Method
Approach
Strengths
Weaknesses
Time Elapsed (Avg)
Actionable Depth of Feedback
Effort (Est. Hours)
Interviews
One-on-one qualitative sessions
Deep insights, personal nuance
Time-intensive, hard to scale, analysis burden
🔴 3 - 9 months
🟢 Very High (but not scalable, typically as few as 1-20 conducted due to time-intensive nature)
🔴 ~4,625 hrs hrs or 578 working days (1 hr x 1,500 participants) + (1,500 x 30 min prep + 1 hr facilitation + 30 min transcription) +(125 hrs x read, identify, tag, categorize, present results)
Method
Approach
Strengths
Weaknesses
Time Elapsed (Avg)
Actionable Depth of Feedback
Effort (Est. Hours)
Focus Groups
Group discussion guided by facilitator
Rich qualitative insight, visible participant interaction
Not scalable, high facilitation cost, groupthink bias
🔴 2-6 months
🟢 High (but limited sample size in practice - typically less than 100 across 7-10 focus groups)
🔴 ~2,075 + hrs or 260 working days (1 hr x 1,500 participants) + (150 focus groups @10 participants per group x 1 hr prep x 1 hr facilitation) + (150 focus groups x 1 hours transcribing feedback) + (125 hrs x read, identify, tag, categorize, present results)
Method
Approach
Strengths
Weaknesses
Time Elapsed (Avg)
Actionable Depth of Feedback
Effort (Est. Hours)
Traditional Surveys
Structured questions via forms
Scalable, quantitative, easy distribution
Low engagement, limited nuance, low trust in anonymity, high effort to analyze
🟡 4–8 weeks
🔴 Low–Medium (varies based on quality of survey design and analysis, requires additional manual)
🟡 ~590+ hrs or 74 working days
(15 min x 1,500 participants) + (2min x 1,500 responses) + (40 hrs design and setup) + (125 hrs x read, identify, tag, categorize, present results)
Method
Approach
Strengths
Weaknesses
Time Elapsed (Avg)
Actionable Depth of Feedback
Effort (Est. Hours)
AI-Powered 1:1 Chats at Scale (Joyous)
AI chats with each participant + instant thematic analysis
Highly scalable, fast, deep insight, low effort, easy distribution, transparent AI
Perceived novelty, cultural change required in some orgs
🟢 3–5 days
🟢 High–Very High (actionable and prioritized)
🟢 ~54 hrs or 7 working days (2 min x 1,500 participants) + (2 hrs x design and setup with AI) + (2 hrs to review and validate results) + (10 min to export presentation)
Key Takeaways
Traditional methods like surveys and interviews either lack depth or scale poorly - especially at volumes over 100 participants.
AI tools unlock feedback depth at speed and scale, making them ideal for modern organisations seeking meaningful insight with minimal disruption.
