A meeting of the minds
Editor's note: Kai K. Fuentes is president and CEO of Ebony Marketing Systems, a multicultural research agency, with over 30 years in the industry. She holds a master’s degree in social work from Adelphi University and a bachelor’s degree in religious studies with a minor in social work from The College of New Rochelle. Find Fuentes on LinkedIn.
Even before the candy wrappers are cleaned off of the last focus group table, the rush to insights begins. So many questions: What did we just learn? How soon can we have a topline summary? (Make it easy; just the most important points.) Then there’s that single misheard, misremembered or misinterpreted comment pinging every phone as a key insight. I cannot stop those predictable reactions but I can offer a practical way to turn urgency into strategy: a scheduled, structured power debrief.
The power debrief is a moderated conversation bridging that urgency chasm between the last focus group and the final project presentation. This one-hour meeting shifts research from activity to strategy. From a transactional to a collaborative relationship. Through experiences across many sectors, we’ve refined what works best for timing, structure and goals.
Timing the debrief – the magical 72 hours
While power debriefs are not held immediately after the last group or interview – I like to schedule them for around 72 hours after the proceedings – I do respect client urgency by sharing top-of-mind thoughts right away. Voice notes are by far my preferred method as they let me deliver an immediate, unedited, “just spit it out”-style take, one that’s more robust than the unedited POV impressions of a backroom. I have found demand for this increasing as fewer clients have time to attend groups or interviews. Voice notes are also shared with any of my team members working on the analysis.
In the days before the power debrief, I use that precious pocket of time when I first wake up (and no one else is stirring in my very active household) to reflect on what I heard. I’ll go back and listen to quotes in my head that I’m not sure about. Even with those I am sure about, it always helps to listen again. Incubation time plus morning-calm reflections equals clarity. As moderators, we take the time before focus groups to be prepared to ask questions; we also need to take the time before the debrief to be prepared to answer questions.
Your own natural rhythm may be different. Perhaps you’ll use that 72 hours to explore your thoughts in a next-day afternoon run or while listening to music late at night. Pay attention to your own rhythms to guide you. Again for me, I lean into the same “sleep on it” method that prepares me for moderating with respondents. For a few nights before groups or interview, I read the discussion guide right before bed, every night. That’s how I get the guide down cold. It’s easy to use that same method when preparing for the debrief.
The idea is to let your subconscious help. Don’t short-circuit the human need – at least this author’s human need – to sleep on it. Use your natural circadian rhythms to allow findings to come you. Like the one respondent’s mic-drop comment that was worth the whole dang study.
But don’t wait too long! Again, 72 hours is the sweet spot; even a week can be too late. Everyone loses mental ownership of a project as others happily rush in to claim space in our brains. End-of-year focus groups or interviews with debriefs in the new year are the worst for losing mental ownership. When you finally meet up, that cold project becomes a hot mess.
The key to pulling off optimal timing is putting the debrief in the RFP timeline. If you’re on the client side, request a debrief as part of the RFP. If you’re supplier side, emphasize this debrief as something that makes your project proposal strategic, not just tactical.
The debrief agenda = power hour
Having your debrief scheduled as a milestone meeting is only the first step in addressing foot-tapping insight impatience. Another key step is your debrief agenda. Detail that agenda in your RFP, the debrief meeting invite and in a quick follow-up e-mail immediately after the last group or interview. (Tip: Have it pre-written and scheduled to send immediately after the last interview or group; you can always do a last-minute edit.)
Our experience has proven the effectiveness of this one-hour structure:
20 minutes – start with client/stakeholder questions
20 minutes – shift to moderator shares (aka “Just spit it out”)
14 minutes – elevate to recommendations (the only slide you’ll need)
5 minutes – ask for more business (this part may surprise you)
1 minute – close with gratitude
Share this agenda up front so clients know that they have the floor first but that you will also be talking about what you heard as the moderator. Having the stakeholders ask questions at the outset is just good customer service. Because let’s be honest, none of us really like being told to hold questions until the end.
Listening to stakeholder questions first is similar to the agenda change I’ve seen over the years in pediatrician visits, where the doctor starts with the shot and then follows with the actual examination. Parents all know what happens if the needle isn’t first: the kids are a hot, anxious distracted mess during the exam and then finally here’s the needle, here’s your lollipop and then the parents get to deal with the kid. It’s not unlike a debrief, when bottled-up questions can erupt in frequent and anxious interruptions. You risk running out of time then packing stakeholders off with no answers – no lollipop. What if stakeholders hesitate to speak up? These proven questions will get to their unspoken inquiries:
What questions were answered for you? (Note: Answers heard will vary, provoking more questions.)
What other questions are you assuming will be answered?
Is there anything else that needs to be fleshed out?
Is there anything else I can do?
Reveal and address stakeholder perceptions
You will get questions that were clearly answered in the moment, during the research. You may be surprised that people did not hear those answers. Give some grace because it’s easy to be distracted in the backroom – especially a virtual backroom. So much better to hear these answerable questions in your debrief vs. a stakeholder believing that you failed to answer them.
I do answer almost all questions in this section. I don’t want to be busy taking notes or risk the chance of forgetting to answer them later on. Which means sometimes someone doesn’t feel heard. For the questions where I have a lot to say, I will mention that we’re going to go into more depth later on.
You’ll also get questions that you cannot answer yet or that the project simply cannot answer. Best to address them now. For example, I’ve had clients ask me, “What do all Black people think?” I can manage expectations by pointing out that I can speak for the Black people interviewed but not every Black person in their market. It’s an opportunity to frame the value of qualitative data as directional but not projectable.
We do schedule multiple debriefs when there are multiple stakeholder groups, each with distinct questions. One example, when conducting messaging research for an agency, creatives have different questions and are looking for different commentary than the strategy group. Holding multiple debriefs delivers two benefits in writing the final presentation. First, the final presentation loops in all those perspectives, taking it to a higher strategic level. Second, it prevents the need to create multiple final presentations – a significantly bigger time investment than multiple debriefs.
A key insight that has emerged over many debriefs is that the debrief often reveals there is no shared version of the truth. I practice grace with all the different truths because everyone experienced the interviews or groups differently. As the moderator, I was immersed in context and nuance. Stakeholders don’t have that same immersion. Perhaps they start arguing the case for each of their truths. Everyone is rushing to conclusions, running with scissors!
Taking center stage
You can stop the running with scissors in the second 20 minutes of the debrief during what I call “Just spit it out.” I do request not to be interrupted in this section. This is when I shift from being my “less Kai is more” moderating self to taking center stage. (See “Less is more: How a measured, respectful approach to interviewing yields more insights” in the November/December 2024 issue of Quirk’s for details.) It’s showtime!
I structure this section by taking two or three questions from each section of the discussion guide. What did I hear that’s burning in my head? These are the questions that I deferred in the first section plus questions that the stakeholder did not bring up but that I want to call attention to.
Since we specialize in multicultural research, this is where I outline cultural nuances. Clients may be afraid to bring this topic up; there is a fear of being politically incorrect or just plain wrong. All good – that’s what we are here for; I’ll bring the nuances to them!
Beyond the discussion guide, I often call out a very revealing organic probe – a question that wasn’t in the guide but naturally arose. For example, in a research study on breastfeeding in the Black community, a probe question about the ethnicity of the healthcare provider was critical. Black women had a higher confidence level about nutritional guidelines when they were in the care of a Black healthcare provider.
For each of these debrief-focus questions, I split the answers into two categories: the responses I heard repeatedly and those that were outliers. This framing gives clients a way to think about the findings. Often these are supported by key quotes from the transcript (remember: you had that 72 hours in prep to find and verify those quotes). The higher confidence level that Black women had in a Black healthcare provider is a solid example of something I heard repeatedly.
I also note how and why something was said. That one person who said they didn’t like X, Y and Z? The insight might not be that they didn’t like X, Y and Z but rather why did they say that? Referring back to the breastfeeding study, the finding was not so much that one woman was struggling with the CDC guidelines but why she was struggling them. She was having difficulties because she still felt like a failure due to a previous miscarriage. The why was critical. This was only one person, an outlier in the study, but it suggested that previous pregnancy experiences may be critical in healthcare conversations.
Elevate to recommendations
We’re past the halfway point. Up to now, I’ve had no slides – it’s been questions, answers, conversation. In this part of the debrief we have one very simple PowerPoint slide. It's not heavily formatted; no dancing graphics or other bells and whistles. These are the easy, granular actions that are super clear and were affirmed when you reviewed the transcripts. These recommendations form a roadmap for some immediate actions so it’s important that people see them.
Especially with multicultural research, I find I need to reinforce nuances by spelling them out here. For example, in some haircare focus groups we had questions about celebrity collabs. At this stage, I would provide a list of potential collabs. Going deeper into granularity assures the stakeholders that I understand their need for urgency. That I have come in prepared not only with high-level themes from repeated comments and intriguing outliers but also action items.
The ask for additional research
The last item on my list is to recommend any additional research needed to fill in gaps. No one project can answer every question. I have found most further-research recommendations fall into three areas: research to get deeper insight on what we did hear; research with different groups beyond this original research; and research on what we did not hear, including new stakeholder questions raised in this debrief.
Our experience is that around 65% of the time, further research is agreed upon. In that case, seek a high-level agreement; work out the nitty-gritty details separately. Of course, budgets may mean there is no funding for the next phase. For us, further exploration can be the opportunity to get creative with a research methodology. Some additional research is better than NO additional research.
Sometimes, the answer is no. That’s legit. More than a low-key ask, this is best practice. Planting seeds is a must in our industry but patience is required. It may be a year or two before clients come back ready for more exploration but, without the ask, that second phase may not have made it into the budgeting process. Occasionally, we’ve seeded two from one ask – the original client and now the client who has moved on. And if you’re lucky, a client who switches jobs may bring the seed you planted with them.
Quite honestly, everyone in the meeting may already know that additional research is truly needed. It’s simply bringing it to the table without sidelining it to an e-mail or having to schedule another meeting just for the ask. For both suppliers and client-side researchers, it has a natural momentum while the research is fresh and in focus.
The critical last minute – deep gratitude
This is the time for a sincere appreciation for the business and the opportunity to work on important projects. It’s more than standard customer service; business relationships deserve the same genuine gratitude that we extend to our respondents.
Set up for final report and project success
Having the one-hour debrief puts a LOT less pressure on the final presentation. Three reasons that’s true:
One, in a debrief you’re in the trenches together. I do think that in a formal final presentation, clients feel more hesitant about asking a question. (After all, it does say “final” in the meeting agenda.) A debrief lowers that barrier. Stakeholders are going to have the question whether they ask it or not. As a partner, you want that question to be asked. How else are you going to answer it?
Two, you can prioritize the questions and themes that were brought up more than others. You can put those themes in earlier and in more detail in your final presentation so you’re really bringing it home to the stakeholders.
Three, the power brief juices up the muscles for the final. Both client and researcher have another chance to get comfortable with each other. Establishing a relationship is the name of the game. Plus, no final presentation muscle cramping!
Add a meaningful hour
Now that I’ve walked through the power debrief timing, structure and goals, I want to thank all of you who have read this article. My goal was not to convince you to simply add another meeting in a project timeline but to add a meaningful hour to the success of your projects as well as your research partnerships.
With gratitude, Kai K. Fuentes.