Drop your annual engagement survey, and replace with...
Would you ever want to understand how people in your organization feel and how this changes over time as our processes and business change?
I thought it would be great to measure people's moods and opinions over time.
One of our PMs and I developed the MoodApp. A few times per week, Ipads are positioned at all the exits of the buildings globally. We open-sourced it (meaning it's free and you can build/code on top of it if you like), so feel free to check it out!
The problem
In many organizations, engagement and opinions are measured once a year. The problem with these surveys is that many questions are irrelevant, problems are only identified once a year (too late), and the surveys are often used in employer award entries. It would be nice to be able to ask people for their opinion on tactical and engagement related topics throughout the year, when it's more relevant. Also, it would be great to be able to measure changes in moods and opinions over time.
The iPad based application allows staff to quickly answer questions with one-fingertip to allow us to monitor the mood of the company.
A few times a week stands with iPads on them are placed at the exits of the offices. Once staff answers the singly question posted that day, they will see how their colleagues responded right away.
The responses are also displayed openly on our social collaboration platform. Online we display movements in engagement levels over time on a rolling basis of the 20 most recent engagement related questions. We also display movements in happiness through a weekly recurring question, response rates, and individual questions.
A method that mirrors modern development principles
In the traditional ‘Waterfall’ method of softwaredevelopment, companies collect all the requirements before moving into a design phase before they commence development work.
Modern software development is more ‘agile’. Developers implement a new product quickly with a basic set of features and iterate ongoing to constantly improve based on feedback.
The method of the MoodApp mirrors this change; Traditional surveys collect all the feedback at the end of a time period (often one year) after which solutions are designed and implemented. The MoodApp collects feedback constantly and allows us to implement multiple smaller solutions in a timely manner.
