Getting feedback about how you are doing is more than just sending out a survey that says “How are we doing?” or “Rate your experience”. You need to have a well thought out strategy for not only obtaining feedback, but for what you will do with that feedback.Here are a few things to consider for your strategy:
Why
Understand the reason why you are getting feedback, Determine what you expect to get out of all this feedback so that you can form a plan. Things that you can be using feedback for can be anything from just simply getting a better understand of the business’s relationship with IT to trying to improve current processes. Each situation will need its own unique questions, and methods of obtaining the feedback. Remember, surveys aren’t the only way to get feedback. You can have round table discussions, informal one-on-one conversations, hold an open house type option where you dedicate an hour every day in your office or at your desk that people can drop by to talk.
Communicate Your Initiative
How effective can your attempt to gather feedback be if no one knows about it? You need to let the organization know that you will be gathering feedback, how you will be gathering it, and when you are going to be gathering it. The tricky part here isn’t just a one time notification, is continuous communication throughout the process. Emails, published it to virtual bulletin, intranet site, or even as an announcement in your ITSM tool. Don’t be that guy/gal that sends out one communication a week prior and expects everyone to remember, because let’s face it, that will never happen.
Close the Feedback Loop
Always ensure that the person getting feedback feels like their feedback matters. Make sure an email or thank you note goes out to the person leaving feedback so that they know that you have received it, and it lets them know that something will actually get done with their feedback. Don’t let anyone have the reason to give you the excuse of “No one’s going to even do anything with it”. If you leave your participants hanging, they will be less likely to participate again since they think their feedback went into a black hole.
Report Your Findings
It’s not just about publishing out your findings and the results, it’s also about publishing out your next steps. Once your initial findings and plan, continue reporting your progress as you complete milestones.
A well planned feedback strategy will ensure that you are not only getting feedback, but that you close the feedback loop and can give updates to the participants. You may even see a spike in responses after a round or two of implementing the above steps.
-Krystina Hodge, Consultant & Project Manager
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