5 Steps to Planning a Survey Execution By Frank Lucer At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

In past columns, I've explained the fundamentals of creating and executing surveys. We've explored how to construct questions so they yield accurate, useful data. We've discussed how to boost your response rate, thereby squeezing more value from your efforts. And we've talked briefly about the various strategies you can employ to solicit participation from your respondents. But, everything begins with the initial plan; you shouldn't approach it haphazardly. In this article, I'll describe the 5 steps that you and your design team should follow to plan a successful survey execution.

Step #1: Identify Your Objective

This first step is more involved than you might think and is the foundation upon which the other steps depend. It's not enough to say, "I need to know if customers are satisfied" or "I want to measure employee morale." You should know in advance the precise reasons you want to collect data, what you hope to learn from the information, and the actions you intend to take once you and your team have reviewed the responses. Unless you have already identified a specific reason for conducting your survey, including how it will add value to your business or organization, you shouldn't move forward.

Step #2: Determine How Much It Will Cost

Design and deployment can be expensive depending upon its scope, the information you hope to collect, and your population size. Some of the costs aren't immediately obvious. For example, if you're using employees to approach participants, you'll need to pay for their time. If you're conducting a survey by mail, you'll have to pay postage. Analyzing the data also carries a cost. Plan conservatively to ensure you have the budget to see the project through its completion.

Step #3: Plan The Logistics

You'll need to choose your participant pool, figure out how to approach them, and determine how much time your project will require. Don't take any of these items lightly. Your selection of the people you choose to approach will depend upon the type of information you hope to collect. For example, surveying single men between ages 30 and 39 will yield different data than married couples over 60. Your strategy for approaching them can vary between phone, email, in person interviews, postal mail, etc. The time you'll need to complete your survey will be based largely upon these factors.

Step #4: Define Your Resources

Beyond your budget, time constraints, and other limitations, you'll need to identify resources (both internal and external) upon which you'll rely for expertise and assistance. For example, if you're measuring employee satisfaction, you'll want to enlist the help of your organization's human resources department. If you're outsourcing the design of your survey, you'll need to identify and interview a number of experienced agencies. During this step, you should also determine the internal personnel who will need to see your team's analysis of the data (i.e. president, CFO, accounting department, etc.).

Step #5: Map The Steps To Completion

Before you execute your survey, take the time to create a chronological timetable of the project. It should detail each step in the process, including who is responsible for collecting the information needed to complete each step and the specific tasks that are involved along the way. Without creating this plan ahead of time, you risk wasting finite resources as a result of confusion and lack of accountability.

Successful Deployment

Creating and executing effective surveys that yield useful data require a lot of time and upfront planning. If you approach the task methodically and follow the 5 steps we've covered above, you'll dramatically improve the likelihood of success. Remember your objective: to collect accurate information that you can take action upon for a predefined benefit to your organization. In an upcoming article, we'll explore the deployment in more detail.

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