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Interview Guide: Stakeholder / Leadership

Document Information

Version: 1.0 Last Updated: December 2025 Status: Active Owner: Product Team Target Persona: Platform Consumer - Stakeholder/Leadership (Sarah Kim - "The Value Navigator") Interview Type: Discovery Interview Estimated Duration: 45-60 minutes

Interview Objectives

  • Understand business priorities and how the platform supports strategic goals
  • Identify pain points in visibility, metrics, and decision-making
  • Discover Jobs to be Done (JTBD) for platform investment and ROI tracking
  • Evaluate how the platform impacts time-to-market and competitive advantage
  • Gather insights on resource allocation and platform governance

Pre-Interview Preparation

Screener Questions

Use these questions to select appropriate interview participants:

  1. Role: What is your current role and primary responsibilities?
  2. Platform Relationship: How does the platform impact your work or team?
  3. Decision Authority: Are you involved in platform investment or prioritization decisions?
  4. Team Size: How many people or teams do you oversee?
  5. Business Context: What business metrics or KPIs are you accountable for?

Selection Criteria:

  • Product managers, engineering managers, directors, VPs
  • Business stakeholders who depend on platform capabilities
  • Decision-makers for platform investment or priorities
  • Mix of technical and non-technical backgrounds
  • Various business units or product domains

Materials to Prepare

  • [ ] Consent form ready
  • [ ] Recording setup tested (with participant permission)
  • [ ] Note-taking template prepared
  • [ ] Recent platform metrics or dashboards (if appropriate)
  • [ ] Platform roadmap or investment overview (for reference)
  • [ ] Interview objectives shared with participant in advance

Interview Protocol

Introduction (5 minutes)

"Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. I'm [Your Name] from the Product Team, and I'm conducting research to understand how the platform supports business goals and how we can better serve stakeholders like yourself.

Purpose: We want to learn about your strategic priorities, how you measure success, and what visibility or capabilities would help you make better decisions. This isn't a performance evaluation—we're here to learn from your perspective.

Confidentiality: Your responses will be anonymized. We won't share anything that identifies you personally. The insights will inform platform strategy and investment decisions.

Recording: [If applicable] With your permission, I'd like to record this session for note-taking purposes only. The recording will be deleted after we transcribe it. Are you comfortable with that?

Format: I'll ask you questions about your business goals, challenges, and how the platform impacts your work. Feel free to share examples, data, or specific situations you've encountered. We have about 45-60 minutes.

Questions?: Do you have any questions before we start?"

Main Interview Questions

Section 1: Background and Context (5-7 minutes)

Objective: Establish rapport and understand the participant's role and priorities

  1. Can you tell me about your role and what you're responsible for?

  2. Follow-up: What teams or business areas do you oversee?

  3. Follow-up: What are your primary success metrics or KPIs?

  4. Follow-up: How does your team interact with the platform?

  5. How familiar are you with the Fawkes platform and its capabilities?

  6. Follow-up: What's your understanding of what the platform does?

  7. Follow-up: How often do you interact with the platform directly vs. through reports?

  8. Follow-up: What's your primary source of information about the platform?

  9. What are your top business priorities for the next 6-12 months?

  10. Follow-up: How does the platform support (or hinder) these priorities?
  11. Follow-up: What would success look like?
  12. Follow-up: What would cause these priorities to fail?

Section 2: Business Value and ROI (10-12 minutes)

Objective: Understand how platform value is perceived and measured

JTBD Focus: "Help me demonstrate the business value and ROI of platform investments"

  1. How do you measure the value the platform provides to the business?

  2. Follow-up: What metrics matter most to you?

  3. Follow-up: How do you currently track these metrics?
  4. Follow-up: What metrics are difficult to measure but important?

  5. Pain point: What visibility is missing that you need?

  6. When was the last time you had to justify platform investments to leadership?

  7. Follow-up: What information did you need to make your case?

  8. Follow-up: What was most difficult about making this case?
  9. Follow-up: What data or evidence would have made it easier?

  10. JTBD: What would help you articulate platform ROI more effectively?

  11. How does the platform impact your team's ability to deliver business value?

  12. Follow-up: Can you give me a specific example?

  13. Follow-up: How do you measure time-to-market or delivery velocity?
  14. Follow-up: Where does the platform accelerate delivery? Where does it slow it down?

  15. Pain point: What bottlenecks or delays are platform-related?

  16. Tell me about a time when the platform directly contributed to a business win.

  17. Follow-up: What capability or feature enabled this?
  18. Follow-up: How did you discover this value?
  19. Follow-up: How was this communicated to leadership?
  20. JTBD: How can we make these wins more visible?

Section 3: Visibility and Decision-Making (8-10 minutes)

Objective: Identify gaps in visibility and decision-support tools

JTBD Focus: "Help me have visibility into progress and make informed decisions"

  1. What information do you need to understand how product development is progressing?

  2. Follow-up: Where do you get this information today?

  3. Follow-up: How real-time or up-to-date is it?
  4. Follow-up: How much effort does it take to gather this information?

  5. Pain point: What visibility gaps exist?

  6. How do you stay informed about platform health, incidents, or issues?

  7. Follow-up: How do you learn about problems?

  8. Follow-up: How quickly do you find out about incidents?
  9. Follow-up: What impact do platform issues have on your business?

  10. JTBD: What early warning signals would you want?

  11. Describe a time when you were surprised by a delay or problem. What happened?

    • Follow-up: Why were you surprised? What information were you missing?
    • Follow-up: How did this impact your plans or commitments?
    • Follow-up: What would have helped you see this coming?
    • Pain point: What causes blind spots in your visibility?

  12. What decisions do you regularly make that depend on platform capabilities or performance?

    • Follow-up: What information do you need to make these decisions?
    • Follow-up: How confident are you in the data you have?
    • Follow-up: What would make decision-making easier or faster?

Section 4: Time-to-Market and Competitive Advantage (8-10 minutes)

Objective: Understand how the platform impacts speed and competitiveness

JTBD Focus: "Help me deliver features faster than competitors and respond to market changes"

  1. How does the platform impact your time-to-market?

    • Follow-up: Can you give me a recent example of shipping a feature?
    • Follow-up: What accelerated delivery? What slowed it down?
    • Follow-up: How does your time-to-market compare to competitors or industry benchmarks?
    • Pain point: What platform limitations affect your speed?

  2. Tell me about a time when you had to respond quickly to a market opportunity or competitive threat.

    • Follow-up: How did the platform support (or hinder) your response?
    • Follow-up: What would have made you more agile?
    • Follow-up: What capabilities do competitors have that you wish you had?
    • JTBD: What would enable you to move faster?

  3. What features or capabilities do you prioritize but struggle to deliver quickly?

    • Follow-up: Why are they slow to deliver?
    • Follow-up: What's the business cost of these delays?
    • Follow-up: What would it take to cut delivery time in half?

  4. How do you balance speed with quality, security, and reliability?

    • Follow-up: What trade-offs do you face?
    • Follow-up: How does the platform help or hinder finding the right balance?
    • Follow-up: What guardrails or automation would help?

Section 5: Team Effectiveness and Developer Productivity (7-9 minutes)

Objective: Understand how the platform impacts team performance

JTBD Focus: "Help me maximize team productivity and effectiveness"

  1. How do you assess whether your engineering teams are productive?

    • Follow-up: What signals or metrics do you look at?
    • Follow-up: How does the platform impact productivity?
    • Follow-up: What feedback do you hear from developers about the platform?
    • Pain point: What developer frustrations are you aware of?

  2. What percentage of your team's time is spent on feature development vs. other activities?

    • Follow-up: What other activities consume time? (operations, debugging, meetings, etc.)
    • Follow-up: How does this compare to what you'd consider ideal?
    • Follow-up: What would it take to shift more time toward feature development?
    • JTBD: How can the platform reduce toil and free up developer time?

  3. Tell me about your experience hiring and onboarding new team members.

    • Follow-up: How long does it take for new hires to be productive?
    • Follow-up: What platform-related challenges do they face?
    • Follow-up: What would accelerate onboarding?
    • Pain point: What makes the platform hard to learn?

  4. How do you retain and develop talent on your team?

    • Follow-up: What do team members enjoy about their work?
    • Follow-up: What causes frustration or burnout?
    • Follow-up: How does the platform impact job satisfaction?
    • JTBD: What platform improvements would improve retention?

Section 6: Platform Governance and Strategy (7-9 minutes)

Objective: Understand decision-making around platform investments and priorities

JTBD Focus: "Help me make smart investments in platform capabilities"

  1. How do you prioritize platform improvements vs. feature development?

    • Follow-up: What framework or criteria do you use?
    • Follow-up: How do you communicate these trade-offs to stakeholders?
    • Follow-up: What pressure do you face to prioritize one over the other?
    • Pain point: What makes prioritization difficult?

  2. What platform capabilities are you missing that would unlock new business opportunities?

    • Follow-up: What opportunities are you unable to pursue today?
    • Follow-up: What's the business value of these opportunities?
    • Follow-up: What's preventing you from building these capabilities?
    • JTBD: What would change your platform investment strategy?

  3. How do you stay informed about platform strategy and roadmap?

    • Follow-up: How much visibility do you have into what's coming?
    • Follow-up: How much input do you have into platform priorities?
    • Follow-up: What would improve platform governance or communication?

Closing Questions (3-5 minutes)

Objective: Capture overall sentiment and strategic insights

  1. If you could change one thing about how the platform supports your business goals, what would it be?
    • Follow-up: Why is this the most important thing?
    • Follow-up: What would the business impact be if this changed?

Wrap-up:

  • "Is there anything else about the platform's business impact or your needs that we haven't covered but you think is important?"
  • "Can we reach out to you for follow-up questions if needed?"
  • "Would you be interested in reviewing platform strategy or roadmap proposals?"

Post-Interview Protocol

Immediate Actions (Within 1 hour)

  • [ ] Save and backup recording (if applicable)
  • [ ] Write down key quotes and memorable moments while fresh
  • [ ] Note any strategic themes or business priorities mentioned
  • [ ] Identify 3-5 key takeaways
  • [ ] Document any urgent business needs or concerns

Within 24 Hours

  • [ ] Transcribe full interview notes
  • [ ] Anonymize participant information (use role descriptor: "VP Engineering, 100+ person org")
  • [ ] Highlight key quotes with context
  • [ ] Tag pain points, JTBD, business metrics mentioned
  • [ ] Identify patterns or themes
  • [ ] File notes in docs/research/interviews/ with naming convention: YYYY-MM-DD-stakeholder-{topic}.md

Within 1 Week

  • [ ] Send thank-you note to participant
  • [ ] Share anonymized insights with product leadership and platform team
  • [ ] Update persona with new data points (if applicable)
  • [ ] Log findings in insights repository
  • [ ] Escalate any critical business concerns to leadership
  • [ ] Identify follow-up research questions or data needs

Key Topics Coverage Checklist

Ensure all interviews cover these critical areas:

Jobs to be Done (JTBD)

  • [ ] Demonstrate business value and ROI of platform investments
  • [ ] Have visibility into progress and make informed decisions
  • [ ] Deliver features faster than competitors
  • [ ] Maximize team productivity and effectiveness
  • [ ] Make smart investments in platform capabilities
  • [ ] Reduce time-to-market for new features
  • [ ] Balance speed with quality, security, and reliability

Pain Points

  • [ ] Limited visibility into engineering progress
  • [ ] Difficulty measuring platform ROI or business value
  • [ ] Long time-to-market for platform improvements
  • [ ] Lack of product usage analytics or adoption metrics
  • [ ] Inability to respond quickly to market changes
  • [ ] Developer productivity concerns or toil
  • [ ] Disconnected tools and dashboards
  • [ ] Unclear platform roadmap or capabilities
  • [ ] Challenge prioritizing platform investment vs. features
  • [ ] Difficulty justifying platform costs to leadership

Workarounds

  • [ ] Manual status reports and data collection
  • [ ] Attending multiple meetings for visibility
  • [ ] Building features outside the platform
  • [ ] Relying on anecdotal feedback instead of data
  • [ ] Over-prioritizing features at the expense of platform health
  • [ ] Hiring more people to compensate for inefficiency
  • [ ] Using spreadsheets for tracking instead of integrated tools

Interview Analysis Guide

Key Metrics to Track

  • Time-to-Market: How long from idea to production?
  • Business Value Metrics: What KPIs do they track? (revenue, engagement, conversion, etc.)
  • Developer Productivity: What percentage of time on feature development?
  • Platform ROI: How do they calculate return on platform investment?
  • Incident Impact: Business cost of platform outages or issues
  • Decision Latency: How long to get information needed for decisions?
  • Feature Adoption: How do they measure feature usage or adoption?

Sentiment Analysis

Track emotional responses to:

  • Platform value (confidence, uncertainty)
  • Visibility and data (satisfaction, frustration)
  • Time-to-market (pride, concern)
  • Team productivity (optimism, worry)
  • Investment decisions (clarity, confusion)
  • Competitive position (confidence, anxiety)

Pattern Identification

Look for common themes across interviews:

  • Recurring pain points (3+ participants mention)
  • Consistent metrics or KPIs that matter
  • Similar visibility gaps
  • Shared concerns about competitiveness or speed
  • Common investment or prioritization challenges

Tips for Effective Interviewing

Do's ✅

  • Speak their language: Use business terms (ROI, time-to-market, KPIs) not just technical jargon
  • Respect their time: Be punctual and efficient—executives are busy
  • Ask for specifics: "Can you give me a recent example?" grounds abstract concepts
  • Connect to business impact: Always tie platform capabilities to business outcomes
  • Explore metrics: Understand what they measure and why
  • Understand context: Learn about market pressures, competitive landscape
  • Be strategic: Focus on high-level goals, not implementation details

Don'ts ❌

  • Don't get too technical: Unless they're technical, avoid deep technical discussions
  • Don't defend the platform: Stay curious and neutral
  • Don't dismiss "soft" concerns: Culture, morale, and team health matter
  • Don't ignore politics: Organizational dynamics are real and important
  • Don't skip financial impact: Understand costs, savings, revenue impact
  • Don't forget the human element: Stakeholders care about their teams
  • Don't assume they know platform details: Explain context when needed

Effective Follow-up Questions

  • "What's the business impact of that?"
  • "How do you measure that today?"
  • "What would that enable you to do?"
  • "How does this compare to competitors?"
  • "What's the cost of not solving this?"
  • "What would the ROI be?"
  • "Who else is affected by this?"
  • "What would success look like in concrete terms?"

Special Considerations for Executive Interviews

Preparation

  • Research their background and recent company initiatives
  • Review quarterly results or public statements if available
  • Understand their team structure and scope
  • Prepare concise, strategic questions
  • Have metrics and data ready if they ask

During Interview

  • Be respectful of their time—start and end on schedule
  • Get to strategic questions quickly
  • Follow their lead on depth vs. breadth
  • Take detailed notes on strategic priorities
  • Clarify acronyms or initiatives you're unfamiliar with

After Interview

  • Send a professional thank-you within 24 hours
  • Share high-level insights (not raw transcripts) with appropriate stakeholders
  • Follow up on any commitments you made
  • Track strategic themes for product strategy discussions

Resources

Changelog

Version 1.0 - December 2025

  • Initial interview guide created for stakeholders and leadership
  • 23 main questions across 6 sections
  • Focus on business value, ROI, visibility, and strategic decision-making
  • Comprehensive protocol and analysis framework

Document Owner: Product Team Last Review: December 2025 Next Review: March 2026 (or after 10+ interviews)