Welcome back to Do-It-Yourself Virtual Focus Groups For Lawyers! This blog will help you create engaging presentations, moderate effectively and get the most out of the participant feedback for case success.
Be sure to visit the first part of the How To Do Your Own Jury Research in order to gather the first three steps of setting up your virtual system, how to get participants and screening/selecting participants.
I have put together a Free Starter Guidebook you can download here.
Step 4: Planning and Creating a Presentation
Before hitting START on the virtual focus group meeting, you will want to take time to scope out a plan.
A plan can help you decide:
How many cases do I want to test?
What problems are urgent or pressing that need feedback?
Do I have enough information on a case to run a focus group?
What style do I want to do?
Do I have an upcoming mediation or trial in a large case that needs jury comments?
The focus group plan helps determine how long you want your virtual focus group to be. Virtual focus groups can range from 1 hour up to 4 hours. With the number of hours set, you can then decide how many cases to present and the goals of the focus group. The goal can be solving a specific problem around liability or damages. With a goal in mind, you can eliminate information that may take you or your participants off target. Lawyers can do more than one case because it splits up the costs of the focus group. Key point with time is to allocate at least twenty to thirty (20-30) minutes for group discussion on a case. You want to make sure to receive an opinion or response without rushing participants.
One way to save time on discussion is to put questions into the Chat feature of the virtual meeting platform. Simple questions that need a “Yes/No” or “Agree/Disagree” are great to effectively receive answers without using discussion time. It also allows participants to disagree in a less confrontational manner.
I encourage lawyers to put their focus group plan into writing:
- What cases will be covered?
- How much time for presentation?
- How much time for questions?
- What issues need feedback?
- What questions must be asked of the group?
- What questions can be put in the Chat?
For Example:
Focus Group Plan
Date: January 6, 2021
Time: 1pm-4pm
Hour 1
Presentation: Open Discussion – stroke? What is it? How does it happen? What fixes it? Damages it can cause?
Is it predictable? What have you heard? Do you know anyone? Family member? Friend? Who can get a stroke?
How can you treat a stroke? Is it deadly?
Break 5 minutes
Hour 2
Presentation: Opening Statement on liability only – 20 minutes
Discussion – 30 minutes: What do you think? Who is responsible, if any one, for what happened?
Break 5 minutes
Hour 3
Presentation: Dr. A credibility – play video clip 15 minutes
Chat questions: Credibility Scale, 1-2 words to describe (blink reaction)
Discussion: What you do think about Dr. A?
The next phase of planning is creating your presentation for the virtual focus group.
The presentation will need to be framed as neutral, one-sided or two-sided. Picking a frame will assist in setting up the information to be included (and excluded) in the presentation.
There is a balance in the amount of information to give a focus group: too much information and the group could get confused/no time for discussion or too little information and the group spends time just asking questions instead of giving reactions/thoughts.
If you are just getting started, I suggest doing a neutral presentation using one case. On this one case, pick one large target issue like liability and possibly one to two smaller liability problems. This approach is like writing a basic newspaper article – facts in chronological order.
No matter what style or approach you use for your presentation pay attention to the rules of evidence. There are facts that never reach the jury and therefore do not need to be included in your focus group presentation. It will skew the feedback and likely make it unreliable – meaning a waste of time and money because it won’t represent a realistic jury scenario. For example, in Texas the fact a person does not have a drivers license is not admissible in a car crash jury trial (not talking about a commercial drivers license). Therefore you would not give that fact to your focus group.
Once you gather all the information you want to present, put it into a PowerPoint or similar presentation software. The presentation will need to keep participants engaged. It is important to provide photographs, maps and images of people involved in your presentation. Avoid reading a statement or giving a long monologue of information to the focus group. A visual – picture, timeline, word, map – will help the group assimilate and process the information in order to answer your questions. It is helpful to have a new visual every 2-3 minutes.
After you completed your presentation, do at least one run-through to make sure you are hitting time requirements and can navigate the technology (for example ShareScreen) smoothly. I find that with this one simple step you can find information that can be cut because it is not connected to the focus group goal. Moreover, you will correct/edit any slides that may be difficult to view because the size is too small or too many words are on the slide.
Step 5: Running a Virtual Focus Group: Moderating To Get the Goods
Now you have a presentation, you have participants and it’s time to have your virtual focus group!
Let’s dive into running and conducting the virtual focus group as these small details can cause large disruptions.
As the person running the virtual focus group, the participants will look to you for guidance on technology, like where are the settings for audio and video. Be sure you or your staff is familiar with your chosen virtual meeting platform and keeps up to date on any changes. For example Zoom rolls out updates that can cause delays for participants (i.e. must update software before they can join) and extra complications for navigating (i.e. move the buttons for Chat, Transcription etc to different location). Additionally, you want to have settings adjusted to automatically record the meeting and save chat transcripts.
Allow extra time before the virtual focus group starts for participants to join. I like to start the virtual meeting at least thirty minutes before the official ‘go’ time because participants will join early and we can solve any technology problems. The last thing you want is technology issues to waste valuable focus group time.
Have clear instructions for the participants at the start of your focus group to ensure a smooth meeting. Again the participants are expecting you to tell them what to do – if you skip this step you can anticipate interruptions. For example, I instruct the start time, end time and break times for participants and encourage them to sit through the presentations without leaving. It is likely you will have provided your expectations and the meeting rules in prior communications but repeating them is necessary for compliance.
Here are a few other tips for conducting a successful virtual focus group:
- Compile a list or chart of the confirmed participants and print it for viewing during the meeting
- Turn off all other computer/laptop programs, especially email, to devote full power to the focus group
- If observers will be joining, ask them to come in early before participants arrive and change their name to give anonymity
- Do not allow any late-comers, even five minutes, can disrupt the entire flow of the focus group
Moderating is the fun part of a virtual focus group. You are getting feedback and reactions from real people to your cases. This also the scariest part because you do not know what people will say and things you say can bias the group. This is why having a written focus group plan can save you because no matter what is said you will stay on target. The moderator has to keep the group on subject, keep track of time, and help each participant to give their feedback. The moderator can wear lots of hats.
Humans are naturally inquisitive and want more information. A large part of the job of a moderator is reminding participants they have all the information. I have seen virtual focus groups where the moderator spent the entire time just answering questions and never got a single reaction to the presentation. This is not what you want. Yes, you can gather the questions but you do not need to answer the questions. The job of a moderator is to get answers to the questions about the presentation: What are your thoughts? Who do you think could be responsible for what happened? Open ended questions are one of the best options because they elicit reactions without injecting bias or coercion. Lawyers serving as moderators have a tendency to start down a line of leading questions, which yield slanted feedback. You are invested in your case and want to win, but a focus group is for research. An easy solution: write out your questions and have them printed in front of you during the virtual focus group.
The moderator of a virtual focus group must get feedback from every participant. Do not expect every person will automatically respond to every question. One method I use is to take the first question after a presentation and make every person answer it. In my instructions, I tell participants that each person will be called on to answer nearly every question and to expect I will call their name when it is their turn. Once I get every person to respond, I decide whether to do any follow-up questions or just move into the next question. You can make notes as folks are talking if you want to go back and follow-up. I find using the Chat for questions and then looking at the responses helps for follow-up.
One of the biggest pitfalls a moderator can make (outside of leading questions) is forcing participants to confront one another. While this method can be helpful in voir dire with a large group of strangers and is familiar to lawyers, it can be very uncomfortable in a small group of 8-12 people sitting face to face in a virtual meeting. For example you may want to ask “Who agrees with Judy? Who disagrees with Judy?” and in response you will struggle to get responses. In general people are non-confrontational especially when they are sitting face to face and were told all their opinions are important. This type of questioning will stifle feedback from your shy participants and can insight arguing. There is an alternative question that gets the same result and keeps the group moving smoothly instead of asking about agreeing with the person, ask if they agree with the thought or opinion. For example “Judy mentioned the red car driver may have been texting – anyone else think that too?” instead of “Who agrees with Judy?”
With moderating your first virtual focus groups here are best steps:
- Make a written list of open-ended questions to use and do not deviate.
- Do not answer questions for more information from participants, but do gather them
- Avoid making participants confront one another
- Ask each participant the questions and call on them by name
- Avoid making comments on the participants feedback other than “Thank you”
As you get more experience moderating and watching virtual focus groups, you can branch out and give yourself more flexibility. The tips and suggestions here are to help you get the needed feedback while avoid wasting time and money.
Step 6: Debriefing and Analyzing the Feedback to Help Your Case
The focus group participants can give vital feedback for solving problems in your case. But don’t stop at just attending and conducting the virtual focus group put aside time to debrief and analyze. If you are handling the presentation and moderation it can be difficult, if not impossible, to catch all the opinions and reactions from the participants. Set up a time immediately following your virtual focus groups to write down your initial impressions, or if you have observers, record the discussion of immediate impressions.
During this debrief session I like to ask and document the responses:
- What did I hear?
- What did I see?
- What surprised me?
- What did I mention or show that no one commented on?
- What questions did I get?
- Where was any confusion?
After a few days, go back to the Chat transcript and discussion transcription to review what participants wrote and said. Take those impressions and compare them to the initial debrief. You will discover more “ah-ha” moments and connections with the feedback and the presentation. It is at this point you can make a plan of action based off the focus group feedback. For example, an action item may be sending out more discovery requests or spending time with your client to ask additional questions. You can also take the feedback and make changes to presentations like mediation statements or opening statements.
The biggest misconception I see is lawyers watch the focus group and make immediate decisions on cases without any additional review of the focus group. For example a lawyer watches a group, makes a conclusion that the group hated his client and starts putting into action steps to clean up the client. But upon reviewing the focus group materials it is only two participants (extra vocal) out of ten that disliked the client. And to make it worse, they never return to the focus group materials for help with the case. Whether you are observing or conducting a virtual focus group, you can not possible take in all the information (verbal and nonverbal) from the participants. Taking extra time to think and review the focus group materials will significantly increase your understanding and application of the feedback into your case.
Remember I have a free DIY Virtual Focus Group Starter Guidebook with sample questionnaires and more!
Need a focus group now? Don’t have time or staff to set up your own virtual system? I help lawyers run virtual focus groups to solve their burning case problems and learn how to best present their evidence. I offer virtual focus groups: 1-hour, 2-hour, and 3-hour options depending on the case issues. Schedule a free call to see if your case is a fit for a virtual focus group.
