STEP 2
Conduct the Interview
Once an interviewer's preparations have been completed, he or she is ready to begin the interview. This chapter examines various aspects of the interview process, including the style adopted and the logic behind various types of questions.
The Interview Process
Understand and Explain the Process
Like all interviews, an interview with a mediator can be divided into phases: the introduction, the main phase, and the wrap-up. The aim of the introductory phase is to build rapport, clarify the aim of the interview and the time period on which it will focus, and explain how the material collected will be used, processed, and disseminated. The main phase, which is by far the longest, consists of the mediator answering a series of questions, some of which have been prepared in advance by the interviewer, but most of which are shaped by the mediator's responses as the interview proceeds, with dead ends ignored and productive avenues of inquiry explored. During the wrap-up phase, the interviewer should mention the next steps, such as how the report will be written, reviewed, and disseminated.
Don't Come with a Long List of Questions
An effective interviewing style is exploratory and semi-structured.5 An interviewer should arrive at the interview with a set of both broad and specific questions. Generally, just three to five broad questions, often ones that the interviewer can learn by heart, are sufficient. Within each of those broad areas, the interviewer can also prepare a series of detailed follow-up questions, but many of these will not be used because they will not fit the flow of the conversation. The questions should be designed to elicit the mediator's thoughts on key issues, but the interviewer should also allow time and space within the interview to ask new questions that occur during the course of the conversation. In fact, the best lessons normally come in response to questions that pop up during the interview process. Put differently, the best way to stifle an explorative interview is to have a long list of questions and to stick to them blindly, ticking them off one by one. "Pul