INSIGHT on INSIGHT: Structuring the Right Analysis Plan
A lot of work happens between the moment data comes in following the execution of primary research and the final report goes out to the client. Just like a lot happens between finalizing blueprints and walking into a finished building.
Few clients understand (or probably care about) what happens during this window as long as useful results are delivered on time.
However, companies have huge variation in the amount and type of effort put into this phase.
Some companies only poke into the data right where the answers to the project’s objectives should exist, and they choose to ignore everything else.
Others can spend weeks wandering aimless through data, not knowing when they’ve stumbled across a priceless nugget.
The best companies take a systematic approach to organizing, analyzing and summarizing the data to find the very best answers to the objectives and to uncover unexpected gems where no one knew to look.
The challenge for clients lies in the fact that few ever see all the raw data, making them blissfully ignorant to all the priceless insight that never gets discovered.
OUR FOUR-TIER APPROACH
Based on our experience, we’ve developed a four-tier delivery approach for quantitative research that is designed to satisfy a variety of needs while being sure the integrity of the research is preserved and it is easy for clients to do their own further investigation beyond the summary. These four tiers are (in descending order of refinement):
- Recommendations: Typically containing fewer than 10 slides or two pages in a Word document, we list out the ‘so what’ or action/application points reflecting what we would do were we in the client’s shoes. While some recommendations are dead-on-arrival due to factors beyond our knowledge or understanding, taking this additional step forces us to really consider the implications of all the insight and gets clients started down the path of producing RIO from the money invested in the project.
- Summary and Overall Conclusions: Depending on the project, this PowerPoint file can contain between 30 and 70 slides. The slides tell the overall theme or stories in the data, using summary or conclusion statements supported with specific insight pulled out of the data. While the summary is heavily focused on addressing the project objectives, we also typically include a section of miscellaneous insights that we thought might be potentially valuable even if we couldn’t recognize what that value might be.
- Supporting data deck: This PowerPoint file contains hundreds (and sometimes more than a thousand) slides of graphed data representing all the survey questions and all the analysis groups included as part of the project. We systematically comb through every slide to gather the nuggets of data that eventually become the summary. We also keep it unfiltered for clients to potentially find valuable nuggets we discarded.
- Excel-based respondent-level raw data: This file, which often contains thousands of rows and hundreds of columns of cleaned and formatted data is structured to let clients do their own ad hoc tabulations. Clients rarely get into this file and those that do, do so to address a specific need.
For qualitative research, our results are almost always delivered in a detailed Word document summarizing the key themes covered in the discussion guide, perspective directly from participants (including verbatim quotes to preserve their words), and our additional perspective based on larger themes, observations or connected dots across all interviews. The language is very explanatory with the goal to help clients feel like they were active participants in the interviews.
We also include a recommendations section that accounts for the directional (not factual) nature of qualitative research, but also points the client down the path we believe will be most likely to lead to success.
GET YOUR STRUCTURE RIGHT
Is your approach to shopper insight systematic enough to meet all the needs of your client? Are you doing them a disservice by ignoring anything that falls beyond the scope of the project’s core objectives?
Maybe you’re the client and reading this article is the first time you’ve considered how much insight has been lost based on how past projects were delivered.