Preparing a Running Order for Multiple Subjects

When several subjects will be interviewed for the same piece of work, the order in which they are approached can shape what each conversation ultimately yields, since earlier interviews often surface questions worth putting to the subjects who follow. Scheduling around availability alone often misses this deeper, more deliberate kind of planning entirely.

Thinking through this order in advance, rather than simply scheduling around availability, allows an interviewer to build genuinely on what has already been learned, testing an earlier subject's claim against a later subject's account rather than treating each conversation as entirely separate. That ordering can matter as much as any single question asked within any one sitting.

Flexibility still matters, since a particularly rich early conversation might reasonably shift the plan for those that follow. A running order is a starting structure, not a fixed sequence that must be honoured regardless of what actually emerges. Holding the plan loosely, rather than rigidly, allows a genuinely rich early conversation to reshape everything that follows it.