“I’ve scheduled preliminary interviews with five key people. Because you’ve been so busy with Visible Analyst, I decided to do the first round of interviews myself,” Anna tells Chip as they begin their morning meeting.

“That’s fine with me,” Chip says. “Just let me know when I can fill in. Who will you be talking to first? Dot?”

“No secret there, I guess,” replies Anna. “She’s critical to the success of the system. Her word is it when it comes to whether a project will fly or not.”

“Who else?” asks Chip.

“I’ll see who Dot refers me to, but I set up appointments with Mike Crowe, the hardware and maintenance expert; Cher Ware, the software specialist; and Paige Prynter, CPU’s financial analyst.”

“Don’t forget Hy Perteks,” says Chip.

“Right. The Computing Support Center will be important to our project,” says Anna. “Let me call and see when he’s available.”

1. Analyze the five interviews. In a paragraph, discuss what type of structure each interview had.

2. List each interview, 1 through 5, and then write a paragraph for each, discussing ways that Anna might improve on her interviews for next time.

3. Analyze the questions used in the five interviews. In a paragraph, discuss the question types used and whether they were appropriate for getting needed information.

4. From the list of concerns presented earlier in this chapter, select the issues that would best be phrased as closed questions.

5. From the list of concerns, select the issues that would best be phrased as open-ended questions.

6. On the basis of Exercises E-4 and E-5, design a questionnaire to be sent to the faculty and research staff.

7. Pilot your questionnaire by having other students in class fill it out. On the basis of their feedback and your capability to analyze the data you receive, revise your questionnaire.