Stakeholder discovery interviews: It’s all in the questions
Stakeholder discovery interviews are an opportunity to hear from people on the ground, what they value and don’t value when it comes to learning and development (L&D) and to understand what’s possible. Done well, they not only provide rich information to guide the strategy but they create future ambassadors to lead the way.
In our experience, the best process for stakeholder interviews include the following elements:
A good cross-section of stakeholders from across the organisation.
50-minutes per interview and 1 stakeholder per interview which allows for greater depth of response.
Tonka Learning to lead the interview but with a representative from the organisation also in attendance.
All meetings to be held virtually and recorded on a virtual platform to allow for a transcript of interviews.
Questions to be emailed to stakeholders in advance of each meeting.
Asking The Right Questions
50-minutes goes fast and you need to make sure you get depth from each interview. In terms of the process, we find there might be 1 or 2 questions you ask of all stakeholders but then you vary all other questions based on (a) the stakeholder, and (b) whether you have enough information on a particular topic. Below we have grouped some of our favourite questions around different themes.
| Looking Back |
What L&D has worked best in your previous places of work? What L&D activities have you valued most/least in this organisation? |
|---|---|
| Challenges |
What are some of the ‘pain-points’ in your department? What are some of the big challenges/opportunities this organisation is facing over the next three years, related to people? |
| Values |
When it comes to L&D, what’s most important to you? What does good leadership look like? |
| Ideas |
What are the top few capabilities that require the greatest focus in the next 3 years? What suggestions do you have to improve career development? |
| Priority |
If we could elevate 1 capability to drive performance, what would that capability be? If all senior leaders got together and had $1M to invest in L&D, what would they all agree to spend this on? |
| Not-To-Do |
When we think about future L&D, what won’t work? What might be too ambitious, too conservative, too corporate, etc.? What do you not want to see in a final L&D report? |
| Problem Solving |
How do we help people be more self aware? How do we generate belonging with our casuals? |
| Enabling |
What are the most likely risks that could derail L&D? If you were the communications lead, how would you market L&D? |
One final comment. It’s also in how you ask these questions. How you build an instant connection, establish credibility in the process, make them feel safe and create an environment more like a conversation and less like an interview. Now that’s a skill!
