Define goals and objectives
Gathering and analysing feedback is a powerful way to gain insights about your organisation through the eyes of your employees or customers. Even better, it can help you to improve your relationship with both. Used effectively, surveys are a valuable source of information and a major factor in advancing progress across your organisation.
That being said, there is no point in doing surveys if you do not have a clear plan to support it, and a clear goal. To get the most out of your feedback, we recommend that you develop well-defined plans for each of your projects, beginning with the following questions:
- What is the ultimate goal for your project?
- What do you need to do to achieve this goal?
What are goals and objectives, and why do I need them?
Goals are desired results or outcomes that you want to achieve. When setting goals for your survey projects, they should be compatible with those of your organisation. After all, the feedback you receive only gains value when it can be used towards improvement.
Objectives are the components of your overarching goal. They are the defined steps that break down exactly what needs to be done to help you effectively achieve your desired outcomes.
To get the most out of your survey results, you need to think about what you want to achieve. Having a defined plan and goals for your project will make sure that it has a clear focus, which is key to getting results that are useful to you.
This sense of clarity should extend to the survey itself. When preparing the questions, for example, every single one of them should work towards bringing you closer to your end goals. Avoid including questions that are not necessary; if a question will not solicit answers that are relevant to your objectives, then you should not need to include it at all.
Having well-defined and transparent goals will also help to keep your survey respondents focused. If it is obvious to them what you are trying to achieve, they are better able and more likely to provide feedback that is useful to you.
What do I need to think about when planning a survey?
To reach your goals, there are several questions you will need to consider before beginning your survey. Here are a few to get you started:
- What do I need to know?
- How do I plan to use the feedback that I receive?
- What questions are going to help tease out the most useful data?
- Who are the best people to answer the survey and why?
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