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- The closest you can get: diving into the world of the target group – with community formats
Interview with Dr Jessica Schomberg and Natali Pohlschneider, Produkt + Markt – Premium Partner succeet22 The closest you can get: diving into the world of the target group – with community formats
succeet: Your session at succeet is about research communities. What can visitors expect?
Dr Jessica Schomberg: We will present various community formats. They range from the long-running Insight Lounge for B2B and other high-profile target groups to the IN|SPIARY Innovation Community and the virtual Design Thinking Journey. All communities have one thing in common. The teams can get in touch with the target group at any time and immerse themselves in their world, get feedback or use the creative potential of the users and expert users.
succeet: What is an Expert Insight Lounge?
Dr Jessica Schomberg: Wherever the basic populations are small and the target groups can only be recruited with great effort, companies should think about Expert Insight Lounges. The advantage: We recruit experts such as doctors, veterinarians, fleet managers or our POWER|FARMERs and bind them for a long period of time so that they are available for projects without much loss of time. This is extremely helpful, especially in early iteration phases, because our customers sometimes want well-founded feedback on their fresh concepts overnight, which are then further optimised the next day. Depending on the task, the Insight Lounge participants sometimes act as feedback providers or as sparring partners at eye level for the agile teams.
Natali Pohlschneider: While the Insight Lounge focuses on experts, we use IN|SPIARY primarily when our clients want to use the inspiration and creative potential of consumers. Since these target groups are often easier to recruit, we tend to set up IN|SPIARY on a project-specific basis for a few days or weeks and close the community again when the project is finished.
succeet: What are the main advantages of Expert Insight Lounge and IN|SPIARY?
Dr Jessica Schomberg: We have already described two main advantages. Communities provide more speed and allow to dive deep into the world of the target groups at any time. Due to the longer collaboration compared to other approaches, a relationship of trust and openness is built up among the participants, which leads to much more honest and relevant results.
However, communities are also so successful because they ensure that solutions are more easily implemented in the organisation. This is especially true for companies with multiple operating locations or international branches. This is because in both the Expert Insight Lounge and IN|SPIARY we allow employees, implementers and decision-makers to participate in separate forums or invite them into the community as observers. This has a positive effect on their commitment, because as stakeholders they can influence the development process, give feedback and contribute their expertise. We also observe that by involving many stakeholders in the process, multipliers emerge in different countries who stand behind the new solutions and support the implementation on the ground.
succeet: Are communities now DIY, DIT or full-service research?
Natali Pohlschneider: The only clear answer to this question is: "It depends". The course of the projects is based on the classic design thinking process or on the individual stages of a specific agile project. In our projects, we weigh up in advance how much or what kind of coaching the clients need. Experience has shown that the spectrum ranges from simply coordinating the roadmap of the communities before the start of the field, to weeklies, to permanent support - if the client is already experienced, DIY would also be conceivable. Most of our projects, however, have a Do-It-Together character, i.e. we are always in contact with the client and flexibly adapt the questions to the concrete wishes in the course of the project. It is precisely the flexibility offered by the Expert Insight Lounge and IN|SPIARY that makes it particularly easy to work together.
succeet: Design thinking, agile coaching, qualitative research – it sounds like qualitative researchers have to take on different roles in the community projects.
Dr Jessica Schomberg: I can subscribe to that 100%. The basis of everything is sound training and experience in qualitative research. Only first-class trained qualitative researchers are able to provide profound and relevant insights. In addition to this, however, they take on other functions in the project. In research and analysis they act as scientific luminaries, in teams they function as Agile Coaches, in results or innovation workshops they act as facilitators, and beyond that they are masters of the digital solutions of the day. At Produkt + Markt, we started years ago to certify researchers and train Agile coaches as well as Design Thinking facilitators. This helps us and our clients not only in community projects.
Dr Jessica Schomberg has a Bachelor and Master in Cognitive Science. In 2015, she completed her PhD on emotional and motivational processes. As a Senior Research Consultant, she specialises in both qualitative and quantitative research and leads the Innovation Hub at Produkt + Markt Healthcare.
Natali Pohlschneider has a Master's degree with a focus on product and innovation management and, after holding positions in marketing, product research, development and management, now oversees the Market Research Online Communities in the FMCG sector as Research Manager at Produkt + Markt.
