Survey tools helping to measure change
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Prewise’s core messages emphasize the importance of measuring. If organizations reserve resources, as they do, to implement training measures that improve knowhow, to learn new processes or strategy, or to the functionality of customer support, then why not measure the change? After all, it is in everyone’s interest to see how the targets were reached through the measures taken and especially so if the targets were not reached. Because that means that something still needs to be done!
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We have the tools that
help in measuring, says
Prewise’s Technology Manager Juhani Mäkelä.
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Of course, when measuring change, the overall process needs to be considered: in what situation are we in now, what measures need to be taken to accomplish change and, finally, what is the situation that the change resulted in?
The tools used in measurements should be easy to use, flexible, and quick to implement.
Tools in practice
Prewise has tools to conduct the making of, distribution, follow-up, and reporting of network-based questionnaires. Easy usability, speediness, and repetition have served as the starting points in the design and implementation. Questionnaires, after all, usually aim at finding out how a thing has changed, e.g., how a new operational model has been driven through an organization and adopted on an individual level. In such cases, one questionnaire is usually not enough, and the surveys should be repeated regularly. In order to make recurring surveys comparable, the set of questions should naturally be the same. Also, the questionnaire should be short enough to encourage responses, taking, for instance, a maximum of five minutes to respond to.
Prewise’s survey tools allow the administration of user groups for which questionnaires are created. A certain set of basic questions is selected and a response time defined. The members of a particular group receive an e-mail with an individualized link. Whether the person in question has answered the questionnaire can be followed with the help of the link and, if so preferred, a reminder can be sent automatically a short while before the questionnaire ends.
The system also enables handling responses anonymously, meaning that the questionnaire’s author cannot see individual responses. Instead, s/he receives reports of averages, distributions, and other necessary statistical data. After the reports have been calculated, single responses can also be deleted.
When the response time ends, the system prepares a report of the responses automatically. The report allows for the comparison of responses in relation to various questionnaires or groups. Importing the data into, for instance, Excel or another statistical program is also possible.
An example of creating a questionnaire:
1. Establish a group and add members to it
2. Select a questionnaire from the “basic set” or make a new one
3. Define an opening and closing time for the questionnaire, as well as a possible time for reminders, and send an invitation the group’s members.
4. Wait for responses. The response rate can be followed.
5. After the questionnaire has closed (the time expires or everyone has responded), the reports are taken out and analyzed. Compare to other, similar questionnaires.
6. Save the results and delete individual responses (optional).
The above is an example of the reporting of survey results.
Text: Juhani Mäkelä