Brainstorming for Survey Design

Force field Analysis is a wonderful brainstorming tool to elicit from your survey team members the key drivers and barriers of our organization. Force Field Analysis involves listing, and then examining, the factors that can help implement the change and those that can hinder it. This lays the groundwork for creating the survey's Critical Success Factors and items. Force Field analysis is based on the law of physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A state of equilibrium is established between these two sets of contending forces. Change one force on either side and the situation changes-unless met by a new contrary force of equal strength.


This analysis technique is more than a decision-making technique. When used creatively , it identifies, for your organization, the key drivers to get you where you want to be (your Main Thing) as well as your barriers of getting there.
 
Here are the four steps for sucessful Force Field Analysis:
 
STEP 1: Identify the Main Thing on a flip chart on the far right and your present state on the left.


STEP 2: With a brainstorming technique, starting on the left side, go around the room and offer ideas how to go from where you are to the MT. All ideas are written down without any dialogue and keep adding ideas until each member passes.

STEP 3: Now identify the barriers you feel that would prevent you from reaching the goals of the MT for each of the drivers.

STEP 4: Make a list of all drivers and barriers on a clean paper, which list will be your guide in identifying the Categories, Factors and Items. Each of the “drivers” or “restrainers” will be in corporate into the survey design. Each of the items are directly correlated to the success of achieving the corporate vision.

Is a 25% Response Rate OK?

At the risk of being controversial, the following myth needs to be debunked:

"A 25%  response rate is OK."

For organizational comprehension, action planning, strategy defining, its unusable. A 25% response is terrible. It speaks volumes about either the culture your working in, poor presurvey communication, no reward for taking the survey, no visioning about how to get to a critical 80% response level, lackluster management commitment, and maybe 10 other flaws in the survey process.
If your intent is to get a pulse, than I might soften my stance, but who wants a pulse if it doesn't even tell you if the patient is doing more than just breathing, How does a pulse help guide a professional consultant trying to blueprint a clients to better profitability. IT DOESN'T! Unreliable data results.
Survey taking is a business, Its serious and must be taken seriously. A failure might well have negative feedback implications, and for a consultant, potentially devastating to their reputation. My best advice, don't do it if you don't know what your doing.

Designing Your Survey To Your Vision

"My bottom-line is what does the organization's management want to happen, then what needs to happen." might best be served in the survey design phase.


Try designing the survey questions based on visioning (i.e. "where do you want to be in 2013?") . The second comment is key, "how would you get there?". Have a brainstorming session using Contingency Diagrams, Force Field Analysis tools or any systems you have to draw out conversation about the current state - the existing barriers and strengths.

Once the client describes how to get to that vision,  add in open ended questions asking people to contribute or explain their experiences. You need a survey tool that can drive real client value used by consultants that understand survey analysis. Survey analysis using diagnostics is not a skill that is intuitive.

From survey results, the consultant can see which workgroup has developmental needs in order to contribute to the vision blueprint. Every question asked in the survey is directly correlated to the vision so improving the scores of any question by any workgroup is "continuous improvement" to the vision.

Not to forget the real power of analysis. Unlimited demographic slicing, cross tab within groups, unlimited comparing of groups and more is a key consultant's ally . If your survey diagnostic engine can function like an in depth market study, you have unlimited ability to find the misalignments. Correlation analysis, histograms, gap perception tools, value chain analysis, and alignment analysis tools are the keys to understanding how to really help clients.

Look for tools that have been designed and built by consultants. I'm not promoting what we do--I am only stating a fact. You know, the "until you walk in my shoes...".

If you really look and compare, all basic functionality of survey tools are the same. They collect data online, plug that data into a SQL database and then display results in bar charts for your analysis. The add on features for analysis aids should be your concern. If you are expecting survey tools to give you value, simply ask your vendor if the analysis engine has been built by OD consultants.

So, end of point. Consultants need skills and training in survey design, analysis and meaningful action blueprinting if they really want to gain a mastery of using surveys with clients. Consultant misfeasance in use of survey tools and results is alive and well; hence the naysayers of consultants about surveys.

Survey use can be the genesis of the best consulting experience for both clients and consultants.