Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for a Successful Survey

This page provides tips, tricks, and techniques for conducting surveys. Feel free to review the various articles below and check back for updates.

Training Technologies also offers a Survey Principles Workshop that provides interaction with a qualified instructor. Click Here for more information.

Table of Contents

Section	Description
What is a Survey?	A definition of surveys.
Survey Software Tools	A description of survey software tools.
Cycle of Continuous Improvement	An Overview of the Deming Cycle of Continuous Improvement.
Survey Project Responsibility Checklist	A list of survey activities divided into the Deming Cycle Categories.

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WHAT IS A SURVEY?

Knowledge is the fuel that runs a successful organization. The success or failure of any organization depends on knowing the attitudes, beliefs, and opinions of its people and also of the people it serves. The best way to determine these is by conducting a survey.

A survey may be called different things, depending on its purpose: a poll, a questionnaire, an opinionnaire, an evaluator, an assessment, an inventory, or a survey. Throughout this document, all of these various forms are referred to as surveys.

A survey is a systematic, scientific, and impartial way of collecting information. For example, you can survey a group (or sample) of people about their feelings, motivations, plans, beliefs, and personal, educational, and financial background. This information is used to generalize conclusions or statements about the larger group (or population) from which the sample is drawn. The intent of the survey is not to describe the particular individuals who take part in a sampling, but to obtain a statistical profile of the population.

Surveys are all around us. They can be used to:

• Measure and improve customers satisfaction levels.
• Discover worker attitudes about issues affecting the work environment, quality, and productivity.
• Quickly evaluate opinions and attitudes.
• Provide data for long-range strategic planning.
• Enhance customer relations.
• Determine specific training needs for an organization.
• Determine the effectiveness of a Help Desk.
• Evaluate internal and external supplier quality
• Determine reeadiness for industry standards such as ISO 9000 and Malcolm Baldrige.
• Increase employee commitment through involvement and implementation of a common mission.
• Evaluate an employee's leadership effectiveness.
• Measure the quality of an education system.
• Evaluate and track Total Quality Team effectiveness.
• Ensure communication among all levels of an organization.
• Determine public perception of political candidates and issues.
• Determine how many and what types of people watch television programs.
• Determine the effectiveness and attractiveness of a web page.
• Evaluate customer satisfaction.
• Gather feedback about a restaurants service and aesthetics.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of care and facilities of a hospital.
• Measur satisfaction, cooperation, and readiness of the military.
• Discover new market possibilities.
• Gauge a lodger's enjoyment of the facilities, room cleanliness, etc.
• Discover opportunities for improvement.

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Survey Software Tools

Often an organization can gain an advantage during their survey project by relying on software to assist in the management, design, distribution, collection, and reporting of the survey. Advances in computer technology can take what was once a long, tedious task and turn it into a much simpler process. The results tend to be more concise, reliable, and professional while requiring far fewer resources.

There's no need these days to do the entire survey project by hand. Using a software tool can:

• Help keep the survey project's budget balanced.
• Organize, sort, and filter a list of potential respondents.
• Provide quick entry of respondent lists.
• Provide instant sampling of the audience list.
• Speed up the survey design process.
• Personalize each survey with actual names, addresses, and other information.
• Make distribution of the survey quick with electronic methods such as web page and e-mail.
• Allow quick computerized manual data entry and instant electronic data collection.
• Make the analysis of data seamless with fast calculations of various statistics.
• Create powerful and colorful reports that can be manipulated on the fly.

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Cycle of Continuous Improvement

Many organizations are continuously tracking their improvement efforts by using surveys on a regular basis. Proper survey management should follow a clear, easy track in order to plan, create, administer, and analyze a survey and its responses. The Deming PDSA method helps an organization easily move from the beginning planning stages of a survey through the development of action plans after the survey is over.

The Deming Cycle for Continuous Improvement uses the PDSA approach:

1. The Cycle begins with PLAN. Without adequate planning, your survey will be ineffective.
2. The next step in the cycle is DO. This encompasses the actual design of the survey, selection of the sample, and collection of the data.
3. The next phase of the Cycle is the STUDY phase. This is the point where you analyze the data you have collected, draw conclusions, and report your findings.
4. The last phase of the Cycle is ACT. Here is where you determine the appropriate action steps to be taken in the light of the data.

Once the actions steps are taken, the Cycle leads you back to PLAN another survey to evaluate the changes made.

The Cycle of Continuous Improvement is a project tracking system that helps you stay focused and always know where you are in the survey management process. It also consistently reminds you that the survey process is often a continuous process.

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Survey Project Responsibility Checklist

For your survey to accomplish its objectives it must be well-planned from the start. The following detailed Checklist will help you in developing an effective plan. (Not all these details need to be carried out on every survey. Adapt the list to your particular project.)

For each of the following items, specify who is responsible and when that item is to be completed if you choose to use it in your survey project.

This Checklist also follows the Deming Cycle for Continuous Improvement as described above.

Click here for a printable version

PLAN
		Develop a list of survey objectives (expected outcomes).
		Develop a list of potential action steps reflecting the outcomes.
		Develop a list of potential contingency steps reflecting changes in the action steps or outcomes.
		Secure management's commitment and support.
		Assign or nominate a project administrator\manager\coordinator.
		Determine the survey delivery methods available.
		Develop a projected budget for all of the survey costs.
		Select members for a Survey Project Team.
		Select Team members to help design and administer the survey.
DO
		Develop a schedule for key dates of the survey project.
		Decide what demographics are relevant to your survey.
		Decide upon the survey sampling techniques.
		Decide what topics are to be addressed in the survey.
		Draft a cover letter to accompany the survey.
		Review the audience list for integrity and enter it into a software application
		Determine the survey delivery methods you will employ based on your audience list.
		Send letters to survey/interview respondents.
		Print surveys and prepare to present them to the respondents.
		Coordinate the administering of the surveys.
		Retrieve returned surveys from the mail, disk, e-mail, web, etc.
		Enter or read data from the returned surveys into software.
STUDY
		Analyze the data and develop a survey report.
ACT
		Present the results to management.
		Present the feedback to respondents/audience.
		Establish an action plan.
		Establish a responsibility chart for action implementation and follow-up.