Methods and techniques

Abstract

People use methods like pilots fly planes. A largish minority, usually those who haven’t done a project before, view their data-gathering as a matter of barnstorming, flying by the seat of their pants. ‘We’ll take her up for a spin old boy, it’s a piece of cake really, nothing to it.’ In other words, they may underestimate the technical requirements of the method or methods which they plan to adopt. An interview, for example, is just a conversation with a purpose: and we all conduct conversations every day, don’t we? A questionnaire is just a list of questions to which we want answers: what could be simpler than that?