# Sample Interview Note Format

This is a recommended structure for interview notes to maximise the quality of synthesis from the PM Discovery Agent. Use this as a template for your team.

The agent will work with notes in any format, but consistent structure dramatically improves results.

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# Interview: Sarah Chen — VP Marketing, Acme Corp

## Metadata
- **Date:** 2026-04-22
- **Interviewer:** Mohit Aggarwal
- **Duration:** 45 minutes
- **Segment:** Enterprise (1,000+ employees)
- **Persona:** Marketing leader
- **Recording:** [link if available]

## Background

Sarah is VP Marketing at Acme Corp, a 2,500-person B2B SaaS company. She's been in role 18 months, previously held similar roles at two other companies. She manages a team of 12 marketers across content, demand gen, brand, and analyst relations.

We spoke as part of the discovery research into our planned content collaboration tool.

## Notes

[Free-form notes from the interview — what was discussed, what stood out, what surprised you. Aim for 500-1500 words depending on interview depth.]

Sarah opened with frustration about her team's content review process. She estimates that her team spends 30% of their time on internal coordination — getting reviews from product, legal, sales — rather than actually creating content.

The current process is: someone drafts in Google Docs, shares with reviewers, reviewers leave comments, the writer addresses comments, multiple back-and-forth rounds happen, eventually it ships. For a single piece of content, this can take 2-3 weeks.

The breaking point for her was a recent quarter where they tried to ship 8 thought leadership pieces tied to a product launch. They shipped 3. The other 5 are still in review purgatory months later.

When asked what would solve this, she didn't immediately reach for a tool — she reached for process. "We need clearer SLAs on review turnaround. We need to know who can approve what without escalating." Tools came up as a follow-up: "If there was something that gave us visibility into where each piece was stuck, that'd help."

She mentioned trialing several tools in the past: Workfront, Asana for marketing, Trello. None stuck. Her diagnosis was that they were good for tracking work but didn't actually solve the review bottleneck.

Interesting tangent: she mentioned that her best marketers have started bypassing the formal review process entirely, going to specific reviewers directly via Slack. This works for them but creates inconsistency and accountability gaps.

## Key Quotes

Capture verbatim quotes — these are the most valuable input to the synthesis.

> "We're not stuck because we don't have ideas. We're stuck because we can't get ideas through the system."

> "I've trialed every project management tool you can name. They're all great for tracking. None of them solve the actual problem, which is that humans don't review things on time."

> "My best marketer just sends Slack DMs to specific people. She gets her stuff out the door. But it's all dependent on her relationships."

> "I don't need another tool to add to my stack. I need something that makes the existing process actually work."

## Observations

What stood out to you as the interviewer:

- Sarah blames process issues, not tool gaps — but is open to tools that solve specific process problems
- She's tool-fatigued — multiple failed tool trials in her recent past
- Her team has informally routed around the formal process — that's a signal
- She's specifically focused on review/approval workflow, not content creation
- The cost of the problem is concrete: 5 of 8 launch pieces shipped late or not at all

## Initial Hypotheses

What you're starting to think after this interview:

- Marketing leaders may be more interested in workflow visibility than content creation features
- Tool fatigue is real — selling another tool is a high bar
- The bottleneck isn't where you'd assume (creation) — it's in review/approval
- Specific verticals (regulated industries) may have higher friction in this area

## Follow-up Questions

What did you not get to that you want to ask in future interviews:

- How does her team's review process compare to other teams in the company?
- What would she actually pay for if a solution existed?
- Is the bypass behaviour a problem she's actively trying to solve, or has she accepted it?
- How much of this is unique to enterprise size vs. universal across companies?

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## Why This Format Matters

The sections above all serve specific purposes for the synthesis agent:

- **Metadata** — lets the agent filter and segment interviews
- **Background** — gives the agent context for interpreting the interviewee's perspective
- **Notes** — the raw material the agent synthesises
- **Key Quotes** — verbatim quotes the agent uses in the report (these are gold)
- **Observations** — your analysis becomes a signal the agent can incorporate
- **Initial Hypotheses** — helps the agent understand the team's evolving thinking
- **Follow-up Questions** — feeds into the agent's recommendation for next research round

You don't need to fill every section every time. The Notes and Key Quotes sections are the most important. Everything else is a bonus.
