How does Focus Group Discussion help product design and development?

What is focus group discussion (FGD)?
Focus group discussion is a group of people get together to discuss the product.

Members in the focus group will comprise – Potential product users, founders, designers and developers. Anybody who is closely associated with product development, who can add value and provide constructive feedback.

Having around 8-10 ‘potential product users’ will be very helpful in such discussions.

If Small organisation; number of people from the organisation part will be very few.

Focus group discussion is usually very effective as it is a direct product discussion. Unlike ‘interviews, interactions and observation’ where discussion about product is mostly indirect.

Focus group discussion can be held during any phase/stage of product development. It can be conducted at the early stage of product development to understand what should and should not go into the product. It can be conducted midway or even after the product development is completed. It can be conducted much after the product is deployed into the market, probably to understand how can the product be made better or improvised.

So as we understand, Focus Group Discussion has the potential to gather heap of feedback/suggestions. If these suggestions are well organised and executed, success guaranteed!