Dear Joan:

I've been reading your articles and I like the idea of doing a 360-degree review with my management team. I am a Vice President with eight direct employees. My department deals with all the other employees and managers (IT) and I think it would be helpful to have feedback from our users about how we're doing. I'd also like my employees to get feedback from each other and me.

How would I structure such a thing? Also, we are very busy so I wouldn't want this to take up a lot of extra time.

Answer:

Gathering feedback from peers and users is a great idea for an Information Technology Department. Because so much of what you do is focused on your user "customers," it's important to know if they are satisfied with your work.

The notion of "internal customers" has taken hold in most companies. Rather than operating as insulated departments, with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward the rest of the company, departments now are interested in how they are delivering service.

Here is a step by step guide for developing your 360 process:

1. Find an outside firm that has experience designing and facilitating this process. Because confidentiality is a big component when gathering honest feedback, use an outside firm to collect and tabulate the responses and help you design the questions.


2. Involve the managers who will be assessed. If they have some input on the questions, they will be more accepting of the feedback they receive. The outside firm should work with them throughout the process. For instance, the outside facilitator may have a basic instrument that the group can add to or modify. A few open-ended questions are an important component that should be added to the survey. They provide valuable comments that help explain the ratings.


3. Keep the survey short (no more than 30 questions). The longer the survey, the more time it will take to fill out and some people may have multiple surveys to complete. For instance, if peer managers fill out surveys on one another as well as do a self-assessment, it will multiply the time they spend. In addition, you will have better luck getting users to fill out the surveys if they aren't too long.


4. Create a process for selecting a "balanced" group of raters for each participant. One way to do this is to suggest that each manager select three to five users who have worked with him or her during the last year. You could then review the list to make sure a manager hasn't just listed his fan club. Similarly, each manager could select three to five employees that are likely to provide a balanced perspective. The outside firm may use all of these names or they may want to choose a minimum of three from each group. That way confidentiality is protected. A minimum of three peers and three employees should be used.


5. Provide enough information to those doing the ratings, so they understand what you are trying to accomplish. For example, they will be more honest if they understand the results will be used for development purposes only, rather than to determine salary increases.


6. Give the respondents no more than two weeks to complete the surveys. Any longer than that will work against you. In addition, since you will be filling out surveys on all your managers, as their boss, and they will be doing self and peer surveys, you should find a two week slot that works best for everyone's schedules.


7. When the results come back, the facilitator should work with each manager to help him or her understand the results and complete a development action plan. Sometimes the results aren't what the manager expected (and this is one of the best reasons for doing 360-degree surveys in the first place) and the facilitator can coach him or her through it, so the person doesn't overreact.


8. Each manager should meet with you, to finalize their development action plans. Review their results with them, provide any additional specific feedback you have and assist them in using the tool for their personal growth.


9. Encourage each manager to go back to the respondents and thank them for their participation. They can also share some general comments about what they learned and what they are going to be working on. This way, respondents feel that their time was valuable and their input was heard. If nothing is mentioned, raters feel uncomfortable and wonder if the manager was upset by the feedback he or she received. If the manager isn't sure who was selected to complete the survey, he can still make comments in a staff meeting of the entire group.

How you lead this process sets the tone. It will be important for you to demonstrate your enthusiasm and support for their development. If they think this is a witch hunt that will be used against them in some way, they will be fearful and miss the whole benefit of this valuable process.