Approaches to Interviewing

Below is a brief review of the approaches that were discussed in previous modules and how they contribute to the facilitation of a more effective data gathering.

Understanding the Standards

• Your goals are to understand the different processes in the organization, and whether these processes screen out risks of non-conformance to the requirements.

• Use the standards and requirements as lens when you are inquiring into the business processes and practices of the Unit of Assessment.

The Systems Approach

• Follow the intent-implementation-effectiveness criteria in framing your questions to determine whether there are adequate systems in place to manage social responsibility standards.

• Using the systems approach, your questions to your key informants will include how and why issues of potential non-conformance are happening; what are the systemic structures that are causing the risks or nonconformance to occur.

Risk-based Approach

• Consider the different risks coming from the macro and micro environment, and the gaps and weaknesses of the different business and organizational processes.

• With these risks in mind, ask your interviewees how they are screening out these risks in their business processes and management systems.

• This approach helps you identify process gaps and risks.

Triangulation

• This is iterative throughout the data-gathering process.

• During the interviews, Assessors need to validate information gathered from other sources of information, looking for evidence to corroborate audit data.