During initial meetings, Management Insight gathers enough information from the client and stakeholders to determine the objectives of the study, the underlying potential hypothesis and business goals. With on-going close interaction with the client, Management Insight begins the Research Planning Process, assigns a Virtual Team to the Project, formulates hypotheses, designs a study to address the objectives, and drafts an Initial Proposal. This Initial Proposal is reviewed by the Client Stakeholders and the Research Team until all raised issues are addressed in the Final Proposal.

Management Insight reviews the key study stakeholder’s interviews and all background materials provided by the client on the research subject matter. The final Proposal outlines Management Insight's understanding of the core and secondary research objectives, establishes the research approaches, summarizes the project deliverables, confirms the schedule, and estimates the total project investment.

Management Insight prepares a written Research Instrument (RI) which confirms the objectives, determines the data collection approach, establishes the requirements and presents Hypothesis and Analysis Plan. The Client Stakeholders and the Research Team thoroughly review the Research Instrument until final approval by the Client.

The Research Instrument will conduct the study fieldwork by phone or Internet. The Research Instrument may include a Screener and Quotas to recruit study participants, an Interviewer’s Guide for in-depth interviews, a Moderator’s Guide for focus groups, a Pre-Questionnaire for focus groups, and other handouts as required for focus group exercises. Core study documents such as the Screener and Moderator’s Guide are all reviewed and approved by the client.

Field work is the part of the project where the data is collected from study participants. For quantitative studies this means making hundreds of phone calls to numerous countries or having participants complete studies over the Web. For qualitative studies, this means conducting focus groups or in-depth interviews.

Data is closely monitored for issues/errors during the field period. At the completion of field work, Management Insight carefully reviews the data files for any errors, omissions, or missing values. Variables are calculated, and open responses are coded. Audio tapes from focus groups and in-depth interviews are reviewed, and critical customer quotes are captured verbatim.

During quantitative field work, Management Insight develops a draft of the PowerPoint Presentation with examples, charts, and tables for each key question of the Research Instrument. While the data is not final, it allows Management Insight and the client to agree on final presentation content, flow and format. This step saves a significant amount of time in the overall project duration.

Thorough analysis and exploratory questioning of data allow us to summarize findings and uncover actionable insights. The PowerPoint presentation is then populated with real data. Management Insight reviews the charts with critical quality control processes.