They always tell you in qual training that you must never skimp on the warm-up when you're moderating groups - however little you time you have.
Normally I'll spend around 20 minutes in warm-up chat and it's one of my favourite parts of the group. I get respondents to tell me a bit about themselves: home, family, job and then ask them a basic question about something they did recently, such as one thing they did at the weekend, or what they were doing this time yesterday.
It's great because you never know what you're going to hear next yes there's a lot of watching Coronation Street or cooking the supper but there's also 'in bed with their girlfriend' or 'smoking a joint'.
Last night however I had 1 hour groups and lots to cram in so I went straight to a conversation about advertising respondents had seen recently, which was a great way of priming them to talk about a new TV script and getting them chatting, but I found I missed hearing those insights about their lives, those little scraps of detail about husbands, wives, kids, home life, getting drunk, doing the ironing, watching Big Brother, online betting, falling asleep, leaving for the night shift. The groups went fine, but the respondents were names and opinions and nothing else. Efficient, but I missed some of the soul.