Skills shortage toolkit

I have a skills problem to solve

I am looking for a tool and technique

Show me examples of tools in action

Part of:

Understand what skills we lack or are short of right now

Example

A group interview with further education experts

Connected Places Catapult hired a design and research agency to conduct research and understand the skills gaps and shortages in the aviation industry. As part of their research, the agency facilitated a group interview with 3 further-education professionals.

The agency created a condensed version of a further education discussion guide that they had created for one-to-one interviews. They focussed on exploring partnerships with other education providers and with the aviation industry.

3 people from the agency joined the session:

  • the interview lead, who ran the session
  • one person making rough notes on a virtual whiteboard for the participants to follow along with
  • one person making a detailed transcription of the conversation 

For the main body of the interview, the researchers left the interviewees to discuss the topics openly amongst themselves. They encouraged participants to let one person finish their point before another spoke.

The conversation was guided by written prompts on virtual whiteboard, with some steering from the interview lead.

After the main topics had been covered, there was time at the end for participants to raise topics of their own that hadn’t come up, and discuss the overarching benefits of partnership.

The session lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes in total.