Process Improvement Initiatives: Collecting Feedback
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A mix of communication channels is key
A long time ago, I ended up in charge of a Community Management team for a large virtual community. We were sitting in the boardroom discussing a new communications strategy. Then, team members run into a disagreement about how we should communicate with our users. Some felt strongly that our main communications channel should be the forums. Others hated the forums and said that they personally would never-ever try to look for information there and would prefer something less noisy, like a blog or a newsletter.
At that point, I realized that leaning on a single channel would likely be a mistake, because, well, people are different and prefer different communications methods. This was the first userbase I worked with and, back then, I hadn’t yet started studying different personality traits, social psychology and all other awesomeness that helps to understand and work with different people. So this discovery felt profound.
To confirm my guess, I suggested that we poll our users on how they would like to be communicated with and when the results came in we were fascinated! My guess was correct, but the most priceless part of the data was the comments, explaining why people preferred one method over another.
‘I hate the forums. It’s impossible to find anything and all the negativity makes my head hurt! I never even visit the forums.’
‘I love the forums! They are the true heart of our community! All the information is already there, why change that? Just continue what we’ve been doing.’
‘I like blogs, I can see everything in the same place and it’s easy to search.’
‘I would prefer a newsletter. Then I can get an email and know that something new was added and I can read when it’s convenient for me.’
And so on and so forth… I think this was my first conscious realization that different people like different communication methods and feel quite strongly about their preferences, so using a single channel would ultimately mean that some people will not use it. Moreover, if you chose the wrong one, you could cut off a significant part of your user community!
Different personality types prefer to communicate differently
I quickly translated this newly acquired knowledge to internal communications! I never used a single channel ever since and this became a powerful addition to my toolbox.
I will use the Process Design initiative as an example, but you can apply this logic to any internal communications.
Let’s say you recently decided to work with your team to come up with a unique way to get things done and you ran your initial Process Design workshop. Next, you will need to figure out how you should collect feedback from the team to get a sense of whether the changes your team puts in place are working.
But here is the thing: if you just hold a meeting and ask, your introverts are not likely to speak up in front of the group. If you send a long survey, people who are always on the move are not likely to take the time to fill it out thoroughly. And so on. You need a mix of feedback channels to make sure you capture quality feedback and increase your chances of getting people to participate. Moreover, it’s tough to accurately guess which mix to use, unless you truly understand your team’s personality breakdown.
To gather people’s preferences, send a poll asking team members how they would like to give feedback. It can be as simple as:
- How would you prefer to share feedback about the process improvements we are putting in place:
- Online survey/questionnaire
- Workshop/Discussion
- One-on-one interviews
2. Please share why you prefer this option.
- [Input field]
Reading people’s answers will give you a sense of the team’s personality makeup. If the polling tool you use doesn’t do it automatically, you can sum up the results by hand to get something that looks like this:
- 5 people (20%) Online survey/questionnaire
- 10 people (40%) Workshop/Discussion
- 10 people (40%) One-on-one interviews
Adding % values helps you understand how large each group is compared to the size of your entire team. It is important to consider that an option selected by 20% is not something you should skip because it is less popular. The way you should read that is ‘If we go with a Workshop/Discussion and/or One-on-one interviews option, 20% of the team might not participate, so we risk missing an opportunity to capture their feedback altogether.’
In the example above, such a breakdown probably means you should implement a combination of all the options. You can consider only inviting people who voted for a given format to participate. I usually invite everyone so people don’t feel excluded, but I carefully manage participation expectations (come if you like) and explain that as long as each person, who has something to share, communicates it to us via any channel, that’s more than enough.
Offer an option for confidential feedback
You should also always provide an option to share feedback confidentially. People are very likely to hesitate to share sensitive issues openly, so make sure there is a way to share that info without discomfort or fear.
Once you understand the team’s preferences, you can consider them for other internal communications. For example, when you share a company-wide announcement, make sure you use a mix of channels: an all-hands meeting, accompanied by a blog post, a summary email and reinforced by updates delivered to smaller teams/groups.
It’s a powerful approach as it makes sure that different personality types have an opportunity to communicate in the way most comfortable to them. If you don’t consider this, you are risking some groups being under-represented and their issues piling up without you even knowing about them.
A little bit of effort goes a long way in making sure issues are surfaced and discussed timely, instead of brewing and multiplying. That ensures a balanced communications strategy within your company and contributes to building a strong, happy team.
This story is a part of the Process Design series:
- How much process does a startup need
- Each team is unique and so should be the way they work
- Process Design 101
- Example Process Design roadmap
- How to run an Initial Process Design Workshop
- Process Improvement Workshops: Example 1
- Process Improvement Initiative: collecting feedback
- How to run a follow-up process Design workshop
