Becoming an Interview Expert

The experience of expanding my expertise in an area of program planning and evaluation, seemed daunting at first thought.  How could I dig deep enough in to my chosen topic of interviews and observation methods of data collection tools in just a matter of weeks?

The truth of the matter is that I'm not even close to being an expert, but I have gained a whole lot more insight through the exercise.  I chose to focus increasing my knowledge on this particular area in program evaluation because in my role as a Project Manager, I've often spent most of my time upfront planning the project, scope, charter, quality management, etc. However, the program evaluation, typically fell tot he wayside primarily because it wasn't planned for up front with its own set of deliverables/outcomes to meet.

I certainly needed to learn more about conducting a program evaluation and more specifically:  data collection tools - how to gather the information needed to measure success in a program or to meet a particular hypothesis.   I honed in one particular method, Interviewing.

Perhaps the most time-consuming, costly and hardest to record, it is all the method that could produce the richest, most detailed and clear information.   Knowing that there are structured and semi-structured interviews. Interviews that can take place in person, face-to-face, over the phone and even over the internet with chat and video conferencing applications!  So, as you can see....the method of interviewing for data collection is an exciting one...and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Observation as another method of data collection is also quite exciting I found, but that will require another entry here.  Checklists, scripted description, anecdotal description or unstructed observation - again another rich medium of gathering insightful data!