I have a huge survey that evaluates each department within our organization. We are utilizing SurveyMonkey to deliver the survey, however, there are 38 different departments that need to be evaluated. My thought is to break it up into pieces and randomly send it out. Any other creative ideas to get this survey out and easy to complete? Or has anyone had a similiar situation - what did you do?

chase.....

More info please.....


Is this an organization wide survey providing feedback about the 38 departments

or

Is it 38 department surveys gathering feedback from members of the respective departments.

Thanks for asking.

It is an organization wide survey. Each employee in every department will rate every other department (as a whole) within the entire organization.

I hope that helps, thanks again!

I think we are getting closer to understanding what you are after....some thoughts. Since I am not a Survey Monkey user I can only offer thoughts based on my own experience (tools and survey projects). No doubt someone with SM experience can help with that product.
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To avoid survey fatigue you will want to be very thoughtful about the number of items you include in any one survey. I usually set a 30 item (question)limit for clients as a way to press for rock solid thinking around exactly what feedback they seek and how they intend to use it. I also like them to think ahead in terms of when they will go back to check for changes in the feedback (over time).

Feedback should come from people in a position to observe the behaviors/services/products included in the survey.

Feedback is best when asked for by the recipient. When a department sends out a survey asking for feedback they are giving people permission to provide it. It may sound trivial but it represents and important piece of the relationship/trust challenge associated with surveys.

For organizations new to the 360 approach I will often begin with an organization wide survey that checks on the organization's readiness to participate.
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So...if you were to say, "I want to hear from everyone in order to learn more about the organization's strengths and improvement opportunities in general AND I would like participants to be able to direct feedback to specific departments".......here is how I would go at it:

1 survey with 1 subject

25 scaled response items (some/all with an option to add comments directed to a specific department.

5 open-ended items (questions)...providing an opportunity to offer comments in more detail about selected topics.

We would also want each respondent's department affiliation to be tagged in the survey (transparent.) In doing so the data received can be shown both in aggregate format (all respondents) and by departments membership.

Regardless of the design...all feedback is always confidential and anonymous. Violate that trust once and you are toast.

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Whew. In the end, if you want focused feedback for a specific department then treat it as a separate project. If you want an across the board sensing with the opportunity for limited targeted feedback (limited) then consider an umbrella survey.
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Wow! That is great info. I really appreciate your feedback! I particularly like the idea of having the departments themselves send out the survey - that could be an opportunity. We have conducted this survey before and it was literally pencil and paper then calculated by hand! So Survey Monkey is a little bit of a blessing especiallly for the cost. From what you said and other discussions I've had it appears the best way to handle this is to break it up and send out surveys to everyone to collect responses for a few (5 to 10) departments at a time versus all 38. There are two questions for each department. One consists of ratings on six different service factors and the other is an "essay" question to provide any feedback. If this info changes your response in any way, please let me know. Thanks again for your help!