How do you address the needs of staff that work in a different city, state or country?

Visiting each of these offices may not always be practical. Therefore different techniques need to be employed to conduct research and gather information about their needs.

Principles

The same principles apply as for face-to-face interviews:

• involve a representative cross-section of staff, focusing on actual ‘doers’ instead of managers
• don’t ask staff what they need, focus on their activities and tasks
• avoid gathering opinions about what needs to be done and gain an understanding of the real day-to-day workings of the organisation

For more information on stakeholder interviews see: Stakeholder interviews as simple knowledge mapping.

There are a number of options for gathering information from those at a distance. All of these techniques are designed to identify key information needs, gain an understanding of the organisation and uncover major issues and problems.

[CMb 2009-01 by Rebecca Rodgers, read the full article]