Difference between Focus group and Facilitated workshop

[rashmi arya]

Can someone explain the

 - difference between Focus group and Facilitated workshop
 - difference between Moderator and Facilitator

Looking forward to some answers
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Thank you,
Rashmi Arya

There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning.

[setty sree]

Hi Cornelius Fichtner,

 

Can we kindly expect a explanation here which would give a claer idea.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Sreelatha

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[krishnamurthy mahankali]

Here are some definitions of these terms

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. e.g smokers is a focus group to market a nicotine like chewing Gum but safe.

A presentation by experts that encourages attendees to participate actively in order to gain actual practical experience, in solving befuddling work related problems, is known as a facilitated workshop. e.g. A workshop for credit resolving problems who have more credit and credit cards

A moderator someone who presides over a forum or debate

someone who mediates disputes and attempts to avoid violence : e.g the TV moderators in a presidential debate

A facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan to achieve them without taking a particular position in the discussion.  e.g The PM in a project case study

If we can visualize with living practical examples we can understand many of the PM terms instead of rotting them or reading like a student.

Thanks,

Krishna

Thanks,

Krishna

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[Cornelius Fichtner, PMP]

Hi,

The difference between moderator and facilitator highlighted by
Krishna is explanatory. However I would like to continue with the
difference between a facilitated workshop and a focus group.

The PMBOK guide defines a focus group as, “Focus groups bring together
prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts to learn about
their expectations and attitudes about a proposed product, service, or
result”. On the other hand, the PMBOK guide defines a facilitated
workshop as, “Requirements workshops are focused sessions that bring
key cross-functional stakeholders together to define product
requirements”.

The commonality between the focus group and the facilitated workshop
is that both require a group of subject matter experts to crack a
problem at hand. On the other hand, the difference is in the
approach.

Focus group is more like a meeting where we invite subject matter
experts to have an interactive meeting to crack a problem. For example
consider if I am managing a complex construction project and I find
myself way behind the schedule and failing to meet the deadline would
impose heavy penalties. I would invite expert civil engineers from
inside and outside of the organization to come to a meeting to discuss
the available state-of-the-art technology and ways to complete the
project within time. By the end of the meeting I would have valuable
and agreed feedback from the experts that I can later ask my team to
implement, of course after getting the change request approved.

On the other hand, during the facilitated workshop I would require the
experts to solve the problem for me or perform some activity for me
rather than just sharing their feedback and opinion. Let’s consider
the same situation I have mentioned. If I ask the expert engineers to
come and supervise the use of the state-of-the-art technology or
method so that I am sure that these are being used correctly, this
would be a facilitated workshop. Other examples could be gathering the
experts to actually define the quality requirements by building a QFD
house, or develop or supervise the software development with my team
as in Joint Application Development (JAD), or help me perform a
quality audit etc.

You can sense from here there a focus group is carried out to gather
expert opinion and knowledge to help ourselves increase our knowledge
so that we can apply it later. On the other hand, a facilitated
workshop is carried out to get the experts actually perform something.

A facilitated workshop can be carried out to perform any project
activity. However the PMBOK references it (in the definition part) as
a requirements gathering activity during the collect requirements
process, which makes sense for the process. But this does not mean
that only “requirements workshops” are examples of facilitated
workshops, a “requirements workshop” is just one example of many
possible facilitated workshops than can be carried out. The PMBOK
partially clears this out by giving references to QFD and JAD.

The confusion arises when we only compare the “requirements workshop”
with a “requirements focus group”. Since there is no actual fieldwork
being carried out in both of these activities, they both seem to look
very similar. Also please note that the PMBOK is putting more weight
on “requirements” over here is because we are talking about the
collect requirements process. Again I would say that a “requirements
focus group” will help you understand the requirements, while a
“requirements facilitated workshop” will actually define and document
the requirements for you.

I hope this answers the question.

Regards,

Exam Support Team
The PM PrepCast - http://www.premiumcast.com/vp/50398/16780/10387

[setty sree]

Hi Cornelius/Krishnamurthy,

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation.Now am very clear with no confusion.

 

Thanks,

Sreelatha