Expert Input: Should You Use Web-Based, Face-to-Face, or Hybrid Formats?

by Dr. Sebastian Barnutz and Dr. Wiebke Gronemeyer

When we once again have the freedom to choose, we should select meeting settings based on project needs. Each format offers unique benefits.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has made painfully clear, choosing whether to seek expert input face-to-face or remotely may not be a decision that’s in your hands. But even before 2020, reluctance to travel for meetings had long been on the rise.

For the pharmaceutical and life sciences professionals responsible for treatment development strategy, it will be essential to design expert input sessions thoughtfully — choosing different forms of digital and face-to-face communication with a laser focus on what they hope to achieve: different use cases call for different formats.

Questions Worth Asking

As you consider the best formats for expert input sessions, these are just some of the questions you may wish to ask yourself:

●       Do you need to develop new ideas, or do you need feedback on a well-defined proposal?

●       Do you need to include stakeholders from overseas or elsewhere who are unable or unwilling to travel to an in-person meeting?

●       Which parts of the process can easily be done remotely? Which parts require face-to-face discussions? Which would benefit from a hybrid series of interactions — some remote and some in-person?

●       What parts of the agenda need a more co-creative approach to arguing back-and-forth? Where are there diverging priorities among different stakeholders that would make written communications preferable?

Formats for Diverging Interests

When you are gathering stakeholders with diverging vested interests, the intention should be to understand the market obstacles and possibilities perceived by the stakeholders. The advice can then be generated as a second step based on the discussion.

If possible, a face-to-face setting is almost always best. Any discussion touching upon these conflicts is bound to become heated. A moderator with a firm hand on the reins of the discussion can successfully explore the factors driving these interests and examine how best to accommodate them. Face-to-face, the moderator can better observe participants’ nonverbal communication, allowing them to better judge which topics should be broached and which should be avoided.

If an in-person meeting isn’t possible, the web-based formats must be adapted to the specific circumstances of the group. Individual prep interviews help to explore the reasons behind the conflicting interests. Knowing the many facets of the stakeholders’ interests beforehand allows the moderator to plan a sequence of topics and then steer the group discussion through that sequence by asking targeted questions. This helps to stimulate discussion and change the participants' attitude from a more consuming one in front of the computer screen to an active one.

In such web-based interactions, the size of the group should be reduced to allow more time for heated discussion. It is also best to include participants whom you know will put forward ideas that have the potential to unify opposing parties. The moderator can then use them to calm tensions and even to build toward a resolution.

Designing a Process

Creating a sequence of interactions in a variety of formats allows for combining different ways to capture expert input, suiting the needs of your project. For example, you might require an examination of data about a new drug, an understanding of relevant physician practices, and insight into how the release of the drug is likely to impact physician decision-making. Let’s take a look at a three-step process designed to address each of these needs:

Step 1: Data interpretation begins with an exploratory interview of a single participant about the implications of the data. A video recording of that discussion is sent to the other participating experts, who then reflect on both the data and on the first expert’s interpretation — creating a deeper examination than would have happened in a simultaneous interaction. These thoughts and reactions are captured before a group meeting via interviews or online collaborative tools.  

Step 2: Current physician practices are explored and evaluated in a Delphi-like process, in which interviews are summarized and then commented on by participants in multiple cycles until the group’s conclusions are fully refined. This leads to a fully fleshed-out picture of today’s practices.

Step 3: A virtual meeting of experts brings the process to a conclusion. The group size and duration of the discussion depends on the complexity of the topic at hand and the required depth of reflection. Keep in mind that it’s harder for participants to stay engaged in virtual meetings, so online sessions should be shorter than in-person events and there should be no more than 2 sessions planned per day. As a rule of thumb, groups intended to develop ideas should be smaller (about 5 people). Groups charged with critiquing and testing well-developed proposals can be bigger (10-15 people).

Considerations for Hybrid Meetings

There are different versions of hybrid meetings. On the one hand, two groups gather in-person in two locations for a video conference. Both groups need to be moderated simultaneously. On the other hand, one group gathers in-person while other participants can look at a stream of the meeting and can give their feedback through a designated channel. In either case, these gatherings have proven themselves to be quite tricky to manage. Due to the tendency to engage more easily with people who are in front of us, it is nearly impossible to get both face-to-face groups connected virtually or one face-to-face group connected with a virtual group to act as one group. Moderators must implement a discipline of speaking up in turn and listening to the other group, ensuring the discussion consists of a true back-and-forth. Participants’ affinity for in-person interaction always impacts the way they listen to and engage with comments from the virtually connected room, and the moderators must provide an antidote to that through targeted questions and prompts.

As in all these cases though, logistics should take a back seat: They should be adapted to the kind of interactive format best fitting to yield the insights you need.