails, you will have to pull rank, because someone missed the memo that everyone was to cooperate. Ask the senior manager (or their designated appointee) to get the message out to the right people. An interview under duress is not ideal, but it beats no information at all.
2. Defensiveness
When an interviewee takes offense at questions about their process, it is usually because they believe the answers are not in their interest. If they think a process improvement effort is really about downsizing when it is not, you need to make the case for why the project matters to them, to the customer, and to the company.
Sometimes the defensiveness is justified. The process may show that they are the bottleneck. In that case, isolate one entity type at a time and gather what you can. You may have to back into some of the information by talking to the groups that feed them entities and the groups they supply. It is not the preferred way to collect process information, but it may be your only source.
3. Too many cooks in the kitchen
Some groups want the whole team in the interview. They will argue that everyone’s input gives a better picture, or that it is more efficient to get it all done at once. There is no situation where having more than one person in the interview helps. Experience shows it takes longer and the result is no better. People who are normally confident start looking to others for answers, the group debates, activities get added and removed, and nothing is settled. A top US consulting firm once discussed a process for an hour and could agree on only one step. The pattern repeats constantly.
When you are stuck with more than one person, run the kickoff, then explain that you want to interview one at a time and will use the previous discussion as a starting point for the next. Then politely send the extra people out and do not continue until the room is clear.
4. The micromanager
Sometimes a supervisor wants to sit in to “see how it’s done.” The trouble is that the process expert will not speak freely in front of the boss. The supervisor would rather outsiders not learn that a process is less efficient than it could be, because it reflects on them. A single questioning glance, frown, or glare can shut down the flow of information. For that reason, do not let a supervisor sit in. Use the same approach as “too many cooks” to clear the room. If they truly want to see how it is done, have them observe an interview for an area they do not control, and only if they agree to stay silent.
5. The artificial tsunami, or information overload
Sometimes an interviewee is so glad to be heard that they try to tell you everything at once. Every exception and edge case pours out in rapid-fire detail. Slowing them down only helps so much. Without any prioritizing, it becomes a flood that is hard to follow and nearly impossible to capture.
This is the moment to compliment their knowledge and reassure them that they are giving you the right information, but explain that you are having trouble digesting the detail and need to capture the process differently so the team can find opportunities. Once you have built that seawall, retake control. Ask them to take a common entity and walk through the process for it. With that framework in place you can add other products, building the model so the most common flow runs along the top and the less common streams sit lower.
6. The history teacher
Everyone has stories, and it is tempting to teach principles through the past. A history lesson from an interviewee can easily cost you thirty minutes or more, and since you should keep an interview under an hour, you cannot spare it. You have to cut the lesson short, gently.
You might say, “I wonder if we could save that story for a later time? I promised I’d only keep you for an hour, and the project manager is pushing me hard to finish this critical interview.” Use whatever works, but do not let the interviewee ramble. Bring them back by talking about a specific entity: where does it go next, and how long does that step take?
7. Everything is unique
Most people believe what they do is one of a kind. In practice there are a great many standard processes in the world and very little that is truly unique. People will say, “our processes are unique and can’t be modeled,” or assume there are no patterns and ask why anyone would waste time attempting the impossible. Plenty of people believe this; none have been right.
Agree with them at first and acknowledge that they may have a problem that is not easy to model. Then ask them to be patient with you. Walk the process for a single entity, then another. The process always surfaces.
8. Not my area, but this is how it works
Some people believe they understand the process end to end. In reality, almost no one has a complete picture of what happens outside their span of control. Even someone who once worked in an area may be describing how it used to run. Managers are the worst offenders, often convinced they know more detail than they do. So interview only the people who work in the process. Once the conversation exceeds the scope of their control, end it and find the person the work is handed off to.
9. The red herring
The term “red herring” appears to come from dragging a smelly fish across a trail to test a hunting dog’s focus. In process interviewing, a red herring is an unrelated or irrelevant point raised deliberately to throw the interviewer off track. People may want to keep certain problems hidden, so they keep pointing at one area when the real issue is elsewhere. A persuasive interviewee makes it easy to lose focus. Let the process speak instead. Use the data to point to the problem and drive the solution, because evidence is what backs up your conclusions and recommendations. Do not let a red herring pull you away.
Process interviewing is always a challenge, and a few learnable techniques make it genuinely rewarding. For the workshop side of capture, see how to gather the right information in a flash. If you would like to talk through any of this, get in touch.
