JOINT ANALYSIS LESSONS LEARNED CENTRE NATO'S LEAD AGENT JOINT ANALYSIS

ANNEX D
INTERVIEW PROCESS
Notes
(Shamelessly taken from Nick Milton’s The Lessons Learned Handbook
(Reference B), pp 41-43.)
A common task for the LLSO is likely to be gathering further information
about observations in order to be able to develop them into LI. If there is
time, this is best achieved through interviews with the person or people
who submitted the original observation. Using the following process will
give you the best chance of leaving the interview with all of the
information you need.
Process Overview
Think of the parts of the interview as parts of a tree that you are trying to
explore during the interview. The trunk is the basic purpose of the
interview, based on the original observation. The branches are all of the
issues surrounding the observation that you would like to explore more.
Each branch then needs to be explored to find its root causes. Finally,
you can pick the fruit at the end of the branch—that is, get the
interviewee’s expert opinion about how the organization can learn from
the experience.
Step 1: Introduce the trunk
You will first need to introduce yourself to the interviewee and explain
what it is you are trying to achieve from the interview. Remind them of
the observation that the interview will be based on and give them an
opportunity to say a little about their background with respect to the
observation.
Step 2: Identify the branches
Then ask a number of questions to identify what learning came out of
the observation. These should be “what” questions in the past tense
such as:
What were some of the key issues?
What were the success factors?
What worked well/didn’t work well?
What were the challenges and pitfalls?
What would you approach differently next time?
Step 3: Explore root causes
Then for each of the branches from step 2 that seem interesting, explore
the root causes using “how” and “why” questions or using the “5 Times
Why” technique described in Chapter 4. Use open questions such as:
Why do you think you were so successful?
What did you put in place to ensure success?
What was missing that caused that to happen?
What makes you say that?
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