Critical Insight Skills

A Practical Skills-Based Training Programme for Planners and Strategists
This course has been developed and primarily funded by the APG to train a new generation of planners and strategists in the skills they need to understand target audiences and develop people-based strategic insights.
Because it is underwritten by the APG to develop the skills of the community at large, it will be priced at less than half our regular training courses.
This is a new APG course developed with The Nursery Research & Planning, to encourage planners and strategists to get out of the ‘bubble’ and directly engage with their target audiences so that they can root their strategic thinking in the real world of real people.
Who is it aimed at?
Younger planners and strategists working in agencies with up to 3 or 4 years’ experience who, through no fault of their own, spend too much time in front of a screen and not enough time drawing on real people for strategic inspiration and insight.
What will you learn?
It’s designed to instill a series of skills and behaviours including interviewing, moderating, and analyzing qualitative data and applying knowledge and insight to crack planning problems.
It will encompass digital approaches but will be mostly oriented to real life. We’ll encourage the delegates to experiment with and seek out-of-bubble understanding of target audiences, including hard-to-reach audiences. They will then be shown how to link that depth of understanding to developing insights and feeding through to strategy and briefs.
It will consist of 5 modules of around 3 hours each, over a period of 8 weeks. Each module will tackle a different skill or approach. Delegates will also be a briefed on a project that they will present for comment at the end of the course.
Each session will have a Cheat Sheet detailing the main points and actions.
Each module will be led by senior experts at The Nursery Research & Planning who are excellent practitioners in every aspect of interviewing and interpretation, with the assistance of very senior planners and strategists in agencies and client companies.
These include Lucy Banister and Sophie Marder at The Nursery Research & Planning, Hugh de Winton of Adam and Eve DDB, Eloise Liley of Publicis, and Kate Waters and Tom Patterson from ITV.
Course Information
When is it?
TBC
Where is it?
TBC
What are the hours?
It will consist of 5 modules of around 3 hours each, over a period of 8 weeks.
Course Content
Module 1: Critical Interviewing Skills
An interactive teaching session with skilled researchers and moderators including interviewing best practice, drawing people out effectively, case histories and initial guidance on crafting insights. There will also be a briefing on the effective use of qualitative on-line tools. The session will include an opportunity to have a go at putting into practice what has been learned.
Module 2: Critical Insights and how to generate them
A whole session geared to a deeper understanding of audiences, and uncovering and crafting actionable insight. It will encompass case history examples of how insights were generated in qual research, from top qual researchers, and examples of how planners take these findings and develop insights for use directly in strategic development and briefs.
A project will be set to teach and encourage understanding of particular hard to reach audiences leading to short videos and presentations.
Module 3: Critical Moderating Skills
This will take place in a viewing facility and is designed to teach professional group moderation by example. Researchers from The Nursery Research & Planning will run the groups and use them as a teaching aid, demonstrating principles and getting feedback and ideas from the delegates and demonstrating what happens in group dynamics and how to get the best out of respondents.
All the delegates will then have a go at running a group discussion and get feedback on their methods and approach.
Module 4: Critical Understanding of Harder to Reach Target Audiences
This is based on case histories about specific audiences or groups. It’s designed to show by example how really good target audience thinking leads to effective strategy and excellent work. Run by Strategy leaders and based in part on winning cases from the APG Creative Strategy Awards
Module 5: Project Debrief and Critical Further Insight
Delegate videos and insight presentations are reviewed with a debrief of the work, offering critiques, guidance and tips.
Before you purchase your ticket please call the APG at 0208 858 0707 or email to ensure you're eligible to take part.
*these tickets are non-refundable
Instructors
Cancellation policy
Should you cancel your booking for an APG training course, the following cancellation policy will apply: For a cancellation made more than 30 calendar days in advance of the training course, a full rebate will be applied. For a cancellation more than ten calendar days in advance of the training course, a rebate of 50% will be applied. For a cancellation less than ten days in advance of the training course no rebate will be applied.