What spin?

What spin do I put on my interview data?

When you write up qualitative interviews, you have a perspective on the people who you talked with, but if you have a negative perspective how do you write it? One of my colleagues has interviewed around 30 people and I remember a discussion on how people could put themselves across in a bad light, arrogant for example. In my interviews, because of the nature of the research, people inevitably talk not only about themselves but also of others in the project. So how do I write it?

Colleague suggested writing so that an interviewee would feel comfortable if they should read the dissertation and recognise their anonymous selves, i.e. not write about them in a bad light. So that's what I'll do.

If I can write nice things on my students' assignments, even when they get a low mark, then I can write about people in a positive way too.

Working with people

I’m particularly interested in the practical issues of working with people, about "making sense of others’ worlds" and finding out who "are immersed in those worlds of others". Those people must be public sector clients in projects that involve external IT consultants and suppliers. Public sector project management is particularly complex, so I anticipate problems of going beyond discourse to gain insight through observation, interviews, perhaps focus groups with clients of different types, consultants and suppliers.

Research question: How do public sector managers evaluate the IT consultants and suppliers that they manage?

I’m sure that I will need to work with people because of what the literature says about relationships, so what are the issues?

Working with people involves issues of:

• place,
  
• philosophical and
  
• practical issues and
  
• analysis of data.
  

Primarily I think practical issues will be about access.

Issues of setting up and doing field work

• of locating a role and managing entry, creating an identity for my self - not being a threat to my interviewees to gain confidence trust support and agreement beforehand
• locating key informants and how they are seen by others, with background and perceptions of informants, developing field relationships
• Send material to key people in the organisation to check there are no transgressions of any boundaries.
• I shall reword what I present to my informants to avoid the word 'accountability' with its connotations of blame and fault.

Ethical issues
Who is going to benefit from the research?

How does someone get public sector clients to manage strategic risk, change and the IT consultants that bring change. Answers to that question will benefit clients, consultants and ministers.

Practical – initial thoughts on design
I might want to interview a number of clients in the public sector, e.g. on 3-5 different IT projects, in 2-3 different government departments or councils or NHS. I want to know how they manage, what they manage, their perceptions of the project, its organisation, its successes, stage of the project (background) control of the project. So I'm looking for successful project management. Ask clients how they effectively manage and evaluate consultants and suppliers on the projects that they manage.