INTRODUCTION: This survey provides feedback to a group on the quality of their meetings. It might be used with a single group (such as a staff group or departmental committee) or for a larger group interested in improving the quality of their meetings in general. The survey should be used as part of a clear and publically stated process. Respondents are often reluctant to participate if they are unsure how the data will be used, who will see it, and whether it will lead to any positive outcomes or not. THE QUESTIONS: To what extent is each of the following statement true for your work group's meetings? My work group holds effective and efficient meetings. My manager makes sure we hold enough meetings to keep everyone informed and able to coordinate well with others. Prior to a meeting, a careful decision is made about the best person to lead the meeting (rather than assuming it will be the "boss" or a technical expert.) In my company, we avoid using committees for projects that could better be handled by one or two people. In the meetings I attend, honesty is appreciated. We are careful to follow-up on decisions and assignments made during meetings. We make sure the right people attend meetings so that critical information is available and decisions can be made. In the meetings I attend, we are careful to capture and communicate the decisions and task assignments made. In the meetings I attend, we are careful to pick the best process for the task at hand. In the meetings I attend, we focus on the critical issues rather than getting sidetracked. The meetings I attend have a clear outcome defined prior to a discussion. When conflicts arise in the meetings I attend, we have a way of resolving them effectively. When there is an impasse in the meetings I attend, someone makes a decision to keep us moving. People say what needs to be said rather than retreating behind just being polite. In our team meetings, differences of opinion lead to useful discussions. I have the influence I should have on the agenda of issues that are considered in meetings. Cross-functional meetings I attend are effective and efficient. Our meetings produce high quality decisions rather than just compromises or standard solutions. THE SCALE: The questions all use the following scale: 1 Not at all 2 3 Somewhat 4 5 Mostly 6 7 To a great extent THE OUTCOME MEASURE: There is an outcome measure embedded in this survey. By "outcome measure", we mean that it reflects the fundamental requirement for success. Outcome measures are typically not directly manipulatable, since they are the final consequence of other, more accessible, features of meetings. For example, the "quality of the team's functioning" is an outcome measure, while the "thoroughness of exploring conflict" would be one of the potential contributors to that outcome. The level of this measure should be your primary concern. In the data analysis, there are options for determining which of the other items is the strongest contributor to the key outcome. OUTCOME: The overall quality of meetings is reflected in the following questions: My work group holds effective and efficient meetings. Our meetings produce high quality decisions rather than just compromises or standard solutions. In the data analysis, they should be averaged into a single measure as long as they correlate with each other at greater than +.65 PAGE FORMATING: The simplest format is to put the questions into a two-column table, with the questions in Column A and the response scale in Column B. If you print the page landscape, you can usually get the entire survey on one page, leaving the front of the page for a cover letter, explanation of purpose, pledge of confidentiality, etc. An alternate format is to print the survey in a portrait format with the scale options underneath each question. DATA ENTRY AND ANALYSIS: If you are fluent in using any data analysis package, you probably understand how this data can be analyzed. If you a novice at survey analysis -- or simply don't want to be come a statistician in your spare time -- the best procedure is probably to enter the data into a spreadsheet. Use a row for each respondent, and columns for each variable. Any outcome measures will generate an additional column, which is the average of the component questions. If someone has no answer for a question, DO NOT enter zero; enter the equivalent for "NOT AVAILBLE" in your spreadsheet. Otherwise you will throw off any calculations of means and variances. When the data is entered, you should have a column of numbers for each variable. You can typically calculate the mean and variance for those columns in formulas at the bottom. The mean scores give you a sense for the level of a given issue. Scores lower than 4 typically represent areas for concern. Scan the variances for anything which is unusually high, such as 1.5 or more. These might reflect poor consensus on key issues, or perhaps a question that spawned numerous interpreptations. There is a special option for working with the outcome measures. If you calculate the correlation between the various questions and a given outcome measure, that will give you a rough estimate of how critical that question is in determining the outcome. If you are fluent in regression analysis, that could generate a more accurate estimate, but correlation is a good rough indicator. If the correlation for a given question is greater than +.60 you should consider that as a good candidate for a possible intervention. If you present the data back to a group for more detailed consideration, you might want to focus discussion on those questions with the highest correlations to the outcome measures. Those are the items with the highest leverage, even if their scores are not among the lowest.