This chapter will address a few specific components of interviews. The method will be to discuss the components to show how a decision about each could be arrived at. It is not possible in most cases to simply provide an answer that is always correct. It is important however, to be able to consider issues in the correct way and be able to arrive at appropriate answers for specific instances of a general situation.
As with many other seemingly simple questions about interviews, it may not be easy to arrive at a simple answer that applies in all situations. For this question it would be useful to initially consider what factors would influence the best length of an interview. These factors themselves may vary depending on the type of interview to be undertaken. For the sake of this discussion I will consider a generic case.
The thing that should not be the controlling factor for the length of an interview is how long is available divided by how many people there are to interview. The things that should affect the length of the interview are:
There are occasions when a 10 minute interview can satisfy objectives but in most cases something between say 30 minutes and 2 hours is appropriate. Less than 30 minutes and there is very little time to address more than one issue or to pursue lines of debate. More than 2 hours and fatigue will become an issue. In many cases the information to be gathered suggests that much longer than two hours is needed. In such cases it is better to plan a series of separate interviews that may be different in nature. For instance, early interviews may be less well focused and only lightly structured but both focus and structure may increase in later interviews as it becomes clearer what specific information is still needed.
Environments were briefly addressed in section 3.6. The suggestion was that an environment that contained many distractions was not good. It is more than distractions that can contribute to a poor interview environment. Temperature, humidity, draft, light, odour etc are also factors. Therefore a really bad example of an interview environment would be one that was noisy, smelly, wet, windy, dark and generally uncomfortable.
Some would not agree with this however. There is a serious issue concerning interviewing in an environment where the expert actually works. This may indeed be all of the things mentioned but the expert may be able to remember much more relevant detail when actually in the environment where his or her knowledge is applied. Asking the expert to discuss work on a very active building site whilst in a cool clean light and airy interview room, may reveal less than if the interview was conducted on the site in question.
This adds strength to the notion that it is not easy to provide a correct answer that can be applied in all situations. What is important is that the person planning the interview is aware of the options and takes account of the specific requirements and situation in each case.
The preceding section probably makes this comment redundant. However, I have left at least a brief statement in to reinforce the message that an environment should be planned as part of the interview arrangements. In spite of an occasional requirement to conduct interviews in the context of the application of the knowledge that is being investigated, the general message is that the interview environment should be comfortable and free from distractions.
Comfort also has several meanings. An environment where one wishes to relax in comfort may not be the same as an environment where one wishes to work in comfort. One typical difference may be temperature. It a working environment is too warm, this can make people sleepy.
There are many reasons why an interview may fail to deliver its intended outcomes. In most cases the responsibility for this is with the interviewer or interview organiser. In some cases it can be because the interviewee simply does not have the information that is being sought. In this case, it is the wrong person that is being interviewed so it is back to the interview organiser.
In general, the more interviewers there are, the more organisation is needed. When there is a large panel of interviewers and just one interviewee it is going to be very difficult to get at the right information. The statement presented in section 3.5 (repeated here) could easily apply to members of the interview panel.
"If I listen, I forget what I am going to say!"
This could mean that the interview does not flow, lines of reason are not followed and the full value of information raised may be lost.
The main cause of dysfunction however is when the interview looses its way. This can often mean that the questioning is getting nowhere and interest in the topic is lost. This can even go unnoticed if someone is not regularly checking interview progress against interview goals. It is possible to refocus an interview when a problem is noticed. This may involve creating a sort of mini break or diversion and then restarting after the goal has been restated and a new sub goal selected.