Marchant Consulting Group

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 2 The “Reality” of a Web-Based Survey The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly Amy Marchant

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 3 Pros, Cons, and Lessons Learned ¥Required Administrative Support ¥Increased Project Control ¥Cognitive Processing of Users ¥“People-Issues” ¥Cost-Savings

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 4 Administrative Support ¥The Basics –All users must have access to the technology –Accurate list of addresses

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 5 Administrative Support (cont.) ¥Time Gobblers –Calls regarding computer “problems” –Reminders, reminders, reminders –Eliminating non-participants –Chasing down “errors” ¥Surface continually - primarily report idiosyncracies ¥Vendor must be proactive and responsive –Providing ratees with data access - at the right time

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 6 Increased Project Control ¥Easy to track participation of ratees and raters ¥Ratee can participate in the process –Encourage raters to complete the survey –Be careful about confidentiality  ¥Reminders through ¥Dynamic System –Can always update –Watch out for updating post-feedback 

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 7 Increased Project Control (cont.) ¥Can aggregate to department/functional level ¥Everything is at your fingertips –Easy access to all analyses, on-the-spot –Find yourself updating all the time - easy to get overwhelmed 

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 8 Cognitive Processing of Users ¥Users still want hard-copies ¥Rarely look at every piece of the data ¥Raters want to edit continuously –Difficult to allow it once they’ve submitted the screen

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 9 “People-Issues” ¥Remember - People are at the heart of the system –Invitation to participate goes out as soon as the name is entered –Must raters give access to their feedback at the right time –Continued lack of participation - computer may make it easier to ignore –Increased risk of poor modeling - especially coaching

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 10 “People-Issues” ¥Confidentiality concerns –No real concerns reported by participants –Data access is easy - perhaps too easy ¥Geography –On-line availability makes it simple to complete the surveys anywhere –Can use on-line analyses to give feedback at a distance (always looking at the same screen)

Marchant Consulting Group SIOP ‘99 Slide - 11 Cost-Savings ¥Basic cost of the package is significantly lower ¥Number of participants is inconsequential ¥Real savings comes through open-ended responses