Surveys can have a significant impact on the direction in which a company is going, especially if the results are well presented to the decision makers. Whether this impact is positive depends on the quality of the surveys. When solidly designed and analyzed, they can uncover unsuspected opportunities. Poorly designed surveys will leave the team and the company managers wandering in the dark.

 

This training examines how effective surveys are created by looking at questions and answers simultaneously, as a whole, and at the same time being careful that questions do not lead respondents to a specific answer choice. The training examines what types of data are needed to answer a question. Well-structured surveys provide the best chance for actionable results.

 

With surveys, it is important to first consider what the objective is. There can be different objectives – research the market, seek feedback, evaluate performance. We develop the appropriate questions based on how we have defined what answers we are looking for. But it's not always that simple. Small changes in a question can alter the answer and this can distort the results. Poor results lead to poor decisions. For instance, as a consequence of inaccurate questions, we may end up with products that no one wants to buy.

 

The course also draws attention to the various ways survey results are visualized, because even the most brilliantly designed survey is useless if the results are not presented and well understood by stakeholders and decision makers. The course also provides focused practical tips such as: do not average categories and sequential data, present them as relative frequency, or, when visualizing data intervals, do not mislead your readers with unequal intervals.

 

This training defines surveys as effective feedback tools, a tool to support key decisions and to identify blind spots in the understanding of our organization. In this course, we stick to simple and proven methods that have proven to be useful.