Are you in the middle of grouping the behaviors, beliefs, and reactions you found in the interviews? Having difficulty deciding what to do with a few of the opaque ideas? Here are some general guidelines that I follow if an idea is:
- Too Vague: I try to re-define it, getting at the root and giving it a zinger of a verb. There’s usually something there that I sensed when I combed it out of the interview.
- Redundant: If it’s an atomic task that’s redundant with another atomic task from the same person, then I merge them together in one cell, or just delete the redundant one. If the redundancy is with an atomic task from another person, then I group them together as a task.
- Not Relevant: First I try to see if there’s a root in the quote that would be in scope. If not, then I delete it. I know my scope statement pretty thoroughly by now.
And yes, I just delete the extra ideas, rather than keeping them around in a parking lot to bother me and take up time later. This way I don’t have to explain why they exist to the client/boss, and why I am ignoring them. The deleted ideas are just the result of my sometimes over-zealous combing.
