Glossary
Thematic analysis
Thematic analysis is the qualitative-research method of identifying, analysing, and reporting recurring patterns — themes — across a body of unstructured text. In organisational use, the themes are typically the structural causes of the experience the text is describing.
Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) is the standard qualitative method for finding repeated patterns of meaning across a body of text and reporting them as named themes. It proceeds in six steps: familiarisation, initial coding, theme generation, theme review, theme definition, and write-up.
Applied to employee feedback at scale, thematic analysis answers "what is the room actually telling us?" rather than "what is the average score?" It produces a small number of named themes — typically five to nine across an organisation — each with the supporting verbatim statements, the count, and the function distribution.
The Frustration Condition Tracker is, in effect, an opinionated thematic analysis: the top-level themes are pre-named (the five Frustration Architectures) so that the analysis terminates in actionable categories, and the sub-themes are inductive so that the team's own language is preserved.
How it is measured
- Theme stability across cycles: a theme that recurs at similar weight is structurally real; a theme that vanishes between cycles is likely an artefact.
- Verbatim coverage: share of statements that are represented in at least one named theme.
- Decision attachment: share of themes that have a named Three Doors decision recorded against them.
Dr. Tim Hough · ISBN 979-8-9965397-1-0 · Buy the book →