Consulting 101 - Conducting Expert Interviews
Expert interviews are not as easy as you think
As you already know, consultants put a lot of time trying to gather data, both quantitative and qualitative, in our quest to fill out as many ppt slides as possible. (And of course, trying to provide the client some useful insight) There are a number of ways to acquire this data, whether it be through desk research (googling) or through your firm’s own IC (intellectual capital), which is basically a database compiled with sanitized versions of the projects/cases that the firms has conducted thus far. Of these, one of the primary methods of data collection is through expert interviews.
Who are these experts, really? Generally, an expert can be anyone that can provide consultation services on the relevant subject matter, and answer the questions, that we as consultants have prepared, in the sufficient depth and breadth. Yes, that is quite a relative scale, so it is up to us analysts to determine the most apt profile of experts that we want to interview, and to of course, prepare a questionnaire suited to the key questions at hand. Of course, we do want to hear the most up-to-date information on particular business issues or companies, so we do try to find experts that have the most recent and relevant experiences before actually setting up a call. We conduct these interviews mostly via tele-conference (we generally tend to get billed by the hour for each consultation) , and some experts may choose to remain anonymous due to compliance issues, as they cannot disclose sensitive information that might jeopardize their company, or their position, for that matter. The standard of compliance is also somewhat subjective, so we put in the most effort to try to extract as much information as we can by probing from multiple angles and different frames to interpret a particular phenomenon.
How do we find them?
Well, it is against compliance standards for us to try to contact any experts directly. We also keep our anonymity, and we would simply introduce ourselves as a consulting firm conducting research on a particular issue. Therefore, we have intermediaries, or expert network search firms (Think GLG, Alphasights, Thirdbridge, etc.) to help pool the experts that we need, provide us sufficient details on their profile, and relay information to them. Any type of communication between experts and consultants goes through these firms, and we also try to build a working relationship with our counterparts in these search firms, as it can really become difficult to find the right expert at the right time; these firms also put in a lot of effort to recruit new experts (via Linkedin, etc.) and try to vet them into consultation-ready states for us.
When do we need them?
So, the frequency and depth of data required by expert interviews differ by the project type, and also by the general philosophy of the consulting firm that you may work at. Of course, projects that are research heavy, such as benchmarking a particular company or business case, will tend to have a lot of interviews, while the more client-internally focused projects will have less. Strategy projects have a healthy balance of interviews as well, since we do try to analyze different approaches taken by other competitors, etc. It’s difficult to throw any figures out here, but I’ve had the experience of doing 20+ interviews for a 3-week project (benchmarking), and also around 5+ interviews for a 8 week one, so there is definitely on a discrepancy in the degree of the actual need for these expert interviews.
Also, I know that each consulting shop has a different take on expert interviews. Some firms are quite stringent on it, given the high fees and general lack of trust in the veracity of the statements made by the so-called experts via phone. Others use it as a strong tool to extract unique and interesting points that seem to hit at heart the actual points the client wants; the ‘live’ element of such opinions can definitely help sway an argument or a project’s direction towards a better route. However, there is also the risk of high dependency on these experts, and the possibility of running off on a tangent if the consulting team cannot seem to place the right message, or simply has a wrong understanding on the main points of the case study.
How to get the most out of interviews
Answer: Always have a slide in mind.
The most important part of this post, I guess, is on how to get the most out of these expert interviews. Or put bluntly, how to become a good interviewer? This is definitely one of the core skills of a consultant, and being known around your firm as “the guy (or girl)” who is good at interviewing can help propel your consulting career in the earlier stages as an analyst.
Somewhat obvious but not practiced well enough: level your thoughts and structure your notes.
Interviewing, by itself doesn’t seem like too difficult a concept; you just ask questions, and listen to the answers, right? Wrong.
In consulting, the interview must always have a purpose in terms of actual out-put, whether that be through PPT slides or an excel deliverable. For the sake of clarity, I’ll use slides as the main mode of output for now.
In terms of content, one should always be able to fill out, as a general rule of thumb, around 1~3 slides based on a 1-hour interview with an expert. In order to do that, you must have already have a good understanding of the storyline of the project, and the framework with which you will be approaching the work module you are working on. You do not go into an interview without having a framework to work with, and you must be able to filter out any information that does not fit well with the framework throughout the interview. It is crucial that you direct the discussion around the central points that you want to discuss, rather than the expert trying to explain his/her take on the issue. The interview conversation may not always sound fluid, and you might need to just blatantly ask for more detail or numbers on a particular point to fill out a simple sub-bullet on your slide. Sometimes, there can be somewhat of a disconnect in regards to what points to stress, and what examples you can use to support the message you’re trying to construct, so the good consultant is one who has a good grasp on the extent and scope of the knowledge that the expert has on the subject matter, knows how much of this knowledge can fit into his/her slides, and just flat out extracts the required information to substantiate the inherent logic. Sometimes, you might have to sound like an asshole by cutting off the expert short mid-sentence, and abruptly change topics, but, at the end of the day, the consultant who brings meaningful output is the one touted as the good interviewer.
I’ve seen many consultants who are very fluent and eloquent in their discourse, yet end up rambling about points that do not matter to story, or don’t know when to drill down on a particular subject, or when to move on to a separate point. Since the clock is always ticking, there is always tremendous pressure to bring much value in the limited budget allocated to conducting these interviews. Also, remember that the experts also have an outstanding interest in prolonging the discussion as much as they can; they get paid according to the time they spend on the line, so naturally you can expect them to be partial in their responses, and sometimes even try to circle around the point to delay the clock. Therefore, expert interviews require a good gauging on the other person at the end of the line, and you would need to have sharpened your knives before fully delving into the interview.
Afterwards…..
Writing down interview notes is a basic, but important part of these expert interviews. It is quite dependent on the PM’s predisposition, but some PMs expect fully organized interview notes by EOD every time you do an interview, while others may be somewhat lax on the organization of these notes. PMs do tend to ask for the details of each interview, and some even like to read through the interview notes to gain a better understanding of the topic and formulate the storyline for the overall deck. Because of this, organizing the points in the interview is a boring, but necessary exercise. Sometimes you’re lucky and have really smart interns helping out on the project, and generally you can outsource the interview note writing part to them, but every consultant should be familiar with writing down concise notes, and especially differentiating the right levels and categories of the points made throughout the interview. Completing the interview notes shouldn’t take over 2 hours max. for an 1-hr long interview (interns and beginners take 3~5 hrs), and the people who are really good at levelling out the points, bullet by bullet, are also the ones who are great at slide writing (which is a whole different topic by itself). Basically, a well organized interview note can, and should be, pasted directly onto a slide when the content is relevant.
Hope this brought some insight into one area of how consultants gather data, and the type of work we may do. Now, back to work!