INSIGHT on INSIGHT: Utilizing Broad & Shallow Insight Design
WHAT AND WHEN: Proper usage
Broad & shallow insight design is typically used when a client has done little or no prior insight work. It is the equivalent of doing a geological survey over a large area of land trying to locate areas that have the best potential to produce productive oil wells. It may involve an internet survey with 30 or more questions or a 90-minute or longer interview covering a broad range of topics.
The number of topics and budget limit how deep questions can go, though there may still be interest in answering deeper questions. Some may describe this phase as assessing the landscape or doing a category assessment.
If done well, the results can serve as a solid foundation to start building better insight and better decisions on.
WHY: The benefit and value
Broad & shallow insight is a starting point. It is typically the beginning of a longer journey to eventually arrive at deeper insight.
The cost-to-content ratio is appealing to companies not used to spending money on insight because it can be very meaningful and useful for several reasons:
- This approach can provide initial (if not superficial) answers to a lot of questions for a relatively low cost.
- The broad assortment of topics covered allows for subsequent projects to focus on areas that have already revealed opportunity or interesting data points warranting further investigation.
- Clients can package the results to demonstrate a large volume of knowledge be appear as instantly credible on any given topic.
- The superficial (not deep) insights provided by the project can begin guiding better decision-making and start to change inaccurate perceptions before deeper insight is gathered.
HOW: Tips to guide a basic approach
The very definition of broad & shallow insight means a wide net is cast, allowing the project to touch on an assortment of topics or questions. However, good design principles still need to be followed to prevent creating dirty data. Some approaches to consider include:
- Gather questions from a wide assortment of stakeholders with different perspective or possible interest in the results.
- Establish an approach to prioritize which questions get included and which do not.
- Question wording needs to be carefully considered to avoid possible bias from the client or getting answers to the wrong questions.
- In the research, questions should still be clustered by topic or in a manner that makes some sense to respondents.
- In the research, question blocks should be ordered based on awareness that earlier questions may bias the answers to later questions.
- Clients should consider if they know enough to provide exhaustive answer options or if they need to design questions to allow respondents to educate them on applicable answers.
- Consider including ‘catch all’ questions such as asking respondents which of a list of unrelated statements they agree with or apply to them. This is a way to touch on a dozen topics that did not each deserve its own question.
APPLICATION: What to do with the results
The application of broad & shallow insight comes from the education it provides and the additional questions or investigation it prompts. These can be best accomplished when effort is made to:
- Present the results to the largest possible audience.
- Spend time collecting new questions and hypotheses based on the results.
- Package the results as an ‘overview’ to share with external partners or to onboard new employees. This work can also be used to create a greater perception of knowledge than what really exists.
- Design and execute follow-up insight work to dive deeper into the areas of greatest interest or opportunity.