Unfocus group Add/remove

Purpose:

The purpose of an unfocus group is to gain insights beyond barriers that can occur, by assembling a diverse group of people that might not be the obvious choice for a project. It goes on the principles of a focus group setting but using participants with wastly different backgrounds and experiences. 

Step by step Facilitating tips Materials needed Goes well with

Tips to include participants who are not able to:

See

If participants are not able to see, reflections from the discussion can be written down by a group member, documenter or facilitator.

If participants from the focus group are not able to see, bring boundary objects that can be felt, or described by the other participants.

Belong

Even though the focus group is diverse, everyone should get a say and feel comfortable during the exercise. Make sure the participants maintain a good tone to make everyone feel included. Facilitators should seem very present in the dialogue.

Focus

If participants have a hard time focusing on following the group discussion, reduce the group size to a max of 3 and reduce the time used. The session can be split up in multiple sessions if needed.

Speak

If participants are unable to speak, sign language or other symbol language could be used if an interpreter is present to introduce the exercise to the group participants.

If focus group participants are unable to speak, the dialogue could take place through an interpreter or in written form.

Hear

If participants are unable to hear, sign language or other symbol language could be used if an interpreter is present to introduce the exercise to the group participants.

If focus group participants are unable to hear, the dialogue could take place through an interpreter or in written form.

Think

If participants have thinking limitations, reduce the group size to a max of 3 and reduce the time used. The session can be split up in multiple sessions if needed

Overview

Input

Material about the problem/solution

Output

Diverse perspectives of the problem/solution

Complexity

Simple - Moderate

Time

1-2 hours

Participants

3-5

Activity

Communication

Step by step:

  1. Identify different interest groups that could be interesting to bring in and discuss the project. This group should all be in some shape or form be exposed to the solution/problem, directly or indirectly and can contain participants that might be atypical. The important part is that the groups are not similar.

  2. Bring in one person from each group into a new group a maximum 5 people. This group should be very diverse.

  3. Facilitate a discussion that is stimulated by providing a range of materials or other relevant things that the group can experiment with and discuss over.

When doing this method you should consider:

Diversity might come with its challenges so make sure everyone is heard and that they feel free to come with their opinion.

Materials needed:

Boundary objects – presentation