The interview facilitator usually begins by asking questions from a set of questions previously prepared by assessment team members. Time should be set aside, however, for additional questions as well.
After "open-ended" questions about the interviewee’s job(s) and the processes he or she uses, the interviewers then probe for known problems and strengths within the organization or the process. General questions are asked about the organization’s environment. Individual team members ask questions related to their assigned areas (KPAs/PAs).
The interview session typically concludes with open-ended questions about the areas within the organizationboth model-related and non-model-relatedthat the interviewees believe could be improved. An example of a concluding question might be: "Is there anything you would like us to look at during the assessment?"
During the interview, any team members can conduct a "spot request" for necessary documents.
A typical interview session spends more time on guided, KPA/PA-specific questions than on open-ended dialogue. However, the time spent on each depends on the comfort level of the people being interviewed and on the maturity level of the organization. In an initial assessment, interviewees usually need more open-ended dialogue.
It is important to remind people being interviewed to tell the assessment team if they do not understand a question or if they cannot answer it. Sometimes people being interviewed do not understand the model terminology or feel defensive because they do not know the answer to a question that is out of their field. It is in fact very useful to hear that "I’m not the one you should talk to about thatyou need to ask Mr. Y." No one is expected to know everything. (In fact, if everyone interviewed seems to know all the answers, the team should start to be suspicious.)